Seconded, I use a Define 7 and it’s fantastic. Best big black box I’ve ever owned.

And they’re all out of ideas!

This you?

Please stop spreading misinformation. You’re on the internet. Kindly fact check yourself in the future. It’s better for everyone, including you!

Insert Tubgirl.flv

If you don’t know, I don’t know if I’d suggest looking it up.

I looked up the page and it gets worse.

You will need to shop for a car inverter. Find one that is at least 1,500 watts, and it will help you power your refrigerator for up to five hours—usually without damaging your car battery. Considering how much food we keep in our refrigerators, a $200 car inverter is a bargain!

I grew up believing the same until somewhere in high school, when I started taking science seriously.

… a jumble of local maximums and chance.

I really like how you phrased this. I’m totally stealing it.

Oh no, rate of mutation is definitely a thing and is controlled by several factors. A big one is generation time, which is what it sounds like, the time between each generation. The copying of DNA is a source of mutations. This is why many controlled experiments on evolution are done with bacteria, who have super low generation times. For example, depending on temperature, the generation of many salmonella species is around 20-30 minutes. That lets you crank out massive numbers of potential mutations, then introduce a selective pressure, like an antibiotic the species normally isn’t resistant to or an energy source it normally can’t utilize, and see what happens.

To answer your question, yes, a higher mutation rate would confer an advantage. To a point. Most mutations are deleterious and usually lead to death, a few are benign and do nothing (at that point), and a very rare few are immediately advantageous. As long as the rate of mutation isn’t so high that the deleterious mutations combined with whatever other pressures are wiping out the population, more mutation means more chances to have the right trait to deal with a novel pressure or, very rarely, do something better.

To preface, I’m a microbiologist, so I have skin in the science game. I hate how these articles often have science illiterate authors or authors who are imprecise with their wording. They repeat misinformation on basic topics that science educators have been striving to correct for decades, perpetuating the cycle.

…the study shows once again how evolution throws up multiple solutions to basic problems…

In this case, it’s the “mysterious force of evolution that whips up solutions to problems”. Evolution doesn’t create solutions. There is no guiding force behind evolution.

Evolution through natural selection selects for existing solutions that were generated randomly through mutation, increasing the frequency of that trait because those without either die or are outcompeted. What happens if a trait is required for survival but no organisms have it? They all die. That’s why over 99% of all multicellular species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct. If you include microbes, make that 99.99999%.

I’d imagine an increasingly hostile world economy coupled with a then-looming but now beginning climate crisis might have a huge impact there.

I think a lot of the Internet is going to end up shitted up with this kind of nonsense. While leaving Reddit certainly tackles one issue, having a way to filter out the rest of this shit would be useful.

🎶 Toxic marine threatened turtles, toxic marine threatened turtles, toxic marine threatened turtles. Revenge in a half shell, turtle chowder!🎶

Totally understandable, there’s always a risk that a quick, snappy comment conveys the wrong meaning. My wording definitely could have been better, but I’m leaving it for posterity so future generations might learn to do better.

And thanks to you too! Good conversation.

I agree with your point, but want to highlight that at no point did I suggest people can’t be upset about multiple things. No offense intended toward you personally (or anyone really), but your response now seems to be the standard reaction to shut down anyone pointing out the disparity in media/public reaction between things like people dying or being repressed and material goods being vandalized or destroyed. It’s getting better, but the theme of reporting tended to be that property damage is a tragic loss of irreplaceable treasure, while genocide was more akin to “some people went to sleep and didn’t wake up again, maybe they should have complied”.

Of course people can be upset by multiple things. When the magnitude of upset over precious but ultimately replaceable things being destroyed is greater than that for irreplaceable people being destroyed, then we have a problem.

At least that’s my take and I’m anything but infallible.

Oh no, a painting! So much more important and relatable than children dying. That happens all the time.

/s

Edit: I’m agreeing with the above point, folks. Lives are more important than paintings. We need a lot more outrage about people dying and less about property damage.

It’s like having a super power. I remember being stuck in the Santa Fe airport in the late afternoon waiting for my massively delayed flight to arrive. After three hours or so, it’s past dinner time and people start becoming unglued. One family even has pizza delivered and manages to convince airport security to run it through the security gauntlet for them. I had been fasting for awhile so I was fine, where a year prior I would have been scrambling for food with the rest of them.

But they call themselves the most moral army in the world. It can’t be a lie!

)s

I think the brave explorers are still here, they’re now just vastly outnumbered. The early Internet was full of those explorer types because they in particular tended to have enough interest to overcome the hurdles of getting on the Internet: namely computers being expensive and somewhat difficult to use. The early Internet was more accessible to intelligent, innovative users, and it reflected its user base. Many got online to explore and continued to explore and innovate once there.

Now millions have a user-friendly computer in their pocket, so practically anyone, even flat earthers, is capable and intelligent enough to use the Internet. Most are attracted not by exploration but by access to specific services that have been advertised to them, especially social media. The Internet continues to reflect its user base, but the user base’s composition has… changed. Let’s just call it changed.

Don’t forget well-meaning advice from someone incompetent who failed upwards but still lacks the self-awareness to see it. I’ve had a few of those.

You might need a /s there. I actually see users here that believe and spread that bullshit.