scholarly journals Possible poriferan body fossils in early Neoproterozoic microbial reefs

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth C. Turner

AbstractMolecular phylogeny indicates that metazoans (animals) emerged early in the Neoproterozoic era1, but physical evidence is lacking. The search for animal fossils from the Proterozoic eon is hampered by uncertainty about what physical characteristics to expect. Sponges are the most basic known animal type2,3; it is possible that body fossils of hitherto-undiscovered Proterozoic metazoans might resemble aspect(s) of Phanerozoic fossil sponges. Vermiform microstructure4,5, a complex petrographic feature in Phanerozoic reefal and microbial carbonates, is now known to be the body fossil of nonspicular keratosan demosponges6–10. This Article presents petrographically identical vermiform microstructure from approximately 890-million-year-old reefs. The millimetric-to-centimetric vermiform-microstructured organism lived only on, in and immediately beside reefs built by calcifying cyanobacteria (photosynthesizers), and occupied microniches in which these calcimicrobes could not live. If vermiform microstructure is in fact the fossilized tissue of keratose sponges, the material described here would represent the oldest body-fossil evidence of animals known to date, and would provide the first physical evidence that animals emerged before the Neoproterozoic oxygenation event and survived through the glacial episodes of the Cryogenian period.

Author(s):  
Adam Bradley

Abstract Bodily pain strikes many philosophers as deeply paradoxical. The issue is that pains seem to bear both physical characteristics, such as a location in the body, and mental characteristics, such being mind-dependent. In this paper I clarify and address this alleged paradox of pain. I begin by showing how a further assumption, Objectivism, the thesis that what one feels in one’s body when one is in pain is something mind-independent, is necessary for the generation of the paradox. Consequently, the paradox can be avoided if one rejects this idea. However, doing so raises its own difficulties, for it is not obvious how anything can possess all of the features we typically associate with bodily pain. To address this puzzle and finally put the paradox of pain to rest, I develop the Embodied View, a novel metaphysical account on which pains are constitutively mind-dependent features of parts of a subject’s body.


2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Çatikkaş

Whether or not the association between physical characteristics and body image satisfaction varies by gender was investigated. The sample included 148 male and 104 female college students aged 19-27 years. To assess body image satisfaction, the Body Image Satisfaction Questionnaire (Berscheid, Walster, & Bohrnstedt, 1973) was used. Body fat, waist to hip, chest to shoulder ratio, weight, and height were measured. The results indicate that males had significantly greater body image satisfaction than did females. There was a small but significant correlation between physical characteristics and body image satisfaction for females but not for males. The regression model, consisting of bodily measures, predicted a significant variance in female body image satisfaction. The same model failed to explain male body image satisfaction.


Paleobiology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip D. Mannion ◽  
Paul Upchurch

Both the body fossils and trackways of sauropod dinosaurs indicate that they inhabited a range of inland and coastal environments during their 160-Myr evolutionary history. Quantitative paleoecological analyses of a large data set of sauropod occurrences reveal a statistically significant positive association between non-titanosaurs and coastal environments, and between titanosaurs and inland environments. Similarly, “narrow-gauge” trackways are positively associated with coastal environments and “wide-gauge” trackways are associated with inland environments. The statistical support for these associations suggests that this is a genuine ecological signal: non-titanosaur sauropods preferred coastal environments such as carbonate platforms, whereas titanosaurs preferred inland environments such as fluvio-lacustrine systems. These results remain robust when the data set is time sliced and jackknifed in various ways. When the analyses are repeated using the more inclusive groupings of titanosauriforms and Macronaria, the signal is weakened or lost. These results reinforce the hypothesis that “wide-gauge” trackways were produced by titanosaurs. It is commonly assumed that the trackway and body fossil records will give different results, with the former providing a more reliable guide to the habitats occupied by extinct organisms because footprints are produced during life, whereas carcasses can be transported to different environments prior to burial. However, this view is challenged by our observation that separate body fossil and trackway data sets independently support the same conclusions regarding environmental preferences in sauropod dinosaurs. Similarly, analyzing localities and individuals independently results in the same environmental associations. We demonstrate that conclusions about environmental patterns among fossil taxa can be highly sensitive to an investigator's choices regarding analytical protocols. In particular, decisions regarding the taxonomic groupings used for comparison, the time range represented by the data set, and the criteria used to identify the number of localities can all have a marked effect on conclusions regarding the existence and nature of putative environmental associations. We recommend that large data sets be explored for such associations at a variety of different taxonomic and temporal scales.


2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Kaminski ◽  
Alfred Uchman ◽  
Theodor Neagu ◽  
Claudia G. Cetean

Abstract. The large, agglutinated foraminiferal genus Aschemocella Vialov, 1966 (type species Aschemonella carpathica Neagu, 1964) and the body fossil Halysium Świdziński, 1934 (type species Halysium problematicum Świdziński, 1934) are herein synonymized with the genus Arthrodendron Ulrich, 1904 (type species A. diffusum Ulrich, 1904), a form originally described as a marine alga from Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) flysch sediments of the Kodiak Formation of the Yakutat Group (formerly Yakutat Formation) on Pogibshi Island, Alaska. The species Aschemonella carpathica Neagu is regarded as a subjective junior synonym of Arthrodendron diffusum Ulrich, which is herein lectotypified and transferred to the Foraminifera.


2007 ◽  
Vol 274 (1616) ◽  
pp. 1361-1368 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J Varricchio ◽  
Anthony J Martin ◽  
Yoshihiro Katsura
Keyword(s):  

Phytotaxa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 201 (1) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander P. Sukhorukov ◽  
Maya Nilova

67 species of Tragopogon were investigated with regard to fruit anatomy. The outer achenes, especially the beak and the central part of the seed-containing body, provide the most valuable features (diameter and outlines of the body and the beak, and arrangement of the mechanical elements in the body parenchyma). Some specimens of widely distributed taxa (e.g. T. capitatus, T. dubius, T. pratensis, T. pseudomajor) show variation in the character set and require more investigation prior to further taxonomic treatment. The species studied are classified into informal groups to demonstrate the diversity of carpological traits within the genus, and a comparison is made with the existing molecular phylogeny. The separation of the genus Geropogon from Tragopogon is supported by the achene anatomy.


Author(s):  
Ivan Hvatov

Currently, the subject of the use of tools by animals is avidly explored in comparative psychology and evolution psychology. It is believed that the use of tools, if determined by instincts, is an evidence of complex cognitive processes in the animal, in particular, thinking. The abi­lity to use and make tools was discovered in primates, a number of mammals, birds and even invertebrates. However, the abovementioned animals show an already formed complex ability to use tools. Evolutionary preconditions and factors leading to emergence of the ability to use tools as a part of mental phylogenesis are understudied. The author of the paper offers a novel approach to exploring the preconditions for the use of tools based on the concept of self-reflection of animals and human as well as embodied cognition. According to the approach developed, the proto-tool is the body of the animal, which physical characteristics initially serve as an obstacle in achieving the goal of various activities; only afterwards, the animal recognizes its body as an opportunity, a means of affecting the environment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-212
Author(s):  
Alexsandra S Khorkova ◽  
Vladislav O Adilev

In the article special attention is paid to the description of the physical characteristics of the cyclical sports, such as swimming sports, also highlighted its recreational importance. The focus is on some physiological features of the main functional systems of the human body during swimming.


Author(s):  
Valentina Valentini

This chapter examines the vocal and sonorous dramaturgy of a series of performances by the Italian experimental theatre company Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, fromSanta Sofia(1986) to the cycleTragedia Endogonidia(2002–2004). The company aimed to create a new language calledGeneralissima, to satisfy the need for a re-foundation of theanti-logosof the word. Thus it experimented with the conflict that exists between voice and body and between the spoken word and action. The voice constitutes a terrain for experimentation, an adequate domain for the theatre to be regenerated, using the body to the side of technological manipulation of the voice. The aim is to allow the story to be told by sound, by the materiality of the voice, of the text and of the senseless utterances, together with the tactile sensations created by the physical characteristics of the environment.


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