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  1. Last 7 days
  2. Feb 2024
  3. Dec 2023
      • annotate
      • for: evolutionary biology, big history, DH, Deep Humanity, theories of consciousness, ESP project, Earth Species Project, Michael Levin, animal communication, symbiocene

      • title: The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains

      • author: Joseph LeDoux
      • date: Jan. 2023
      • doi: 0.1080/09515089.2022.2160311

      • ABSTRACT

        • The essence of who we are depends on our brains.
        • They enable us to think, to
          • feel joy and sorrow,
          • communicate through speech,
          • reflect on the moments of our lives, and to
            • anticipate,
            • plan for, and
            • worry about our imagined futures.
        • Although some of our abilities are comparatively new, key features of our behavior have deep roots that can be traced to the beginning of life.
        • By following the story of behavior, step-by-step, over its roughly four-billion-year trajectory,
          • we come to understand both
            • how similar we are to all organisms that have ever lived, and
            • how different we are from even our closest animal relatives.
        • We care about our differences because they are ours. But differences do not make us superior; they simply make us different.
      • comment

        • good article to contribute to a narrative of the symbiocene and a shift of humanity to belonging to nature as one species, instead of dominating nature as the apex species
      • question
        • @Gyuri, Could indranet search algorithm have made the connection between this article and the symbiocene artilces in my mindplex had I not explicitly made the associations manually through my tags? It needs to be able to do this
      • Also interesting to see how this materialistic outlook of consciousness
        • which is similiar to the Earth Species Project work and Michael Levin's work on synthesizing new laboratory life forms to answer evolutionary questions about intelligence
      • relates to nonmaterial ideas about consciousness
    1. Australian Princeton philosopher Peter Singer has 00:42:22 talked about the the broadening radius of our moral uh of our moral scope but those we include within our moral Community uh potentially to include 00:42:35 biota and animals for instance outside the human community
      • for: expanded sense of community, beyond the human morall community, animal communication, earth species protect
  4. Nov 2023
    1. Butno matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism hasconscious experience at all means, basically, that there is somethingit is like to be that organism
  5. Oct 2023
    1. this Earth shot as we call it that we're aiming for at Earth species project is for machine learning to decode non-human communication and then that new knowledge and understanding that results 00:06:42 from that would reset our relationship with the rest of Nature and you know this is a to me a really compelling as a potential unlock in addressing the biodiversity and climate crisis that 00:06:56 we're saying to help us find new ways to Coexist on the planet with other species
      • for: quote, quote - ESP, quote - interspecies communication, quote - Katie Zacarian, interspecies communication, reconnecting with nature, Stop Reset Go

      • quote

        • this Earth shot as we call it that we're aiming for at Earth species project is for
          • machine learning to decode non-human communication and then
          • that new knowledge and understanding that results from that would RESET our relationship with the rest of Nature
        • and you know this is a to me a really compelling as a potential unlock in addressing the
          • biodiversity and
          • climate crisis
        • that we're saying to help us find new ways to Coexist on the planet with other species
      • for: interspecies communication, interspecies conversations, ESP, Earth Species Project,
    1. Eine Studie quanitifiziert zum ersten Mal den Einfluss der globalen Erhitzung auf die Überlebenschancen von Eisbären. Damit können erstmals die Auswirkungen von Emissionen auf das Überleben einer einzelnen Art bestimmt werden, so dass es auch möglich ist, aufgrund von Bestimmungen zum Artenschutz wie den Endangered Species Act Emissionsminderungen zu fordern. https://www.repubblica.it/green-and-blue/2023/09/14/news/orsi_polari_emissioni_gas_serra_rischio_estinzione-414364878/

      Studie: Unlock the Endangered Species Act to address GHG emissions

  6. Sep 2023
      • for: symbiocene, ecozoic, ecocivilization, eco-civilization, animal communication, inter-species communication, Azi Raskin, Earth Species Project, umwelt
      • summary

        • Very interesting talk given by Aza Raskin, founder of:
        • on two main themes:
          • how AI is being used to decode language communication of many different plant and animal species, including inter-fauna, inter-flora and fauna-flora cross communication
          • how AI used to study human languages has detected a universal meaning shape between all languages.
      • reference

    1. in 2018 you know it was around four percent of papers were based on Foundation models in 2020 90 were and 00:27:13 that number has continued to shoot up into 2023 and at the same time in the non-human domain it's essentially been zero and actually it went up in 2022 because we've 00:27:25 published the first one and the goal here is hey if we can make these kinds of large-scale models for the rest of nature then we should expect a kind of broad scale 00:27:38 acceleration
      • for: accelerating foundation models in non-human communication, non-human communication - anthropogenic impacts, species extinction - AI communication tools, conservation - AI communication tools

      • comment

        • imagine the empathy we can realize to help slow down climate change and species extinction by communicating and listening to the feedback from other species about what they think of our species impacts on their world!
    1. The scientists behind the new study are planning an eradication campaign in Sicily. With help from authorities, they say they will destroy the known nests, continue to search local areas for more nests, and monitor for several years to make sure no ants escape. They hope to recruit residents across Europe to keep an eye out for more fire ants.
      • for: invasive species - red fire ant - control
      • comment
        • this is an excellent application for citizen science in general, to control invasive species
    2. Based on an analysis of suitable habitats, the researchers estimate the ants could invade 7% of the European continent.
      • for: stats, stats - invasive species - red fire ants,
      • stats:
        • prefers farms and cities
          • could infest 50% of urban areas
        • could inhabit up to 7% of EU continent
        • infestation vectors
          • walk
          • fly
          • carried by wind
          • shipping
            • Sicily, the site of discovery, ships a variety of plants across the Mediterranean
          • Southern Spain offers ideal climate for red fire ants
          • Climate change could increase its range by 25% by 2050.
  7. Jul 2023
    1. It does not make sense for   one species to command most of the energy flow  through the ecosystems of which it is a part.   That's a very destabilizing situation. And  the wise species would do everything possible   to reestablish some kind of balanced energy and  material throughput. If we don't do that, again,   01:15:52 I keep harping on this, people hate me for it,  but we will go down
      • for: anthropomorphism, apex species
      • quote
        • it does not make sense for one species to command most of the energy flow through the ecosystems which it is part of. That's a very destabilizing situation and the wise species would do everything possible to reestablish some kind of balanced energy material throughput.
    1. we compiled all the species that we try and get a handle on and we then tried to 00:05:06 relate those species list to Manhattan Island through a new kind of science that we call muir webs and that kind of data it turns out that you can visualize and understand as a network
      • for: progress trap, species map, indra's net
    1. Visualizing a Field of Research With Scientometrics: Climate Change Associated With Major Aquatic Species Production in the World
      • Title
        • Visualizing a Field of Research With Scientometrics: Climate Change Associated With Major Aquatic Species Production in the World
      • Authors
        • Mohamad N. Azra
        • Mohn Iqbal Mohd Noor
        • Yeong Yik Sung
        • Mazlan Abd Ghaffar
      • Date July 13, 2022
      • Source
      • Abstract
        • Climate change research on major aquatic species assists various stakeholders (e.g. policymakers, farmers, funders) in better managing its aquaculture activities and productivity for future food sustainability.
        • However, there has been little research on the impact of climate change on aquatic production, particularly in terms of scientometric analyses.
        • Thus, using the
          • bibliometric and
          • scientometric analysis methods,
        • this study was carried out to determine what research exists on the impact of climate change on aquatic production groups.
        • We focused on
          • finfish,
          • crustaceans, and
          • molluscs.
        • Data retrieved from Web of Science was
          • mapped with CiteSpace and
          • used to assess
            • the trends and
            • current status of research topics
          • on climate change associated with worldwide aquatic production.
        • We identified ocean acidification as an important research topic for managing the future production of aquatic species.
        • We also provided a comprehensive perspective and delineated the need for:
          • i) more international collaboration for research activity focusing on climate change and aquatic production in order to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal by 2030;
          • ii) the incorporation of work from molecular biology, economics, and sustainability.
  8. Feb 2023
    1. Whewell was one of the Cambridge dons whom Charles Darwin met during his education there, and when Darwin returned from the Beagle voyage he was directly influenced by Whewell, who persuaded Darwin to become secretary of the Geological Society of London. The title pages of On the Origin of Species open with a quotation from Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise about science founded on a natural theology of a creator establishing laws:[33] But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.
  9. Dec 2022
    1. While we have already tried to build a new and viable society around concepts such as democracy, sustainability, sustainable development, and resilience, all these terms have been corrupted by forces determined to incorporate and embed them into the Anthropocene where they become normalized, business as usual.

      !- general claim ,: corruption of Sustainability terminology - all these terms identified are corrupted in service of a human species-egoistic (new neologism) perspective

  10. Nov 2022
    1. https://medium.com/@ben_fry/tracing-the-origin-65011dc20877

      Could be interesting to apply this sort of process to a variety of texts over time. A draft of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein comes to mind.


      How to view this through the lens of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? particularly as this was the evolution of an idea by the same author over time...

    2. The only diagram or image in The Origin of Species, a tree depicting divergence (source)

      Darwin's On the Origin of Species only contains one diagram, a branching tree diagram which shows divergence of species.

    3. he was working on the same theme with Stefanie Posavec. They completed their piece some time later, depicting the changes as lovely branching trees — a kind of homage to Darwin’s lone diagram in the book.

      Greg McInerny of Microsoft Research and Stefanie Posavek created a version of Darwin's On the Origin of Species that displayed variations between the editions as a branching tree diagram, a nod to the only diagram which appeared in Darwin's original work. .

    4. Fifty years ago, coinciding with the centennial of the release of Darwin’s manuscript, author Morse Peckham collected all six editions into a single “variorum” text. Peckham painstakingly created a reference system that denotes the modifications and changes between editions. The text was created by Peckham’s careful enumeration of every sentence from every edition, copied onto index cards; from these cards, he carefully assembled them into a final text.
  11. Sep 2022
  12. Aug 2022
    1. Il pesce scorpione, il pesce palla maculato e due specie di pesce coniglio sono i protagonisti della campagna di monitoraggio "Attenti a quei 4" organizzata dall’Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (Ispra) e l'Istituto per le risorse biologiche e le biotecnologie marine del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Cnr-Irbim).
  13. Jul 2022
    1. 21:27 - We are just as smart now as we were in the ice age

      Our neurophysiology has not changed much since the ice age. In other words, were an ice age descendent were transported by a time machine and were born in our current era, (s)he would have the same cognitive capacity as a modern human.

      Peter mentions that we came out of our caves and begun agriculture. There is an interesting research paper that hypothesizes that over a period of the last 1.5 million years, human hunters in the Southern Levant successively extirpated the largest species by overshooting hunting over many generations, until the wild fauna population could no longer support human populations, at which point, humans may have turned to agriculture out of necessity. If true, this would support the idea that nonsustainable practices have been with us for a long time and we were out of balance long before Adam Smith wrote about it.

      https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2021%2F12%2F211221102708.htm&group=world

  14. bafybeiapea6l2v2aio6hvjs6vywy6nuhiicvmljt43jtjvu3me2v3ghgmi.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeiapea6l2v2aio6hvjs6vywy6nuhiicvmljt43jtjvu3me2v3ghgmi.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. Projections also omitinterconnections among species, which maycause domino effects that amplify the loss ofdiversity (88).

      This could be a wildcard that could accelerate impacts.

    1. As time passed, primates as a whole became more social and evolved to live together in groups, but only humans became truly monogamous. Today, other primate species such as bonobos and chimps mate with multiple individuals in their groups.
  15. Jan 2022
    1. Alkaloid-containing plants exact a heavy economic toll on livestock produc-tion in rangelands of western North America. Losses to these plants can be reduced or eliminated by recognizing plants containing alkaloids, understand-ing when livestock graze specific toxic plants, and knowing signs of potential toxicity. Grazing schemes can then be developed based on knowledge of the temporal and spatial dynamics of alkaloid concentration and consumption by livestock.Lossescanbereducedbyensuringthatlivestockarenotexposedorhave limitedexposureduringperiodsofgreatestrisk(i.e.,highesttoxinconcentration)or whenlivestockaremostlikelytoeattoxicplantsinsufficientamountstoproduce toxicity.
    2. Death camas (Zigadenus spp.) grows on foothill ranges in much of the Rocky Mountain area. Animals eating death camas die from reduced blood pressure and heart failure. Death camas is one of the first plants available during spring, and animals may graze the plant if other forage is lacking. Generally, recognizing the presence of death camas and understanding the acutely toxic nature of the plant will aid in avoiding problems. Hungry animals should not bedriventhroughadeathcamas-infestedpasture.Sheepinparticularshouldnotbe beddednearlargepatchesofdeathcamas,andsheepherdersshouldavoidstressing sheep by rapidly driving them if they do eat death camas. Death camas can be controlledbyphenoxyherbicides.
    3. 39National Forests and most problems can be solved by grazing management.
    1. False hellebore (Veratrum spp.) is f ound in moist habitats in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states. It is grazed by sheep and goats and causes birth defects (i.e., monkey-faced lambs). Livestock management to avoid losses t o false hellebore i s r elatively simple because the window of toxicity when false hellebore poisons t he fetus i s r elatively narr ow (i.e., 14 to 33 days gestation). Pregnant animals, particularly sheep, should not be allowed access t o veratrum-infested pastures during this period. Cattle rarely ea t the plant, therefore no special management is needed. For sheep, false hellebore i s quite palatable, and herders must keep bred sheep from ingesting false hellebore f or about one month after the rams are removed. This is not difficult to accomplish because false hellebore is limited in distribution to moist mountain habitats and grows in easy to identify dense patches. Although effective herbicidal control is available, it may not be practical because the major populations grow in
    2. Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) grows throughout the United States in areas with abundant moisture (i.e., creeks, ditches etc.). Animals eating poison hemlock die from acute respiratory failure or have deformed offspring. The most critical season to avoid poison hemlock is spring because the plant often appears before other forage has emerged. Green seed pods may be eaten in mid-to-late summer. Furthermore, poison hemlock may regrow in fall after seeds shatter. Ingestion during fall may coincide with birth defects in pregnant cattle, if they are i n the firs t trimester of gestation (days 30-75). If poison hemlock invades hay fields, the contaminated hay can poison livestock. Even though toxicity decreases upon drying, sufficient toxins may be r etained to poison livestock. Cattle appear to be particularly susceptible because of their acceptance of the plant and their sensitivity to the alkaloids t hat c ause birth defects. Poison hemlock can be easily controlled with phenoxy herbicides.
    3. Acute t oxicity problems are l es s common now, but lar ge sheep losses occurred frequently 100 years ago. Deaths occ ur when livestock, usually sheep, ingest a large amount of seed pods in a short time. This can occur from contaminated hay or from hungry animals gaining access t o lupine-dominated forage, and can be prevented by using lupine-free hay and avoiding lupine-dominated ranges when other forage is scarce. During some years, lupine populations may temporarily increase on rangelands not normally problematic. Livestock producers need to be aware of lupine populations and be sufficiently alert to alter grazing or breeding programs when these eruptions occur. Lupine populations increased dramatically during 1997 in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, causing severe l osses. For example, producers in Adams County, Washington lost over 30% of their calves ( >4000 calves) from lupine- caused birth defects.
    4. 38of rotational grazing scheme. Herbicidal control of lupines is feasible, but is usually more expensive than altering a grazing management program.
    1. Lupines (Lupinus spp.) are widely distributed throughout the western U.S. Cattle eating lupine may have deformed or "crooked" calves, and sheep may be poisoned outright by lupine. Livestock losses from lupine poisoning can largely be prevented by understanding two interrelated aspects. First, the highest concentrations of toxic alkaloids tend to occur in immature lupine plants and seed pods. Second, pregnant cattle are susceptible to the effects of alkaloids that cause birth defects during a window from 40 to 70 days of gestation, occasionally extending to 100 days. Birth defects in cattle can be prevented by using breeding or grazing programs that avoid placing pregnant cattle in lupine-dominated pastures in the first trimester of gestation. Alternatively, risk can be reduced by allowing only short-term access to lupines by pregnant cattle in some form
    2. Houndstongue (Cynoglossum officinale) is not only a toxic plant that contains alkaloids, but also a noxious weed that is increasing over much of North America. The plant spreads from bur-like seeds that cling to wildlife, livestock and humans, and invades disturbed areas. Houndstongue is generally unpalat- able when growing on rangelands, but lactating cows and horses may eat green houndstongue at times. When houndstongue contaminates hay, it is readily eaten by cattle and horses, and is quite toxic.
    3. Senecio or groundsel species (Senecio spp.) and houndstongue (Cynoglossum officinale) contain highly toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. These alkaloids are potent liver toxins that cause wasting and photosensitization. Senecios and houndstongue occur on many western U.S. rangelands. Only seven of more than 112 senecio species are known to be toxic so correct identification is essential. Managing rangelands so that plant communities are in good condi- tion and adequate forage is available is crucial to reduce losses to senecio. Generally, senecios are not very palatable, and are avoided by grazing livestock if other forage is available. Drought stress and overgrazing can increase populations of threadlleaf groundsel, as the plant is an aggressive invader. Drought is an especially dangerous time because other forage may be lacking and the toxic alkaloid concentration in senecio plants increases during drought, so grazing animals may ingest higher quantities of more toxic forage. Senecio species are also most toxic when plants are reproducing, thus avoiding pastures when these plants are in bud, flower, or seed is prudent. Proper grazing management must consider stocking rates, as excessive stocking may increase the amount of toxic plant consumed when alternative forages become limited. Excessive stocking may lead to degradation of the desirable plant community allowing senecio species to increase. Herbicidal control may alleviate some problems if incorporated into an overall management program
  16. Nov 2021
    1. for example arctic char the fish species that's already 00:09:00 all across the arctic region living at its temperature level about 24 degrees celsius in freshwater ecosystems one fraction of a decree further and we 00:09:13 will enter into a cycle of fish death events that will cascade in food security loss of culture and many other things of this keystone species on the aquatic ecosystems for 00:09:25 communities and nature alike

      See Camilo Mora's nature 2013 paper on climate departure:.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12540

    1. For if I wait out the uncomfortable night by the river,I fear that the female dew and the evil frost togetherwill be too much for my damaged strength, I am so exhausted, and in themorning a chilly wind will blow from the river; 470 but if I go up the slopeand into the shadowy forest,and lie down to sleep among the dense bushes, even if the chill andweariness let me be, and a sweet sleep comes upon me,I fear I may become spoil and prey to the wild animals.’

      There's something about the description here that reminds me of the closing paragraph of Charles Darwin's On The Origin of the Species (p 489):

      It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, [...]

      Both authors are writing about riverbanks, life, and uncertainty.

  17. Jun 2021
  18. May 2021
  19. Apr 2021
    1. Once plant toxins are absorbed fr om the gut into the blood, they are often trans- ported to the liver. T he liver primarily, and secondarily the kidney, intestinal mucosa, lungs, a nd skin contain enzyme systems that metabolize or alter toxic compounds, rendering them inert. Ability to metabolize or reduce sensitivity to specific phytotoxins varies by herbivore species a nd individuals. For example, sheep can tolerate and detoxify more pyrrolizidine alkaloids than cattle, therefore it takes five times more tall larkspur (Delphinium occidentalis) to poison sheep compared to cattle
  20. Jun 2020
    1. Furries are in the perilous position of having their interests form an integral part of their identity while simultaneously experiencing stigmatization from the world around them. For many, the fandom is their only source of social interaction and social support.

      For an activity, and a fandom, that is such a large part of the practitioner's identity (see Gerbasi et. al 2008 and associated responses), it's no surprise that the stigmatization that comes with being a furry is an isolating experience. I believe that this is a large a part of the reason why acceptance is such a large tenant of the furry fandom. Exclusion elsewhere leads to increased inclusion in other areas and groups.

      Non-judgementality should be the ultimate goal for health care workers in this position, but we have to recognize that it is a difficult, if not unrideable horse to handle.

    2. A small subset of furries, called “therians,” go beyond the interest in developing a fursona and believe they are spiritually connected to animals, are less than 100 per-cent human, are an animal trapped in a human body, or were an animal in a former life (Gerbasi et al., 2008).

      There's also the dissenting opinion that therians are a separate group from furries, an opinion perpetuated both by therians and "normal" furries, but it's generally the minority opinion, so for all intents and purposes, this is accurate.

    1. She states that furry participants might identify as less than 100% human for reasons that she felt included, “not the least having a hangover from furry drinks the night before.” While it may be an attempt at humor, we find this comment to be egregiously offensive, derogatory, and insulting to the furry fandom and our participants. Ironically, this remark illustrates her subscription to the very stereotypes we were empirically testing and con-firms the necessity of our research.

      This comment, framed as "egregiously offensive, derogatory, and insulting to the furry fandom and our participants", undermines the prevailing sense of identity in the furry fandom. I understand the transformative powers of alcohol, but in my uneducated opinion, it's a stretch that the furry identity for many people is activated by alcohol, and is not something that exists in all states of being (e.g.: sobriety).

    2. Her focus on gender identity disorder misses the main point of the study, which was that it was the first empirical study to collect data scientifically and report find-ings on the furry fandom, an often misrepresented subculture.

      One must admit that Flora Probyn-Rapsey's comparisons of gender identity disorder and the proposed "species identity disorder" were not without their merits, no? Heck, Gerbasi et. al were the ones to first make the comparison. It is true that it maybe took up too much of a focus in Probyn-Rapsey's criticism of the original paper. After all, the original paper only made use of the comparisons between the two disorders a few times to illustrate a larger point about disorder & confusion about furry identity, in themselves and in their place in the world at large.

    1. Here the diagnosis slips from requiring both being “less than 100% human” and “being 0% human” to only requiring the first criterion—being “less than 100% human.” The implications of this rhetorical slip are a vast shift in proportion, since it triples the number of furries who are potentially diagnosable as having species identity disorder (from 31 to 99 [or 46%] of the 214 furries who answered).

      I would argue that this is too loose of a definition. It does not simply refer to a physical body, which has pretty clear criteria for being considered 100% human. To be "less than 100% human" psychologically, while being a good basis for a disorder, does not adequately consider groups with a spiritual connection to animals, such as the Native American tradition of "spirit animals". This vague definition and exclusion of established cultural practices could prove harmful to the legitimacy of "species identity disorder".

    2. The data on personality disorders showed that furries were less likely to judge other furries as disordered, while the control group (the psychology students) judged other college students “significantly more often” along the lines of personality trait disorders. That the control group was made up of psychology students is perhaps an important factor here; this group may display an increased sensi-tivity to normative behaviors and “disorder.”

      When you ask a group of intermediate psychology students to judge whether furries are disordered, it's very likely that they will diagnose furries with personality trait disorder. They are psychology students, it seems pretty darn obvious that they would be more likely to diagnose psychological disorders, and there's the prevailing possibility of overdiagnosing, diagnosing a personality trait disorder where there may not be one. I am not in a position to say this is what is happening here, but considering the evidence, it's a reasonable possibility.

    3. Species identity disorder is modeled on gender identity disorder, itself a highly controversial diagnosis that has been criticized for pathol-ogizing homosexuality and transgendered people.

      This was also a major problem with the diagnosis "gender identity disorder", which was defined in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) IV as "A strong and persistent cross-gender identification (not merely a desire for any perceived cultural advantages of being the other sex)."

      In the DSM V, the diagnostic name "gender identity disorder" was replaced with "gender dysphoria", and other important clarifications, including the need for a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria to go ahead with gender transition surgery.

    1. I began by asking the room full of furries why they chose the animal they did for their species, and I received a lot of answers that fit in well with my experience of the fandom. Notable among the explanations were the oft-used words 'identity', 'connection', 'personality', and 'characteristics'. And this, of course makes sense. Many introductions to furry, whether they're websites (the first introductory website I found was Captain Packrat's explanation of FurCodes) or friends, explain that although furry is about being a fan of anthropomorphism in general, it often (but not always) specifically involves a personal connection with an animal that leads to the creation of a personal character: an avatar often used in interaction with other furries.

      While furries are fans of anthropomorphism in general, they connect more with certain animals. There are subcamps of furries, including scalies (with an interest in reptilian animals such as dragons, turtles, and lizards (e.g.: kobolds)) and avians (interest in birds, mainly), and some of the more popular animals in the furry fandom include foxes, wolves, and big cats. This is, in part, due to popular media representation, with movies such as The Fox and the Hound, Balto, Bolt, Alpha and Omega, and Aristocats. Ever since the "funny animal" cartoons of the early 1900s, there has been a persistent animal superiority in anthropomorphic representations.

  21. Mar 2020
  22. Oct 2019
  23. Feb 2019
    1. docs the calf regard the bleating of the shee

      Well Mr. Sheridan, what would you say about a big crazy dogbear thing that screams like a woman?

      Seriously, Annihilation (the movie more than the book, but the book, too) is interested in the blending of species and how the human responds when the nice, neat categories of existence are muddied.

    2. The organs of hearing in each species, are tuned only to the sounds of their own

      This is a very interesting idea that we can only hear the sounds of our own speech

  24. Sep 2018
    1. overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies

      The author expresses a broad definition of what transhumanism is. Author does not include what transhumanism focuses on specifically as in "human limitations" This is an intent to show transhumanism can incorporate sciences and professions from across the board, being inclusive to new ideas in the process from interested individuals. Therefore, from the Transhumanist FAQ, we can conclude the broad definition was meant to draw in more ideas focused on the betterment of humanity from a diverse group of readers, available for critique and decisions.

  25. Aug 2017
    1. Thus, predicting species responses to novel climates is problematic, because we often lack sufficient observational data to fully determine in which climates a species can or cannot grow (Figure 3). Fortunately, the no-analog problem only affects niche modeling when (1) the envelope of observed climates truncates a fundamental niche and (2) the direction of environmental change causes currently unobserved portions of a species' fundamental niche to open up (Figure 5). Species-level uncertainties accumulate at the community level owing to ecological interactions, so the composition and structure of communities in novel climate regimes will be difficult to predict. Increases in atmospheric CO2 should increase the temperature optimum for photosynthesis and reduce sensitivity to moisture stress (Sage and Coleman 2001), weakening the foundation for applying present empirical plant–climate relationships to predict species' responses to future climates. At worst, we may only be able to predict that many novel communities will emerge and surprises will occur. Mechanistic ecological models, such as dynamic global vegetation models (Cramer et al. 2001), are in principle better suited for predicting responses to novel climates. However, in practice, most such models include only a limited number of plant functional types (and so are not designed for modeling species-level responses), or they are partially parameterized using modern ecological observations (and thus may have limited predictive power in no-analog settings).

      Very nice summary of some of the challenges to using models of contemporary species distributions for forecasting changes in distribution.

    2. In eastern North America, the high pollen abundances of temperate tree taxa (Fraxinus, Ostrya/Carpinus, Ulmus) in these highly seasonal climates may be explained by their position at the edge of the current North American climate envelope (Williams et al. 2006; Figure 3). This pattern suggests that the fundamental niches for these taxa extend beyond the set of climates observed at present (Figure 3), so that these taxa may be able to sustain more seasonal regimes than exist anywhere today (eg Figure 1), as long as winter temperatures do not fall below the −40°C mean daily freezing limit for temperate trees (Sakai and Weiser 1973).

      Recognizing where species are relative to the observed climate range will be important for understanding their potential response to changes in climate. This information should be included when using distribution models to predict changes in species distributions. Ideally this information could be used in making point estimates, but at a minimum understanding its impact on uncertainty would be a step forward.

  26. Mar 2017
  27. Feb 2017
    1. Draft Biological Opinion for the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge AsianTapeworm Eradication

      Would that it was ever undertaken...alas, it was not.

  28. Jan 2017
    1. To simulate equilibrium sagebrush cover under projected future climate, we applied average projected changes in precipitation and temperature to the observed climate time series. For each GCM and RCP scenario combination, we calculated average precipitation and temperature over the 1950–2000 time period and the 2050–2098 time period. We then calculated the absolute change in temperature between the two time periods (ΔT) and the proportional change in precipitation between the two time periods (ΔP) for each GCM and RCP scenario combination. Lastly, we applied ΔT and ΔP to the observed 28-year climate time series to generate a future climate time series for each GCM and RCP scenario combination. These generated climate time series were used to simulate equilibrium sagebrush cover.

      This is an interesting approach to forecasting future climate values with variation.

      1. Use GCMs to predict long-term change in climate condition
      2. Add this change to the observed time-series
      3. Simulate off of this adjusted time-series

      Given short-term variability may be important, that it is not the focus of the long-term GCM models, and that the goal here is modeling equilibrum (not transitional) dynamics, this seems like a nice compromise approach to capture both long-term and short-term variation in climate.

    2. Our process model (in Eq. (2)) includes a log transformation of the observations (log(yt − 1)). Thus, our model does not accommodate zeros. Fortunately, we had very few instances where pixels had 0% cover at time t − 1 (n = 47, which is 0.01% of the data set). Thus, we excluded those pixels from the model fitting process. However, when simulating the process, we needed to include possible transitions from zero to nonzero percent cover. We fit an intercept-only logistic model to estimate the probability of a pixel going from zero to nonzero cover: yi∼Bernoulli(μi)(8)logit(μi)=b0(9)where y is a vector of 0s and 1s corresponding to whether a pixel was colonized (>0% cover) or not (remains at 0% cover) and μi is the expected probability of colonization as a function of the mean probability of colonization (b0). We fit this simple model using the “glm” command in R (R Core Team 2014). For data sets in which zeros are more common and the colonization process more important, the same spatial statistical approach we used for our cover change model could be applied and covariates such as cover of neighboring cells could be included.

      This seems like a perfectly reasonable approach in this context. As models like this are scaled up to larger spatial extents the proportion of locations with zero abundance will increase and so generalizing the use of this approach will require a different approach to handling zeros.

    3. Our approach models interannual changes in plant cover as a function of seasonal climate variables. We used daily historic weather data for the center of our study site from the NASA Daymet data set (available online: http://daymet.ornl.gov/). The Daymet weather data are interpolated between coarse observation units and capture some spatial variation. We relied on weather data for the centroid of our study area.

      This seems to imply that only a single environmental time-series was used across all of the spatial locations. This is reasonable given the spatial extent of the data, but it will be necessary to allow location specific environmental time-series to allow this to be generalized to large spatial extents.

    4. Because SDMs typically rely on occurrence data, their projections of habitat suitability or probability of occurrence provide little information on the future states of populations in the core of their range—areas where a species exists now and is expected to persist in the future (Ehrlén and Morris 2015).

      The fact that most species distribution models treat locations within a species range as being of equivalent quality for the species regardless of whether there are 2 or 2000 individuals of that species is a core weakness of the occupancy based approach to modeling these problems. Approaches, like those in this paper, that attempt to address this weakness are really valuable.

  29. Nov 2016
    1. My thoughts on Climatic Associations of British Species Distributions Show Good Transferability in Time but Low Predictive Accuracy for Range Change by Rapacciuolo et al. (2012).

    2. Whilst the consensus method we used provided the best predictions under AUC assessment – seemingly confirming its potential for reducing model-based uncertainty in SDM predictions [58], [59] – its accuracy to predict changes in occupancy was lower than most single models. As a result, we advocate great care when selecting the ensemble of models from which to derive consensus predictions; as previously discussed by Araújo et al. [21], models should be chosen based on aspects of their individual performance pertinent to the research question being addressed, and not on the assumption that more models are better.

      It's interesting that the ensembles perform best overall but more poorly for predicting changes in occupancy. It seems possible that ensembling multiple methods is basically resulting in a more static prediction, i.e., something closer to a naive baseline.

    3. Finally, by assuming the non-detection of a species to indicate absence from a given grid cell, we introduced an extra level of error into our models. This error depends on the probability of false absence given imperfect detection (i.e., the probability that a species was present but remained undetected in a given grid cell [73]): the higher this probability, the higher the risk of incorrectly quantifying species-climate relationships [73].

      This will be an ongoing challenge for species distribution modeling, because most of the data appropriate for these purposes is not collected in such a way as to allow the straightforward application of standard detection probability/occupancy models. This could potentially be addressed by developing models for detection probability based on species and habitat type. These models could be built on smaller/different datasets that include the required data for estimating detectability.

    4. an average 87% of grid squares maintaining the same occupancy status; similarly, all climatic variables were also highly correlated between time periods (ρ>0.85, p<0.001 for all variables). As a result, models providing a good fit to early distribution records can be expected to return a reasonable fit to more recent records (and vice versa), regardless of whether relevant predictors of range shift have actually been captured. Previous studies have warned against taking strong model performance on calibration data to indicate high predictive accuracy to a different time period [20], [24]–[26]; our results indicate that strong model performance in a different time period, as measured by widespread metrics, may not indicate high predictive accuracy either.

      This highlights the importance of comparing forecasts to baseline predictions to determine the skill of the forecast vs. the basic stability of the pattern.

    5. Most variation in the prediction accuracy of SDMs – as measured by AUC, sensitivity, CCRstable, CCRchanged – was among species within a higher taxon, whilst the choice of modelling framework was as important a factor in explaining variation in specificity (Table 4 and Table S4). The effect of major taxonomic group on the accuracy of forecasts was relatively small.

      This suggests that it will be difficult to know if a forecast for a particular species will be good or not, unless a model is developed that can predict which species will have what forecast qualities.

    6. The correct classification rate of grid squares that remained occupied or remained unoccupied (CCRstable) was fairly high (mean±s.d.  = 0.75±0.15), and did not covary with species’ observed proportional change in range size (Figure 3B). In contrast, the CCR of grid squares whose occupancy status changed between time periods (CCRchanged) was very low overall (0.51±0.14; guessing randomly would be expected to produce a mean of 0.5), with range expansions being slightly better predicted than range contractions (0.55±0.15 and 0.48±0.12, respectively; Figure 3C).

      This is a really important result and my favorite figure in this ms. For cells that changed occupancy status (e.g., a cell that has occupied at t_1 and was unoccupied at t_2) most models had about a 50% chance of getting the change right (i.e., a coin flip).

    7. The consensus method Mn(PA) produced the highest validation AUC values (Figure 1), generating good to excellent forecasts (AUC ≥0.80) for 60% of the 1823 species modelled.

      Simple unweighted ensembles performed best in this comparison of forecasts from SDMs for 1823 species.

    8. Quantifying the temporal transferability of SDMs by comparing the agreement between model predictions and observations for the predicted period using common metrics is not a sufficient test of whether models have actually captured relevant predictors of change. A single range-wide measure of prediction accuracy conflates accurately predicting species expansions and contractions to new areas with accurately predicting large parts of the distribution that have remained unchanged in time. Thus, to assess how well SDMs capture drivers of change in species distributions, we measured the agreement between observations and model predictions of each species’ (a) geographic range size in period t2, (b) overall change in geographic range size between time periods, and (c) grid square-level changes in occupancy status between time periods.

      This is arguably the single most important point in this paper. It is equivalent to comparing forecasts to simple baseline forecasts as is typically done in weather forecasting. In weather forecasting it is typical to talk about the "skill" of the forecast, which is how much better it does than a simple baseline. In this case the the baseline is a species range that doesn't move at all. This would be equivalent to a "naive" forecast in traditional time-series analysis since we only have a single previous point in time and the baseline is simply the prediction based on this value not changing.

    9. Although it is common knowledge that some of the modelling techniques we used (e.g., CTA, SRE) generally perform less well than others [32], [33], we believe that their transferability in time is not as well-established; therefore, we decided to include them in our analysis to test the hypothesis that simpler statistical models may have higher transferability in time than more complex ones.

      The point that providing better/worse fits on held out spatial training data is not the same was providing better forecasts is important especially given the argument about simpler models having better transferability.

    10. We also considered including additional environmental predictors of ecological relevance to our models. First, although changes in land use have been identified as fundamental drivers of change for many British species [48]–[52], we were unable to account for them in our models – like most other published accounts of temporal transferability of SDMs [20], [21], [24], [25] – due to the lack of data documenting habitat use in the earlier t1 period; detailed digitised maps of land use for the whole of Britain are not available until the UK Land Cover Map in 1990 [53].

      The lack of dynamic land cover data is a challenge for most SDM and certainly for SDM validation using historical data. If would be interesting to know, in general, how much better modern SDMs become based on held out data when land cover is included.

    11. Great Britain is an island with its own separate history of environmental change; environmental drivers of distribution size and change in British populations are thus likely to differ somewhat from those of continental populations of the same species. For this reason, we only used records at the British extent to predict distribution change across Great Britain.

      This restriction to Great Britain for the model building is a meaningful limitation since Great Britain will typically represent a small fraction of the total species range for many of the species involved. However this is a common issue for SDMs and so I think it's a perfectly reasonable choice to make here given the data availability. It would be nice to see this analysis repeated using alternative data sources that cover spatial extents closer to that of the species range. This would help determine how well these results generalize to models built at larger scales.

  30. Feb 2016
    1. Everyday interactions replay the Turing Test over and over. Is there a person behind this machine, and if so, how much? In time, the answer will matter less, and the postulation of human (or even carbon-based life) as the threshold measure of intelligence and as the qualifying gauge of a political ethics may seem like tasteless vestigial racism, replaced by less anthropocentric frames of reference.

      That's beautiful. I only hope the transition isn't jarring and the rate of expansion for compassion matches or exceeds that of cognition.