Episode 6: Zen, Zombies, and Ziplessness

Today Zach and Kelly talk to Dr. Zen Faulkes about zombie shrimp, puzzlingly slow crayfish, and his SciFund project through which he is raising funds to go on an expedition in search of a mysterious CLONING crayfish!

LINKS

Poem we referred to by Yeats:

“A woman can be proud and stuff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sold or whole
That has not been rent.”

From “Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop” 

4 thoughts on “Episode 6: Zen, Zombies, and Ziplessness

  1. Gelsamel

    It may just be that the Spiny lobsters benefit from the resource gain from not having to build giant neurons. Perhaps they don’t have as many predetors that require that quick a reponse.

    Remember, evolutionary adaptions happen at the population/gene scale NOT at the individual scale. Evolution doesn’t care that not having the fastest reactions means that an individual might be worse off if the overall gain for the population/gene as a whole is better off.

    This is similar to the case of the evolution of homosexuality. If you’re looking at individuals then entirely preventing reproduction in homosexual individuals is infinitely maladaptive… but evolution DOESN’T happen at the individual case and homosexuality is found to be beneficial at a population level.

    Reply
  2. Philosophantry

    OH MY GOD YOU MENTIONED MY FUNGUS!!!!
    The one you’re talking about at around 17:35, I’m doing a project on it in my Bio class. That just made my day!

    Reply
  3. Morris Keesan

    A classic case of maladaptive evolution is the way that, in all mammals, the airway crosses the alimentary canal. If we were the result of Intelligent Design, why would an intelligence have designed the possibility of choking to death on food? The epiglottis looks like a really feeble and sub-optimal afterthought, when compared with the more obvious approach of breathing and eating through totally separated tubes.

    Reply

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