memfree

@memfree@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No justice, no peace.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I see a duck demanding peas. Tasty rolly green peas.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Turns Out Giraffes Aren’t One Species—They’re Actually Four⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought we already knew this. A quick search found this from 2018: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6206193/

  All giraffe (Giraffa) were previously assigned to a single species (G. camelopardalis) and nine subspecies. However, multi‐locus analyses of all subspecies have shown that there are four genetically distinct clades and suggest four giraffe species. This conclusion might not be fully accepted due to limited data and lack of explicit gene flow analyses. Here, we present an extended study based on 21 independent nuclear loci from 137 individuals. Explicit gene flow analyses identify less than one migrant per generation, including between the closely related northern and reticulated giraffe. Thus, gene flow analyses and population genetics of the extended dataset confirm four genetically distinct giraffe clades and support four independent giraffe species. The new findings support a revision of the IUCN classification of giraffe taxonomy. Three of the four species are threatened with extinction, and mostly occurring in politically unstable regions, and as such, require the highest conservation support possible.

  Image of Nuclear phylogeny and population structuring of giraffe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨🏹🏹🏹⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  On your advice, I read it. Good essay. Yes, the image is Whatever, but the creative part for this post was the pun, so I still gave it an upvote because I haven’t heard it death.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨These fish may feel pleasure while being groomed by other fish⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It has always been strange to me that anyone would think animals don’t have a wide range of emotions. I understand that a scientist can’t ask how an animal is feeling, and must instead record avoidance/seeking behaviors, but it also seems vanishingly improbable that emotions aren’t part of a long and useful evolutionary methodology to get to the next generation. Cows have friends. Sure, it took effort to prove, but why wouldn’t we expect that? We see mothers nurture their offspring, and we could easily call it love and concern. It is good to see we now have proof that it isn’t just the cuddly creatures with emotions, but at least as far down the scale as fish.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BREAKING NEWS⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  ptarmigan

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could this be the death of Australia's nightmarish welfare system?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Deep in the entrails of the framework, the databases have been glitching: incorrectly issuing penalties and wrongly moving recipients into the Kafkaesque “penalty zone”. The bug was falsely cancelling welfare benefits to thousands of recipients across many years.

  That’s a really critical bug. QA is supposed to catch this sort of thing. Development is supposed to fix it, and fast. When the client is a government, it should have the foresight to put in the contract that it will withhold payments until such critical bugs are fixed. If you don’t do that, why would the vendor bother with QA and bug fixes?

  And all of that is aside the fact that the whole thing results in busy work, hoop-jumping, and wasting time for both the people administrating it and those trying to get benefits. Sheesh.