Re: "Oxygen Helped Mammals Grow, Study Finds"

[frank bliss <frank@blissnet.com>]

If you give an infinite amount of slime molds, an infinite amount of 
time/computers, would they then be able to randomly type out cognitive 
dinosaur science?  Sounds plausible to me as a one eyed amoeba on 
steroids.!

Humans high in the Andes seem to do fine up to 15K feet and have 
adapted quite well to the lower oxygen conditions with smaller body 
masses, enlarged lungs and enriched hemoglobin/plasma ratios in their 
bodies.  They also seem to reproduce well there (at least in quantity, 
quality is too subjective for this discussion).  There is no reason 
that Mesozoic animals couldn't adapt over the generations to changes 
either way in ppO2.

Zonation of fauna related to altitude certainly occurs in modern 
ecosystems.  Some of this is temperature related, but ppO2 certainly 
plays an effect.  Some large bodied forms do well at high altitude 
though the cold has altered their shape a tad from their low altitude 
cousins.  Birds of course get around enough that they could breed at 
low altitude and hunt up high in the ether.  No reason dinos didn't 
have the same pressures (excuse the pun) to evolve different body plans 
based on adaptation to ppO2/altitude changes.  Speciation occurs 
because it works to facilitate reproduction in a "secular" fashion.

Environmental feedback loops maintain habitable levels of atmospheric 
gasses obviously as life still exists on the planet even after all 
these years. Give slime molds a chance and they will proliferate and 
eventually learn to type.

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming

On Sep 30, 2005, at 9:04 AM, Tim Williams wrote:

> Mike Taylor wrote:
>
> > On the Internet, no-one knows who you are.  How can you tell that I'm
> > not an algae colony with unusually developed typing skills?
> >
> > (I'm not really an algae colony, of course.  I'm a lobster.)
>
> I'm a slime mold!
>
> David Marjanovic wrote:
>
> > One more quote (refs removed):
> > "Whereas the relatively rapid decline in oxygen at the end-Permian 
> > and early Triassic is suggested to have been a major factor 
> > contributing to the extinction of terrestrial animals (mostly 
> > reptiles) at this time, the rise of oxygen over the ensuing 150 My 
> > almost certainly contributed to evolution of large animals.
>
> This may be a daft question, but I had heard/read that oxygen levels 
> were relatively high during the Permian.  This allowed large flying 
> insects (_Meganeura_) to thrive during this period, owing to the 
> higher oxygen tension in the atmosphere.  The end-Permian drop in O2 
> may have contributed toward their extinction too.
>
> > Interesting how the authors use "secular" -- apparently for 
> > "long-term".
>
> As in "The data presented here provide evidence of a secular increase 
> in atmospheric oxygen over the past 205 My that broadly corresponds 
> with three main aspects of vertebrate evolution, namely endothermy, 
> placentation, and size."
>
> I think we need to know more about the religious beliefs of marsupials 
> before we can draw any firm conclusions.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tim