Final Flashcards
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8 or 7 mya-
common ancestor between chimps, gorillas, and hominins
2.5/2.4 mya-
earliest stone tools to butchery. Meat higher incorporated into diet
1.8-1.5 mya-
many hominin species in Africa w/ different adaptations. Possibly fire
800 kya-
or possibly fire here. Greater volatility in climate. Faunal turnover. Divergence between MH and N/D
200 kya-
morphologically Neanderthals in Europe
100-50 kya-
MH migrate out of Africa and mates with N. MH go to Australia
40 or 39 kya-
N disappear
23-12 kya-
immigration of homo sapiens into Americas
Sixth Mass Extinction
Holocene - present
1.3% of mammal species extinct
At least 20% in half of mammalian orders
Glacial-Interglacial Cycles
Large continental ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere have grown and retreated many times in the past. We call times with large ice sheets “glacial periods” (or ice ages) and times without large ice sheets “interglacial periods”. The most recent glacial period was about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago. Since then, Earth has been in an interglacial period called the Holocene.
Glacial periods are _______, ______, and generally _____ than interglacial periods
colder, dustier, and generally drier
What causes glacial-interglacial cycles?
Variations in Earth’s orbit have changed the amount of solar radiation in the Northern Hemisphere. These glacial-interglacial cycles have waxed and waned throughout the Quaternary Period (the last 2.6 million years.) Since the middle Quaternary, glacial-interglacial cycles have had a frequency of about 100,000 years.
In the solar radiation time series, cycles of this length (known as “eccentricity”) are present but are weaker than cycles lasting about 23,000 years (which are called the “precession of the equinoxes”).
Solar radiation varies smoothly through time with a strong cyclicity of ~23,000 years.
Interglacial periods tend to occur during periods of peak solar radiation in the _________ ___________ summer. However, full interglacials occur only about every _____ peak in the precession cycle.
Northern Hemisphere, fifth
Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger Events
(D-O)Rapid climate fluctuations that occurred 25 times during the last glacial period.
(Heinrich) a natural phenomenon in which large armadas of icebergs break off from glaciers and traverse the North Atlantic.
The Younger Dryas
One of the most well-known examples of abrupt change
About 14,500 years ago, Earth’s climate began to shift from a cold, glacial world to a warmer, interglacial state
Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to near-glacial conditions. This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower that grows in cold conditions and became common in Europe at this time
The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 ya was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10 C (18 F) in a decade
Clovis Points
~12,800 to 13,100 BP
Buttermilk Creek Complex:
15,500 BP
North American Extinction When?
10000 and 12000 years.
Butchered mammoth bones excavated in southeastern Wisconsin date regional human presence to between ___ and ____ ka
14.8 and 14.1
Current Risks
Extreme Climate Change Nuclear War Global Pandemic Ecological Collapse Global System Collapse
Exogenic Risk
Major Asteroid IMpact
Super-Volcano
Emerging Risk
Synthetic Biology Nanotechnology Artificial Intelligence Unknown Consequences Future Bad Global Governance
Madagascar: Geographic and Geological History
World’s 4th largest island
About the size of California
Located 400 km east of Africa in Indian Ocean
Originally part of Pangaea, later Gondwanaland
Broke off and reached current position relative to Africa 130my
India broke off 88 my, Australia and Antarctica probably earlier
Madagascar: Climate and Environments
Mostly tropical, incredibly varied North and West: Dry forests East and Sambirano: humid forests South: Spiny forest Central plateau: cool, mix of grassland and woodland Long history of climate instability
Madagascar: A naturalist’s paradise
Varied environments help maintain high levels of biodiversity Long isolation has led to high levels of unique biodiversity (endemism) 52% of bird species 80% of flowering plants 95% of reptiles 99% of amphibians 100% of primate species are endemic >100 extant species, 5 families
So lemurs are extremely diverse in
Total number of species
Phylogenetic distinctiveness
Number of species unique to their environment
Lemur Origins
Lemurs are related to other strepsirhines from Africa, Asia (galagos, pottos, lorises)
Strepsirhine traits:
Large eyes, tapetum lucidum
Moist noses (rhinarium), reliance on scent marking
Dental comb
Grooming claw (2nd digit of foot)
Lemurs split from African common ancestor ca. __-__mya
57-75 mya
Began to diversify from single common ancestor in Madagascar ca.
50-60 mya
How did lemurs get to Madagascar?
Rafted from Africa
“Sweepstakes dispersal”
Evidence from genetics, fossil record, palaeogeography (including ancient currents)
Except… (evidence for lemur relation)
Propotto: 16-23 mya, Kenya
Plesiopithecus: 34 mya, Egypt
Teeth are similar/evolved like Madagascar lemurs
Could move lemur to Madagascar date to 20-40 mya
With less competition, lemurs underwent
adaptive radiation
Lemur variety in activity
diurnal (day), nocturnal (night), cathemeral (both, activities occur during day and night, and some shift from mostly daytime to mostly night over a yearly cycle)
Lemur variety in diet
frugivory (fruit), folivory (leaves), insectivory, omnivory, gumnivory, granivory
Lemur variety in vertical space
arboreal, terrestrial
What are ecosystem services?
Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits that humans freely gain from the natural environment and from properly-functioning ecosystems
Four categories of ecosystem services
Supporting
Nutrient recycling, primary production and soil formation
Provisioning
Food, raw materials, genetic resources, water, energy
Regulating
Pollination, carbon sequestration, waste decomposition, purification of water and ai, pest control
Cultural services
Use of nature as motif in books, film, spiritual and historical, recreation, science and education
Lemur families
Lemuridae: diverse, medium size
Lemur catta
Prolemur simus
Indriidae: Largest body size
Propithecus verreauxi
Indri indri
Lepilemuridae: Single living genus; 19 species (up from 8 in 2006)
Lepilemur edwardsi
Cheirogaleidae: Smallest body size; torpor
Microcebus rufus
Mirza zaza
Daubentoniidae: Monotypic genus, highly specialized extractive forager
Daubentonia madagascarensis
Lemur Traits
Small group sizes Many pair-bonded species Low basal metabolic rates (BMR) Highly seasonal breeders: 1-2 weeks/year Female dominance Sexually monomorphic Priority of access to food Lead group movements Small body size Adaptations to unpredictable climate Energy conservation
Lemur body size distribution
Strepsirhines from <0.5 to 4-5
Old World Monkeys and Apes from 4-5 to 100+ (going down sharply from 5-8)
Extinct Lemurs
In the last 1000 years, 8 genera and > 17 species disappeared
No lemur fossil record older than 20 ky
Subfossils, mostly found in caves
Extinct Lemurs (types)
Lemuridae Pachylemur 10kg Arboreal frugivore Related to Varecia Archaeolemuridae
Archaeolemur, Hadropithecus
“Monkey lemurs”
15-25 kg
Terrestrial, diverse diets
Paleopropithecidae Paleopropithecus, archaeoindris, babakotia, mesopropithecus “Sloth lemurs” 10-200 kg Mostly arboreal, suspensory
Megaladapidae Megaladapis “Koala lemurs” 20-80 kg Slow climbers
Extinctions were non-random
All extinct genera were diurnal
All extinct species were larger
Largest living lemur: Indri (6-7 kg)
Largest extinct lemur: Archaeoindris ≤ 200 kg
Humans arrived Madagascar ca.
2000ky
Earliest settlers likely from Borneo
Among most distant colonization events in human history (on outrigger canoes)
Successive migrations from East Africa
Economies based on agriculture (slash-and-burn rice cultivation) and herding (cattle imported from Africa and Asia)
Early evidence of hunting of wildlife
Habitat loss
Slash-and-burn agriculture led to clearing of forests
Large areas burned for cattle pasture (“green bite”)
Large body size = large range requirements
Cattle and other domesticates competed with native fauna
Slowest and largest species may have been preferred prey
How are surviving species different?
Reduction in body size
Smaller geographic distribution
Nearly absent from central high plateau
Greatly reduced in all other regions
Evolutionary Disequilibrium Hypothesis
Extinction of large raptors, lemurs opened up diurnal niches
Modern lemurs not yet in “balance” with new environment
Aims to account for unusual lemur traits
Cathemerality
Pair bonds with multi-male groups
However, adaptations (e.g. cathemerality) have been stable for long time
Did lemurs expand to fill open niches?
Niche expansion or competitive release
What’s happening now? (lemurs)
19 Vulnerable
52 Endangered
23 Critically Endangered
Over 90% species in elevated threat categories
Ongoing threats to lemur extinction
Human Population Growth 2.9% annual growth rate (0.7 in US) 43% of population under 15 (20% in US) Deforestation 80-90% of original forest cover lost About half lost since 1950 Currently 0.45% annual forest loss Fragmentation, degradation Isolation of forests limits migration Edge effects change microclimate, forest composition Hunting Eroding traditional taboos Subsistence, little for market Models from harvest data indicate unsustainable rates Mining Small scale (gold, gems) Large scale (nickel, ilmenite) Politics, poverty Rosewood crisis Climate change
The Trade-Off Hypothesis
The direction a parasite may take in evolving to harm or benefit its’ host will depend on the relationship between the level of harm it causes (virulence) its’ mode and rate of transmission
Vector-borne
Malaria, sleeping sickness, yellow fever, dengue, typhus, epidemic plague
Sit-and wait
Tuberculosis, smallpox, epidemic plague
Attendant-borne
Nosocomial diarrhea and staph; 1918 influenza
Waterborne
Cholera, shigellosis, typhoid
In order to have high mortality, the parasite needs to get around the problem of
of a sick or dead host being a poor vector.
HPV and cervical cancer
HPV phylogeny A group HPV is dominant in Europe, Asia and the Americas today 33% infected 10-20% mortality 3-6% world population
Three issues
The social problem
The agriculture problem
Horizontal gene transfer
Vaccines work _______________ while drugs work _______________ (transmission is key)
prophylactically, therapeutically
(origin) Limits the accumulation of genetic diversity before intervention
(spread) Pre-transmission clearance reduces opportunity for selection on partial resistance during spread
Vaccines are often
multitarget
(origin) Combination-like effect reduces chance that resistance will appear
(spread) mosaic-like effect reduces the transmission advantage of resistance
ebola symptoms
Fever Malaise Headache Sore throat Vomiting Diarrhea Joint and muscle pain \+ coagulopathy, maculopapular rash
ebola is
virulent
ebola reservoirs
Fruit bats Characteristics that make them a reasonable reservoir Evidence What is seropositive They eat fruit
Apes also eat fruit Social structure Single-male Polygnous Not female-bonded
In Apes High mortality Apparent waves of infection Role of roads Bushmeat
Yoni vs Yelisandro
Trust, leadership Yoni had ebola and Yelisandro did not Swear bombs Tumbu: maggot that they thought spread ebola Secret societies What is home? What is human? Humanization vs. de-humanization
On to humans
Bat to human Ape to human ? to Human Bats Apes Forest Roads? Social networks
Gene-culture coevolution of resistance to malaria
Observations:
Sickle cell and malaria do occur
Mosquitos breed on cultivated land
Many of the worst human diseases are those we get from animals
Smallpox Flu Tuberculosis Malaria Plague Measles Cholera Endemic in animals; deadly in humans
The Black Death
Hypothesis: fleas and rats Killed possibly 60% of europe Origin in China in 1334 Spread via trade Peaks in Europe from 1347 to 1351
A real plague: Malaria
Vector-borne (mosquitoes)
Infects hundreds of millions per year (~500 million)
Kills ~1 million/year, mostly young, mostly males
Endemic in Africa; less so in other low-latitude areas
Treatable but treatment inferior to prevention
A real plague: AIDS
First identified as a syndrome in the late 1970s
Largely isolated at that time to homosexual men and intravenous drug users
HIV identified in the mid 1980s
Efforts to reduce both virulence (via treatment) and transmission (via education)
Effective treatments by the 1990s
glacial ice =
Glacial Ice = Precipitation (rain)
Lighter water evaporates easier
Rain has more light water in it
Temperature Curve of Planet Earth
Ratio of O16 to O18 O16 lighter O18 heavier Ice: enriched in O16 Seawater composition: Iced times: enriched in O18 Ice-free: enriched in O16
The Greenhouse Effect
Energy from the Sun -> heat moved around the earth by atmosphere and oceans
Heat radiated from Earth -> blocked by greenhouse gases (water vapor, CO2, methane), radiated back to Earth
In terms of planet Earth: the atmosphere is composed of
78% nitrogen and 20% oxygen - also 2% water vapor and 0.03% CO2 (greenhouse gases)
Water vapor and carbon dioxide have been part of our atmosphere for millions of years
Their presence yields an average surface temperature of ____
Without them, the average would be ____
60, 5 f
CO2 increase by ___ over the industrial era
31%
What are the consequences of climate change?
Global temperatures: up 0.7 - 1.4 F over past 100 years
Consistent with warming: glacial retreat, snow-cover decrease, freeze-free periods lengthened
Sea level increased: 4-8 in.
Most of the warming over the past 50 years is likely to be due to greenhouse gas increases
CO2 abundance will likely double before
2100
Land areas _____ more than Oceans
warm (North America: 40% above average)
Increased mid-continental soil drying
Population growth
The rate of human population growth appears too high for current levels of consumption.
1900 - now: population has gone from 1.6 billion to more than 7 billion
forward momentum
At replacement rate, ~2.1 children per female it would still take 2-3 generations for population to stabilize
Almost ⅓ of world population is under 15 and has not yet reproduced
Current composite fertility rate for less developed world (excluding China) ~3.7 children per female
Population growth fueled by
continued decline in mortality rate
___ of population have a standard of living from “mild deprivation” to “severe deficiency”
80%
Millenium Development Goals
Eradicate poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat hiv/aids, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Global partnership for development
One Child Policy
Club of Rome influenced Song Jian, missile scientist Few demographers Historically particular Scientism over science
One Child Policy in practice
22 policy exceptions
Exempting some ethnic groups
Rural exemptions
Being a miner
How many births were avoided from One Child Policy?
Official claim: 400 million
Alternate estimate: 100 million
Too many boys?
What is Earth’s optimum population?
2 to 3 billion?
More than one-third of pregnancies in developing countries are unintended
Most unintended pregnancies occur among women who were not using any contraceptive
What is unmet need?
Women have an unmet need if they Are sexually active Do not want to have a child soon or at all Are not using any contraceptive method Are able to conceive
Who has unmet need?
Fifteen percent of married women in developing countries
24% in sub-saharan africa
11% in south and southeast asia
10% in North Africa and West Asia
12% in Latin America and the Caribbean
9% of never-married women in sub-saharan africa
5% of never-married women in Latin America
More than 100 million married women have an unmet need for contraception
Unmet need guidelines
Start late, stop at two, meet unmet contraceptive needs, create conditions where family planning is desired and possible
Enrico Fermi
First nuclear fission experiments in US, 1934 at Columbia
Einstein’s letter
Delivered on October 11, 1939 by a banker to Roosevelt
Manhattan Project
Controlled by J. Leslie Groves, US Army Corps of Engineers
Science directed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Berkeley physicist
Initially a small research group
Ultimately 130,000 people
Cost 2 billion (22 billion today)
Two types of “extremely powerful bombs”
Little Boy: untested, uranium, explosion
Fat Man: tested, plutonium, implosion
Enrico Fermi
Trinity Test experiment
Dropped small pieces of paper before, during, and after passage of the blast wave
Shift was about 2 ½ meters, which Fermi estimated the bomb’s blast as 10,000 tons of TNT
How powerful was the Trinity test?
Estimate: 5.000 tons
Fermi: 10,000 tons
Actual: 21,000 tons
Knocked people down over 5 miles away
Hiroshima
August 6 (Little Boy [uranium, untested, explosion]: 15,000 tons TNT) The dead 70,000 instantly (US Energy Dept.) Up to 166,000 within a few months 200,000 by 1950
Nagasaki:
August 9 (Fat Man [plutonium, tested, implosion] 21,000 tons) Dead 40,000 dead, 60k injured instantly 70k dead within first few months 140,000 dead by 1950
Ivy Mike:
November 1, 1952
12 million tons of TNT (compared to 15k Little Boy, 21k Fat Man)
Castle Bravo:
March 1, 1954
15 million tons TNT, several thousand times more powerful than Little Boy or Fat Man)
Moore’s Law
pace of technology
Number of transistors doubling every 24 months
“Learning Curve” for Gene Sequencing
On the way to a $1000 full genome sequencing
GMO Corn
Yield from 30 bushels/acre to ~300 bu/acre by 2020
Wormwood
GMO salmon
Triploid for sterility
Growth hormone protein gene from Chinook salmon
Synthetic Biology is a new approach
Automated construction
Built to a standard
“Abstraction
CRISPR
‘Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats’
In bacteria and archaea, recognize and cut exogenous genetic elements, uses Cas9 protein
Allows cutting of genome relatively cheaply at any location
artificial narrow intelligence
Exists
Is powerful
Is a tool
Must have problem specified
artificial general intelligence
I - artificial general intelligence
Like a human
Can think about any problem, thus can solve problems
Has motivation
artificial superintelligence
Kind of like God
Quick leap to ASI
Hardware and software advantages
Speed, size, upgrades, collective capacity
Human neurons at 200 Hz
Microprocessors already 2 Ghz (10 million times faster)
3 roads to AI
A. Evolve it
- Advantage: no understanding required
- Advantage: but we have good theory on the process (evolutionary theory) so we may be able to predict and model result
- Disadvantage: we can never control it
B. Copy it
- Advantage: only proximate understanding, not ultimate understanding needed
- Advantage: it will likely act human
- Advantage: we can pretend it is us
- Disadvantage: it will likely act human
- Disadvantage: probably can’t control it
C. Design it
- Disadvantage: need a kind of ultimate understanding
- Advantage: maybe we can control it
- Disadvantage: but we probably can’t control it
- Disadvantage: motivations can become inscrutable, mysterious, unknowable
Neo-Malthusian
the limit of resources to humans will be reached and there will be a problem
cornucopian optimist
believe we will find a way to make earth’s resources meet human needs
how many languages in the world?
6909 languages
how many languages are safe out of 7000?
about 600
mutant NPC1
two mutant NPC1 and you are resistant to ebola
commensalism
symbiotic relationship where one organism benefits and the other is unaffected
orthogenesis
life has innate tendency to evolve in an unlinear fashion due to some driving force
Dates of the 5 major extinctions
End ordivician - 444 mya Late devonian - 374 mya End Permian - 251 mya End Triassic - 201.6 mya End Cretaceous - 65.95 mya
