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POPSWere Ancient Viruses a Key to Human Evolution? Heidmann believes that without endogenous retroviruses mammals might never have developed a placenta, which protects the fetus and gives it time to mature, which eventually led to live birth, one of the hallmarks of human evolutionary success over birds, reptiles, and fish. Eggs cannot eliminate waste or draw the maternal nutrients required to develop the large brains that have made mammals so versatile. “These viruses made those changes possible. It is quite possible that, without them, human beings would still be laying eggs.”
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POPS'bizarre mix of mammal, bird and reptile, with very complex sexuality' The fact that the animal has five X and five Y chromosomes is "the weirdest thing about a very weird animal," said Ewan Birney, a co-author on the paper, based at the European Bioinformatics Institute, near Cambridge. "In theory it means there are 25 possible sexes, though in practice that doesn't happen."
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POPSMale tuataras face dateless futures Like many reptiles the ratio of males to females depends on the temperature. Many more creatures depend on a relatively stable temperature range to remain viable. All are part of a food chain. If a link is knocked out, the predator can starve, and the prey overpopulate. Evolution is a relatively slow process. If change happens too quickly, the creatures don't have time to adapt, and the link is knocked out. This can lead to the collapse of the food chain.
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POPSKomodo dragons; Komodo dragons The first dragon had grabbed it by its testicles and was starting to chew its way into the body from below. The second dragon was slowly forcing the buffalo's head open and was going down its throat. The third was, as they say, going in the back door. To make an already grisly scene far worse, the whole slow-motion kill was being conducted in deep mud. After a few hours all was black - apart from the blood that occasionally bubbled up from the muddy depths, the white saliva that sometimes oozed from the buffalo's mouth and the bright, flickering forked tongues of the three dragons, which were forever darting around. Slippery things slithered slowly over other slippery things until it was hard to tell whose tail was whose, where one body started and another stopped and who was doing what to whom. The smell was fetid, the heat intense. Every so often the buffalo shuddered and tried to rise. Was it really still alive? We watched from a few feet away,
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POPSDeadly Snake Bites Man's Penis My god what a horrible thing to happen. I have had this exact thought run through my mind while I have used natures facilities. Arrest me for indecent exposure but please god don't let a snake bite me there!
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POPSThe boy and the python Sounds right out of Rudyard Kipling, doesn't it?! I just thought it was bizarre, but having said that , I must attribute it to fellow clippers who had shared it earlier, cpltaiji & merrie: cpltaiji http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=77135&in_page_id=2 merrie http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=66835
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POPSFree Me - WildLife Rehab Center - South Africa Free Me is NPO in Johannesburg, SA that provide specialised treatment, care and rehabilitation to orphaned, abandoned, injured and displaced indigenous birds, mammals and reptiles. The clips are from their gallery. Thumbs only. Visit their site to see the big pic. They really do awesome work.
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