Sounds from Pompeii

[slokind]

On the contrary, it is very clever.  Much better than the discussion of Arizona's seceding from the Union.  The reason it is superior April Fool's Day material is exactly that it verges on credibility.  It made me (for example) worry that the only sufficiently crude parallel I could think of was a crude hill-and-dale recording, whereas the accidental recording of environmental sound could not have selected hill-and-dale or lateral, just for one thing.  It also was a rather brilliant send-up of digital recovery and the public tendency to believe anything produced digitally.  More than 15 years ago, when Excel first came out, I took the trouble to learn by using it to record, average, and assign grades (by a distribution) with it.  It was the only time that no students, not even the ones who seldom came to class and were faced by angry self-sacrificing parents, tried to get me to change a grade...
Pat L.

[Heliodromus]

  I wanted this story to be true, I really did, but I found a post on another forum which seems to indicate that it was an "April Fool's" hoax.  Bummer.

Bummer, indeed, but thanks for the update.

Just because it was a hoax though doesn't mean that there might not be a vase out there... 

Ben

[Jason G]

Well that's bogus.   Sorry for getting everyones hopes up.  That explains the funky pots and no main-stream coverage.  C'est La Vie. 

[basemetal]

Sad....but...
Wouldn't it be wonderful irony if it inspired research into just that phenomenon?  And that it was found out
to be a real effect based on the hoax?
And besides, there is the chance however slim that later ages produced something similar with more advanced pottery technology?

[the_Apostate]

why would anyone make a prank like that?!?!?!!?!?!  NOT FUNNY.
   and i believed it, too.
Andrew

I agree with Slokind. A good joke has to fool someone.

 

[LordBest]

Not funny, but very, very clever, which is far, far better.


Oh, by the way its the Tasmanian tiger which is extinct, not a wolf. The Tasmanian devil is also about a third of the size of the tiger. the sightings of it are very credible too, by the way, we are talking sightings by experienced experts and conservationists who have been working in Tasmania for years. One of the sightings lasted three minutes too, not just a quick flash.
The Tassie tiger cloning project was restarted last year after the scientists believed new developments in technology would allow the mto extract workable DNA from the preserved corpse, previously it had been thought to be too degraded for cloning. Sorry to go off topic but it is rather interesting.
                                                          LordBest.

[Heliodromus]

The Tassie tiger cloning project was restarted last year after the scientists believed new developments in technology would allow them to extract workable DNA from the preserved corpse, previously it had been thought to be too degraded for cloning.

Yep - there's a Tasmanian Tiger pup that's preserved in alchohol that seems to be a likely source of viable DNA. It's lucky that it's preserved in alchohol rather than formaldehyde since the latter messes with the DNA. I think they originally thought that dehydration by the alchohol might be a problem, but apparently not.

http://www.austmus.gov.au/archive.cfm?id=157

Ben

[Robert_Brenchley]

Hope they succeed. What I'd really like to see, though, is a woolly mammoth.

[Bill Perry]

Can you record sounds into clay or paint? Yes. Can you get meaningful sounds out of an ancient artifact? I'm doubtful - but man oh man I WANT to believe. If anyone else finds more recent backup articles on this please post them.

I so wanted this to be true. The most believable hoaxes are always rooted in some believable fact (sigh).

[Howard Cole]

why would anyone make a prank like that?!?!?!!?!?!  NOT FUNNY.
   and i believed it, too.
Andrew

I think it is very funny  .  As I said extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof!

[the_Apostate]

OT: Anyone interested in the fate of the marsupial variously known as the Tasmanian wolf (as it is sometimes called on account of its doglike appearance) or the Tasmanian tiger (as it is sometimes called on account of its stripes) may want to have a look at this excellent website:

http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/

Including films -  

...and here is the rather märchenhaft river where the thylacine was last sighted by a totally credible witness:



I have been planning to go there for some years. I know the beasts are somewhere out there waiting for me.

[wolfgang336]

Apostate, that river looks exactly how I pictured the rivers in Heart of Darkness!

Robert, woolly mammoths do exist! They live their lives on couches watching hockey in Yellow Knife!

Evan

[basemetal]

Thycaline is alive and well in small numbers.  The biggest threat is the establisment of a cottage industry devoted to same based on a verified sighting. 
There are also large monitor lizards still extant whose existence is threatened by verification of ..ahem..their existence.
The world is a large place.  In spite of the "common knowlege" that every nook and cranny has been explored, the world is still a LARGE place.  There are large places on every continent that "man" has not -even aboriginals-explored.
The very asumption that "one place is like another" holds true even in the most remote wilds and among the most entrenched villagers. 
There is more square footage of land on this planet that has never felt the tread of human feet than there is trod upon land by humans.....true..believe it or not
In terms of size, a human being in relation to the size of the planet earth is 20% smaller than a virus is to the human body.  We build ..we grow...but still ....go figure.
There  is land in the African Congo...that amounts to about 7 million square miles that no one..with the exception of the stray native  wanderer..who may come back with unbelievable tales...has ever been.
There is room for anything there. Though I love tales of living dinosaurs...I believe they if there have evolved over 65 million years and may be indistinguisable  from extant species-tho quite new.
And besides if  you want to see a living dinosaur...look at a large goose...viscous...territorial..quick..and except for the feathers...a living exampe of a large meat-eating dinosaur of the cretaceous period.
   

[Robert_Brenchley]

To all intents and purposes birds are small specialised dinosaurs, youy're right on that one.

[basemetal]

Retrobreeding.....I just read the other day about a group of chickens that have....teeth. Not the ones that have had genetic manipulation to grow a tooth. 
But a throwback charactheristic/potential  that probably all birds have. 
I grew up and still live  in a chicken breeding area here in NC.  I've talked to chicken breeders for the very reason that I thought perhaps by selective breeding you could de-evolve back to a dinosaurian replica.
The breeders I've talked to (about 4) all say a certain number of chicks are "malformed".
Specifically they say that some lack feathers, some only have a frill of feathers down the back, some have "tooth nubs, more like regular  serrations on both their upper and lower beaks, some have longer tails-yes all chickens have vestigal tails, and of course many are simply malformed in the conventional way.  These are always "culled" i.e. killed.
Mmmm...take the fertile ones with the "malformed" charactheristics and breed them....who knows?

[Howard Cole]

Basemetal, what you propose is impossible.  Once the genes are gone, they are gone forever.  There is no such thing as "de-evolve."  Evolve just means to change with time and like time, it can't go backwards. 

It is true you can evolve similar features.  This is called convergent evolution, for example, the wings of birds and bats.  But, the features may not evolve from the same structure and it certainly has different genes controlling it.  Bird wings evolved from arms and bat wings evolved from fingers.

As for you malformations in chickens, this is normal.  These malformations are called mutations and occur naturally.  Mutations are the building blocks of evolution.  The problem is that most mutations are harmful and cause death or the lessening of an organism’s ability to compete.  But, every now an than, maybe a one in a billion chance or much higher, the mutation helps the organism survive and is passed on to future generations.

Now why do chicken breeders see so many mutations, it is called inbreeding.  Normally a bad gene (mutant) is recessive and hidden by the dominant gene (normal one).  With inbreeding this mutant is more likely to be expressed.  This is what happen to European monarchies.  Hemophiliacs started to appear.  If they had a normal gene for blood clotting, they would have been okay, but with inbreeding hemophilia shows up much more often.

[Howard Cole]

Okay, just read the article about chickens with teeth.  Looks like they haven't lost the gene for that.  But at the same time, it seems that if teeth grow the beak doesn't.  Also the only chicken that naturally had that gene turned on died soon after hatching.

Still can't go back and make dinosaurs.

[whitetd49]

Basemetal, what you propose is impossible.  Once the genes are gone, they are gone forever.  There is no such thing as "de-evolve."  Evolve just means to change with time and like time, it can't go backwards. 

Howard, it is more complicated than that.  Once a character (teeth in birds) disappears from a lineage, the genes are still there.  The genes are simply no longer expressed.  Organisms living today all posses "junk genes.  "De-evolve" is a mis-nomer.  There are evolutionary reversals, this is an important mechanism to "escape specializations".  Good examples of this include the occasional re-appearance of teeth in birds, legs in snakes, pelvic limbs in dolphins, and eyes in blind cave fish.  There are a host of other examples.  

[Bill Perry]

Basemetal, what you propose is impossible.  Once the genes are gone, they are gone forever. 

This is completely wrong. There is no gone - there is only adding more and more twisted pile on pile on. Genes may be turned off - or new ones may be turned on - or added. But I don't recall them ever being "gone". That is why such a HUGE percentage of genes in humans are useless. Things that have been turned off in history or just junk that has never had any survivability being turned on.

Though what basemetal suggests would be possible - it would be something new - not something old. Many things follow parrallel yet seperate paths of adapting to similar enviroments.

Having said that - I then have to agree with Howard but for different reasons - you will never be able to breed back into the original. Think of genes as a huge pile of noodles hoplessly tangled up - where when running them through the factory of a cell they create different things. Some parts react (turned on) some do not - some creating things to turn other parts on - some off. I don't think it would be possible to go "back" - though I'm pretty sure you could come up with something similar by going forward. In terms of breeding and culling chickens that is. But it would be something new.

[Howard Cole]

Genes can be lost!  When a gene is no longer needed it can suffer a deletion mutation (part of the DNA is not copied or a small bit is cut out) this cause the gene to be destroyed and it is gone!  Also, if a bit of DNA is inserted into the wrong area, this would destroy a gene.  If the gene is not being used, there is really nothing to stop this.  If this happens in a neccessary gene the organism is usually deformed or dies before birth.

Also when a gene develops in a line of organisms that goes extinct that gene is lost.

As for human junk DNA, that is what it is.  It may be old genes, it can be an insertion mutation (extra bases of DNA are added either by replication errors or viruses - you would be surprised by how much of human and mammal DNA can be traced back to viruses), or stuff we just don't understand what it does yet. 

[Howard Cole]

That is why such a HUGE percentage of genes in humans are useless. Things that have been turned off in history or just junk that has never had any survivability being turned on.

See, if I remember my genetics correctly, a gene encodes information that forms either a protein or mRNA, which is used as a template to make a protein.  If a part of the DNA is turned off or is useless, it is not a gene.

[Bill Perry]

I stand corrected - as i was just reacting to the overstatement of once a gene is gone - its gone - which is not true in the context of basemetal's chickens - as it could be just "off". But you are correct - some things do dissapear - for good - and some stick around - just "off".

[Robert_Brenchley]

If a gene is functioning, then any damage to or mutation of that gene will soon become apparent, and anything disadvantageous will be bred out. If it's not functioning, damage or mutation won't become apparent, and won't be eliminated. I wonder how much of the original discarded dinosaur DNA is still intact.

[whitetd49]

You are right of course, non-operational genes will accumulate damage over time and eventually be so degraded as not to be recognizable.  There are functional dinosaurs genes.  Raikow found that 10% if the chicken embryos he studied had extra non-avian pelvic muscles.  These of course were homologs of muscles found in other amniotes.  If advantageous, it is possible these could reappear in a lineage, thus, an evolutionary reversal.

[basemetal]

The best you could hope for is an analouge.  By breeding those rare dinosaurian expressed traits you could/might get a creature that had dinosaurian charactheristics. That wouldn't make it a dinosaur, it would make it "somewhat like" a dinosaur. 
 You'd need a very large (perhaps too large to acquire) group of live fertile  avians with dinosaurian features and lots of time. The "large group" part is crucial.   And as said above most mutants or mutations don't survive.  An analouge would please me though. 
Teeth were elimated from the avain reportoire because teeth are heavy. Birds gotta fly. Even the nonflying ones once did.
 A beak is lighter and works as well.
One more point, everytime you see "can't" or "isn't possible" in any discussion of human ingenuity a red flag should raise in your mind.
We should have learned by now that if the drive and desire is there, lots of cant's become cans eventually.