Tuesday, June 26th: Truthier Evolution
sanguinity told me about an article she’d seen:
Giant Prehistoric Penguins! I seem to recall hearing about this somewhere before, and I’d developed the theory that these 5’ fossils were not
adult penguins, but
juveniles. The
full-grown prehistoric penguins were 20’ tall! And they could shoot lasers from their eyes! They ruled the Earth for
millions of years! Science has yet to acknowledge the full genius of my theory.
That did lead to another discussion; Giraffe Evolution. You probably learned in school that Early Scientists believed that giraffe parents stretching upward to eat higher leaves caused their offspring to have longer necks. While it’s accurate that Evolution is
not driven that way, the supposedly “real” answer typically provided in class is that there was an advantage to being able to eat leaves higher up in the tree, so the longer-necked giraffes survived and passed on those genes. Well, it turns out that’s not exactly right, either. Giraffes have long necks because Prehistoric Giraffes would take refuge in deep rivers when fleeing their natural enemy, the Sabre-Toothed Emu. Shorter-neck giraffes would drown more often, so long-neck genes were passed to subsequent generations. Eventually, all giraffes were tall enough not to drown, and the Sabre-Toothed Emu died off.* Nothing to do with tree leaves. Tell your friends.
* This is, technically speaking, not completely true either. This just goes to show how hard it is to find reliable information on the Internet. Current Mood: 
scienteriffic 
