Is one difference that lampreys lack jaws, which Remora have?

<Ziggurat> That's seriously interesting stuff, the lamprey locomotors. I read about neuroscience (Edelman, etc) with fascination, but handicapped by knowing very little actual biology (too squeamish to ever do any lab science that involved living, yeuch, creatures... so my bits of scientific info tend to come from books or maths/physics by default).

Maybe when I've learned the Facts of Life I'll understand more about what makes people and lampreys (and hagfish) tick.

Anyway, all of the aforementioned species, along with Monotremes, Lemurs, Cats, and Cane Toads (Bufo Marinus) are all Designated Frogs, under the terms of the Frogspawn Conspiracy (2007).

"And slimy things did crawl with legs..."
- ST Coleridge

LOL <Rime of AM>

My favorite line:

<And I blessed them unawares>

"Unawares"? One of the greatest poets in history and he refuses to speak the <King's English>?

What a rebel he was!!

(BIG STC fan, myself)

BTW... Two missing pieces left to answer about the lamprey/remora trivia question NO GOOGLING....

We were talking about Group Theory, and the relationship between Evariste Galois and the Lost Decade of the 19th century.

I should add that there is a very silly novelised version of Galois and his 'short' (hah!) life. The writer researched all the period details -- clothing, church vs state in France, even a smattering of actual mathematics.

But dumb anachronisms persist. And this is not a writer like Pynchon who uses anachronism playfully, but one intent on recreating a plausible 1820s ambience and texture.

One character mentions 'international chess tournaments'. Which is strange, as the first one was years later in 1851. Even stranger is the teacher who cites the mathematical knowledge of the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes.

Strange, because the only source for Ahmes is a document named the Rhind Papyrus -- found in Luxor by Henry Rhind in 1858.

It's very easy to assume that people 'back in the past' must have known about people even further back in the past. Surprisingly often, they didn't. Much historical knowledge - plus archaeology, paleolinguistics, paleobotany, etc etc - is recent.

As for the maths, we also mentioned the Norwegian Marius Sophus Lie -- his cousin Odd Lie has his own page here. Another Norwegian, Niels Henrik Abel, anticipated many of Galois's ideas in the 1820s before also dying young (in 1829, so it looks like he didn't make it into our postulated 'extra hidden decade' between 1829 and 1830).

Now comes news that the Lie Group E8 -- which has 248 dimensions, plenty of room to hide a lost decade in -- has at last been fully mapped.

This mapping may reveal some surprises. When the Four-Color Mapping Problem was solved by computer, 'alternative' maps were found in which armies had been hidden to mount a sudden n-dimensional attack on the planet...

The 24-hour model? The deadline splurge?

Or maybe they meant "talk your way past the security heavies in Hollywood and you can interview/meet/sleep with anyone in the movie biz" -- a fine set of moral precepts to instil in the youth, etc etc.

In a deadline-style emergency I can rise at 5.00am and write a newspaper article by 0900 -- but that really only takes a few minor limbic brain circuits. Nothing like the amount of cortex needed to stay in the game here.

Another morning factor is the lateness of the night before. Not only does lack of sleep lead to stupefaction, carelessness and idiocy, it can cause you to keel over at critical moments.

And which sub-group in our society is most notoriously prone to sleep deprivation? Junior hospital doctors and interns.

Both are relatively crude measures of non-static performances, ELO being much more accurate because it operates in a restricted area like competitive chess. IQ is very different, and may not even be 'real'.

But there does seem to be a historic correlation between chess and education. Not education per se, which is governed by many other complex social factors. But strong chess players are more likely to have studied science subjects than arts subjects.

When I was one of the lower boards on a university club team, it included about three medics, two engineers and a mathematician. Apart from me (literature) the only one with an even slightly arty leaning was doing a postgrad degree in archaeology. Which was effectively a science by then, even if owned by the arts faculty.

I also read in a biography of Marcel Duchamp that he devoted himself to chess instead of art because he wanted to prove that the 'artistic' mind/ brain/ temperament could do as well as the math/ engineering one (aka the 'memory boys').

Btw, there's no "unawares" in <The Rime of the AM>:

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

Captain Haddock.

<Dom> I'm pleased to say I didn't understand ONE SINGLE WORD of your post on <Group Theory>. I know zero math and little history beyond the chronicles of us besting the <Frog> in various battles...

<IQ> <ELO> LOL no correlation at all I bet.

btw, I think we went through this previously, the <hoi polloi and the Great Unwashed> alike regularly cite IQ numbers like they mean something.

They don't. What I mean is, only the percentile score means something, because the many different kinds of tests have different median bases-

IE, the <Wexler Adult> uses 110, not 100, as a raw base average.

Plus, the percentile expresses only two things so far in the ongoing march of actual <social science>:

It shows for sure how well you did on a certain test compared to others who took the same test.

It has also been reliably correlated <in North America> to later grades performance at University.

Remember top down-- bottom up ?? <Jess knows> Just passing on a post of <Jess>'s a while ago! ;-)

Great stuff again here!!

Niels

Good luck on your rematch with <Branko>... you think you will win again?

did you know <Foreman> named <all> of his sons <George>?

I expect to crumble and lo(o)se, and finding your link saying and explaining that will take some time. I mentioned it to <Dom> earlier last year and he will probably remember it too!

<achieve: <Dom> Here, as promised:

<jessicafischerqueen: Sofistis... a little advice re Daniel... don't bring a knife to a gun fight, Holmes. Dictionaries do not dictate-- they merely record a history of past and present usage. Daniel even provided the link showing that "forums" is in common English usage. Instead of just repeating your point, why not actually read the link he gave first? <No time, or no sense, sir?> The same is true for grammar books, not just dictionaries. "Correct grammar" comes from the bottom up, not the top down-- it is based on usage, not dictatorial law. There are few more pathetic sights than seeing someone "correct" another with "incorrect" information. Read some more books, maybe take a philology and logic course if you choose to cross swords with someone obviously more erudite (not to mention humorous) than you. Peace.>>

Pretty clear I should say! Naturally I remembered that!

<Lads>: check this out- POST OF THE YEAR in my book;

No easy way out this time milady!...

Not to <slomarko> or any preferred troll!

You might be majestic but not untouchable!!!!!!!

(GMNS is a great find and laugh.. hehe)

10 PM here so checking out in a minute.. I need to prepare for the matches against <Branko> and co.

Yes, it was to <sofistis>, don't even remember him.