watching a lot of documentaries lately...watched a few on dinosaurs. so cool. t. rex was actually really smart by dinosaur standards!
also watched a really interesting Nova episode about dogs and how they've evolved special abilities specifically for interacting/communicating with humans that wolves never originally had. also featured a fascinating sandbox experiment in how dogs were probably domesticated:
Russian "Tame Foxes" Experiment, YouTube
i think it's pretty fucked up that they did that to the foxes, but still really interesting. and they came from a fur farm, so i guess it's better to be in a weird breeding program than be turned into a stole or whatever.
Dino Riders Intro, YouTube
Dinosaucers Intro, YouTube
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs Intro, YouTube
3 comments:
i was reading an article in National Geo about those foxes just a couple issues ago, really interesting. i don't know if the whole NOVA program is online or if you saw that, but they explained it a lot more in-depth. they also talked about the "evil twin" foxes that get bred, too, selected for aggression which ends up producing super-antagonistic foxes. it's really interesting, though, that domestication is a genetic thing and not really a learned one. they also talked about that humans are considered domesticated in a similar way. and that cats are believed to be the only animal that domesticated themselves.
i have really strong feelings about breeding of any kind, but i actually feel better about this fox thing than i do about dog breeding.
ps: great sketches!!!
pps: haha, i remember dinosaucers. such a good theme song.
yeah, they covered the aggressive foxes in the NOVA episode too! the video i posted wasn't what i originally watched, just the only video i could find referring to it. another thing i found really fascinating on an artistic/aesthetic level was how adorable i found the tame foxes and just wanted to hug them, but i was horrified and so scared of the aggressive foxes, haha! like both kinds look almost just alike in some cases, but because of their body language and noises they make they can stir completely different emotions in people.
i'd really like to learn more about the domestication of cats and how that happened, because with wild cats, it's really hard for me to imagine them interacting with people by choice. i also like the idea about humans domesticating ourselves in a way, that's interesting, i never really thought about it like that before.
i hear ya, i really dislike selective breeding, or really any kind of breeding i guess, so when i first saw the fox thing it kinda bothered me, but i guess i feel better after thinking about it, like how it's for science and not just for human pleasure, like they're not being bred as pets or anything. i guess i mainly just feel bad for the aggressive foxes, heh. but yeah. really fascinating to me that all these seemingly unrelated traits are actually all linked some way or another in genetics.
oh, and thanks!! :D
haha, "DINO-SAUUUUUU-CEEEEEERRRRRRRRRSSSSS!"
I was gonna say you need some Xenozoic love if you're doing a dino comic, but I guess C&D will do. Dino Riders was the shit. I still have my VHS tapes. Mmmmm, dino-haunches.
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