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Biol 400 > Hidden and mythical organisms > Flashcards

Hidden and mythical organisms Flashcards

1
Q

What is a sphinx?

A

body of a lion, wings and head of a woman (greek mythology) head of a king (Egypt)

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2
Q

what is a manticore?

A

body of a lion; face of a person; can shoot arrows from stinging tail; also a maneater

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3
Q

What is a basilisk?

A

the king of snakes; one glance at the basilisk brings death

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4
Q

What is a mandrake? Who was the first to describe it?

A

Root resembles a human figure; when pulled from earth, it emits a shriek that kills anyone who hears it
Josephus AD 1st century

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5
Q

What was the Apple of sodom?

A

grows at the site of the former towns of sodom and Gomorrah, which god destroyed in his righteous wrath over lustful behaviour. when an apple from the tree is picked, it turns to ashes and smoke in the hands

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6
Q

what is the Ziebra tree?

A

a tree full of bare-breasted mystics and philosophers

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7
Q

When was the first mention of the unicorn?

A

Ctesias, Greek historian 398 BC

he wrote of the unicorn living in India. It was larger than a hourse, had a horn half a meter long.

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8
Q

Filings from the Unicorn horn were used for what?

A

an antidote to poison

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9
Q

When was the unicorn mentioned for the second time in history? Why?

A

The old testament 3rd century BC
Alexandrian Scho;ars wanted to translate books of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek, and were stuck on the Hebrew re’em, they chose monokeros or unicorn.

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10
Q

What is the actual meaning if re-em?

A

Ancestor of domestic cattle

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11
Q

What story teller also told the story of the unicorn?

A

Pliny

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12
Q

What was the legend of the Unicorn in Arab, Jewish, and Christian mythology?

A

Arab - huge unicorn, could kill elephants
Jewish - unicorn was too big to fit on Noahs ark but survived by treading water
Christian: Unicorn could only be caught by virgins with a large net

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13
Q

Who discerned the source of the unicorn and what was it?

A

Marco polo, indian rhino

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14
Q

What was Alicorn (supposedly and actually)?

A

Claimed it was a medicinal unicorn horn and could cure poison, bur was actually a narwhal horn

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15
Q

What is the Upas tree?

A

Also known as a Javan Tree of death, and that name gave it biblical Credibility

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16
Q

Where was the Upas (javan) tree first mentioned ?

A

by Friar Oderich of Portenau and then Sir John Mandeville, in The Travels of Sir John Mandelville, who claimed that it made the deadliest poison in the word

17
Q

Did Sir John Mandeville exist?

A

No, the book was concocted by an unidentified fraudster

18
Q

What were the emelishments of the Java tree made by Dr. Englebert (1712), Rumphius (1741) and in the London Magazine (1783)?

A

Dr. Engelbert: Spoke about it in his book, Emoenitates exoticae, where criminals would collect sap and if they lived they would be free
Rumphius: Claimed a poisonous gas is emitted by the tree
London Magazine: Danger zone radius of the tree was 12-14 miles, where 700 criminals attepted to collect sap and only 70 returned

19
Q

What literature did the story of Upas tree end up in?

A

Loves of Plants (Erasmus Darwin)
The Law of Java; of The Poision Tree (London play)
Anchar (Alexander Pushkin)

20
Q

What could be an explanation for all the dead animals around the Java tree?

A

confounding of two phenomena; a poisonous tree, and deadly CO2 emmisions from a dormant volcano.

21
Q

Who set out to confirm the truth about the Upas tree and what did he find?

A

Leschenault in 1804
He confirmed a poisonous latex from the tree that affects the heart (contains antiarin)

22
Q

Who was the Piltdown man?

A

supposed human ancestor whose cranium, jaw and teeth were excavated in sussex, south London, in the period 1908-1915

23
Q

Players of Piltdown

who was Charles dawson

A

Amateur fossil collector; collected for the British museum; made most of the Piltdown discoveries

24
Q

Players of Piltdown

Sir arthur Smith Woodward was who?

A

chief of the department of Natural History at the British museum; paleoichthyologist; Dawsons ally, helped with excavation

25
Q

Players of Piltdown

Who is Pierre Teilhard de chardin?

A

scientist-priest; Jesuit, Theologian, paleontologist; friend of Dawson

26
Q

Players of Piltdown

Sir arthur Keith

A

anatomist, paleontologist; influential defender of the piltdown fossil

27
Q

Players of Piltdown

who was Martin Hilton?

A

Curator of zoology at the british museum; fossil deposition expert

28
Q

Players of Piltdown

who was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

A

author of the Sherlock Holms stories; friend and neighbour of Dawson; Participated in the dig

29
Q

What were the significant Piltdown discoveries?

A

Fragments of two humanlike craniums

two humanlike molar teeth

parts of an apelike lower jaw

30
Q

What was the initial reception of the Piltdown bone discoveries?

A

possible bones from two different animals

was welcomed by British due to it supporting the brain first hypothesis

31
Q

What ended up happening to the piltdown man?

A

Hoax was exposed in 1953 when the bones and teeth were found to be modern. Also the bones had been artificially stained to make them look old, and the teeth had file marks on them

32
Q

who was suspected for the Piltdown hoax?

A

charles Dawson

woodward- co conspirator

Hilton had staining equipment in attic

33
Q

What were these Piltdown bones actually found to be?

Cranium

jaw

teeth

A

Cranium - human 600 years old

Jaw - orangutan - 500 years old

Teeth - chimp that were filed down

34
Q

What is the repercussions of hoaxes in science?

A

Waste of time and ink

Retarded the acceptance of Australopithecus fossils that were found in south Africa as human ancestors. (which were real)

35
Q

How do false scientific stories arise and spread?

11 possible ways

A

observations of real organisms

a priori reasoning

confounding of two or more organisms or two or more phenomena

secondhard reporting

mistranslation

exaggeration

authorities giving too much credence

difficulty of verification

appearance in literature

outright fakery

good story

Biol 400 (20 decks)

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