Biodiversity, Speciation & Genetic Drift

April 21, 2005 7:23 AM

Competition gave rise to the robber fly, to trap-weaving tree ants, an ‘homosexual’ fungus, robot jockeys, logic-checking software, and to custom-made brass knuckles.
posted by dfowler (14 comments total)

New stuff discovered, invented, posted.
posted by allan at 7:38 AM on April 21, 2005

mcgraw? Dat you?
posted by goatdog at 7:48 AM on April 21, 2005

slightly off topic, but the logic thing made me wonder: How is 'map' defined for purposes of the 4-color theorem?
posted by bashos_frog at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2005

bashos_frog, I'm not a graph theorist, but I think that for the 4-color theorem, a map is defined as a planar graph (a graph you can draw on a piece of paper without having any edges cross). The countries are represented as vertices on the graph, and if two countries share a border, then they have an edge between them. The graph (map) is 4-colorable if you can color each vertex so that no edge has both endpoints of the same color.

Oh, and cool post mcgraw dfowler.
posted by driveler at 8:17 AM on April 21, 2005

Those aren't custom brass knuckles. They are clearly identified
as paperweights, meat tenderizers and ice picks :-)
posted by the Real Dan at 10:07 AM on April 21, 2005

In case anyone's wondering, no, 'coq' really isn't the worst name ever for a computer language -- there's always this one.
posted by felix at 10:12 AM on April 21, 2005

An 'omosexual?
posted by five fresh fish at 10:20 AM on April 21, 2005

The schemes that our cousin genes have come up with are amazing. Of course, I'm sure they'd think us equally odd (if they had evolved sentient replication machines and were able to think, that is).
(posted on behalf of alasdair's genome)
posted by alasdair at 10:59 AM on April 21, 2005

fivefreshfish spreading smiles : )

you just gave a great askmefi answer too, fff! greets!
posted by dfowler at 11:05 AM on April 21, 2005

For those who enjoyed the 'Virgin Mary Seen on Underpass' story, yesterday, here are some more 'miracle' images.
posted by dfowler at 12:39 PM on April 21, 2005

So....competition = specialization?
posted by Smedleyman at 3:31 PM on April 21, 2005

The ant video really creeps me out.
posted by Mr_Zero at 5:22 PM on April 25, 2005

Double Post!
posted by dfowler at 7:09 AM on April 29, 2005

Well, flagging it would waste Matt's time so I'll just yell 'You won't get away with this dfowler, you nincompoop!'
posted by dfowler at 7:13 AM on April 29, 2005