The base of the log can be accounted for by a constant scale factor, because, for example, if n is the number of bison,
log10(n)
= log10(e^ln(n))
= ln(n) log10(e)
and log10(e) is a constant.
This change of base is a linear scale on the logs.
Hence we can just take log 10 of the numbers of bison, and scale the answer by a constant factor which is log10(correct base), getting
7.778, 2.477 and 4.477
Scale that by about 2 = log10(100) to match the 5 bison in the middle pictogram, and there should be
16, 5, 9 bison on a logarithmic scale.
It's trying to tell people who think it's too much work to bother that it's not. I do it all the time, like when I have to wash the dishes and I tell myself "I'll just wash one dish" because I know if I do that I'll be a lot more motivated to continue, but if I keep looking at the whole problem before I start, I'll be too overwhelmed to do anything at all.
That's about how I read it. Sometimes you don't have a solution to fix a problem, but ceasing to make it worse is a valuable course of action in itself. The bison aren't back the way they were, but they're not extinct either.
Sure, the bison population is 0.05% of what it once was. And now that we're not actively attempting to extinct them, everything is hunky dory and no more work is needed.
I don't know how else to interpret this. It sounds like the Bison Society would rather be a society dedicated to literal anything else. The Kick the Can Down the Road Society, perhaps.
We just need dithering with different levels of grey representing a different amount of Bison, arranged so that the macro pattern still registers as a Bison; but in fact it would be a mega Bison.
Settlers killed buffalo to force indigenous people into the reservation system. It was a big part of the genocide here, worth looking into if you get the chance.
Isn't that a water buffalo? Not the same animal as the American Bison (commonly known as the American Buffalo.) I think once they have a 200 year old city named for them, you just have to accept that that's what they're called.
Each buffalo in the first picture represents 242,914 buffalo. Which means the last picture would be about 1/10th of a bison, and the middle one would be just the tip of a horn.
Each buffalo in the second picture represents 75 bison. By that metric, the first picture almost comes close to representing the third number. But the third picture just doesn't fit here, and the first number is so huge you'd need at least 2000 times picture one to represent it.
Yep. They are also far better for the land they graze on than cattle, as they evolved here, and so they generally eat only what they should and don't overgraze. The meat is also far leaner and healthier than beef. We really should stop raising cattle and raise bison. The biggest issue is even "domesticated" bison are far more wild and dangerous to raise than the cattle we have bred to be docile. So risk averse ranchers are not interested.
Yeah, American bison don’t take well to husbandry, simply because they’re aggressive. They’re territorial and have bad eyesight, so their first inclination when they see a human-sized blob is usually to attack.
But yes, if you’re going to eat red meat, bison is much better than beef. It’s so lean that natives could dry it and pound it into powder for trail snacking. You can’t do that with modern beef, because it has too much fat. Even beef jerky tends to be pretty greasy.
Apparently there is a certain amount of inbreeding with cattle, but several large herds without any interbreeding with cattle are closely managed to prevent inbreeding.
I don't know the history of bison population. From the image, I assume there used to be a ton of bison. But then a science experiment involving velociraptors went awry, and only a small group of bison were left alive. Then those bison made an uprising against the velociraptor-experiments and invaded their area, allowing their population to grow again.
Science/Biology question for someone. If the Bison that exist today are all sourced from those last 300 Bison, are there genetic bottlenecks/recessive traits and defects that we've just permanently given to the entire Bison species forever and ever?
Yes, for real. It is a shame that the European water buffalo is extinct for thousands of years. But we there are obviously Asian water buffalo in say Italy for mozarella production. It might make for a good proxy. Thankfully we do have some permafrost examples, so cloning might be an option.
First of all, because we would need the DNA of those animals. Sure, you can cobble some shit together, to make an animal that looks like that extinct species, but it would not actually be that extinct species.
Another issue is the biome/niche that species lived in. They either went extinct because of changes to their environment, or, they went extinct, and that caused changes in their environment. So if you want to bring the species back, you also need to make sure they have a suitable environment to survive in.
You also can't just bring back one. A population needs generic diversity to adapt and survive. So to de-extinct a species, you need to bring back like 25 generically varied examples. Much more work than just creating a single specimen.
Behavior matters for a species as well. If orcas went extinct in the wild, and we brought them back with a breeding program in zoos and aquarium and just released those solitary orcas into the wild, do you think they would act like orcas? Would they hunt with the same techniques? I think the pack mentality would be gone, their "language" would be gone, and I don't think they would survive.
The reality is, extinction is a permanent thing. We may possibly have the ability to bring a species "back" but there will be permanent, population-altering irreversible effects from going extinct in the first place.
Just to add to your point. But if anyone wants a good example of what a genetic bottleneck can do to a species look no further than the cheetah, poor bastards have nigh universal anxiety. Let alone the fact that they are about as genetically diverse as a rural Icelandic town populated exclusively by scions of the Von Habsburgs, seriously they are all universal donors for each other and donated organ rejections are basically non existent.
76 Comments
Asafum@lemmy.world · 146 pts · 100d
30,000 is roughly 1/3 of 60,000,000.
VERY roughly. Lol
DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca · 83 pts · 100d
Logarithmically scaled image. I'll leave the determination of the base of the Log as an exercise for the viewer.
gmtom@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 100d
I would show my proof, but I don't have enough space in this margin
Jamesian@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 100d
I'm here for this comment all day.
neatchee@piefed.social · 4 pts · 100d
well, we know bison in the middle are worth approximately 75 each...
davidagain@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 99d
That's what I thought, so I investigated.
The base of the log can be accounted for by a constant scale factor, because, for example, if n is the number of bison,
log10(n)
= log10(e^ln(n))
= ln(n) log10(e) and log10(e) is a constant.
This change of base is a linear scale on the logs.
Hence we can just take log 10 of the numbers of bison, and scale the answer by a constant factor which is log10(correct base), getting
7.778, 2.477 and 4.477
Scale that by about 2 = log10(100) to match the 5 bison in the middle pictogram, and there should be
16, 5, 9 bison on a logarithmic scale.
The diagram is also wrong if it's logarithmic.
ShotDonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 100d
OBVIOUSLY!!
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 100d
yeah this graphic is terrible
brbposting@sh.itjust.works · -9 pts · 100d
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 100d
...are you a bot trying to trick users into pedantically identifying images for your training data? Cus these are not what you claim the are.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 100d
muhyb@programming.dev · 6 pts · 100d
Yeah, we need 799613 more bison images to justify the graphic.
Objection@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 100d
It's only off by roughly 20,000,000
Paradachshund@lemmy.today · 70 pts · 100d
Each of the bison shapes in the 60mil example are actually clusters of bison so small you can't see them with the naked eye.
lugal@sopuli.xyz · 16 pts · 100d
Jokes on you, I wear glasses and still can't see them
Apocalypteroid@anarchist.nexus · 9 pts · 100d
Jokes on you, I have no eyes and I can't even read what you said.
blackbrook@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 100d
The jokes on you, the post you couldn't read contains the winning lottery numbers.
CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 100d
Jokes on you, those winning lottery numbers were for the hunger games. Here’s your bow and arrow
DiarrheaSommelier@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 100d
Joke's on you, my eyes are the only part of me that isn't naked right now.
village604@adultswim.fan · 1 pts · 100d
Each bison image is worth 75 bison according to the middle section.
lectricleopard@lemmy.world · 68 pts · 100d
The decision to stop was required, but a ton of work was done to help the population rebound. What kind of misguided message is this trying to send?
Signtist@bookwyr.me · 34 pts · 100d
It's trying to tell people who think it's too much work to bother that it's not. I do it all the time, like when I have to wash the dishes and I tell myself "I'll just wash one dish" because I know if I do that I'll be a lot more motivated to continue, but if I keep looking at the whole problem before I start, I'll be too overwhelmed to do anything at all.
stray@pawb.social · 4 pts · 99d
That's about how I read it. Sometimes you don't have a solution to fix a problem, but ceasing to make it worse is a valuable course of action in itself. The bison aren't back the way they were, but they're not extinct either.
AppleTea@lemmy.zip · 24 pts · 100d
Sure, the bison population is 0.05% of what it once was. And now that we're not actively attempting to extinct them, everything is hunky dory and no more work is needed.
I don't know how else to interpret this. It sounds like the Bison Society would rather be a society dedicated to literal anything else. The Kick the Can Down the Road Society, perhaps.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 99d
"Send us money" probably
TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 100d
I think it gets the point across even if it's off by orders of magnitude.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 100d
I get that, but I personally think 60,000,000 tiny buffalo would be more impactful. Can someone do a quick edit in Photoshop?
Balex@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 100d
There's not even 60,000,000 pixels in that image.
crimson_iris@piefed.social · 4 pts · 99d
Well not with that attitude.
crimsonpoodle@pawb.social · 1 pts · 100d
We just need dithering with different levels of grey representing a different amount of Bison, arranged so that the macro pattern still registers as a Bison; but in fact it would be a mega Bison.
j_z@feddit.nu · 29 pts · 100d
Because they finally caged the velociraptor in the middle image?
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 100d
Look at the gunbarrel around it. That's the velociraptor equivalent of James Bond. You can't put it in a cage.
angrystego@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 100d
It's the veliciraptor you're aiming at, while the clever girl is watching you.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 99d
It turns out that we were the velociraptors all along.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 100d
I don't think this is to scale.
Plebajer@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 100d
I agree. Bison are much larger than that.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 100d
Are you sure?
Fishy@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 100d
Log scale?
expatriado@lemmy.world · 47 pts · 100d
graph designer "i don't like math" scale
cddlhssy@sh.itjust.works · 25 pts · 99d
Settlers killed buffalo to force indigenous people into the reservation system. It was a big part of the genocide here, worth looking into if you get the chance.
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net · -1 pts · 99d
This is a buffalo:
They are not the same animal as American bison, which are also not European bison for that matter.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 16 pts · 99d
Isn't that a water buffalo? Not the same animal as the American Bison (commonly known as the American Buffalo.) I think once they have a 200 year old city named for them, you just have to accept that that's what they're called.
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net · -7 pts · 99d
or as you woul call it a water bison...
Also the city was not on land, which had American bison, so no it is not named after the animal.
F_State@midwest.social · 2 pts · 98d
No but the American Buffalo is also called a buffalo which is also a correct term.
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 99d
All the icons are American Buffalo though.
tinfoilhat@lemmy.ml · 23 pts · 99d
Each buffalo in the first picture represents 242,914 buffalo. Which means the last picture would be about 1/10th of a bison, and the middle one would be just the tip of a horn.
SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org · 3 pts · 99d
Each buffalo in the second picture represents 75 bison. By that metric, the first picture almost comes close to representing the third number. But the third picture just doesn't fit here, and the first number is so huge you'd need at least 2000 times picture one to represent it.
saimen@feddit.org · 1 pts · 99d
Did you really count them?
nexguy@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 100d
TIL There are 30,000 free roaming bison but there are 500,000 total including privately owned and commercial herds.
Soapbox@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 99d
Yep. They are also far better for the land they graze on than cattle, as they evolved here, and so they generally eat only what they should and don't overgraze. The meat is also far leaner and healthier than beef. We really should stop raising cattle and raise bison. The biggest issue is even "domesticated" bison are far more wild and dangerous to raise than the cattle we have bred to be docile. So risk averse ranchers are not interested.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 99d
Yeah, American bison don’t take well to husbandry, simply because they’re aggressive. They’re territorial and have bad eyesight, so their first inclination when they see a human-sized blob is usually to attack.
But yes, if you’re going to eat red meat, bison is much better than beef. It’s so lean that natives could dry it and pound it into powder for trail snacking. You can’t do that with modern beef, because it has too much fat. Even beef jerky tends to be pretty greasy.
crimsonpoodle@pawb.social · 16 pts · 100d
I like the optimistic message but the graph scale is throwing me
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 14 pts · 100d
300 is a hell of a bottleneck
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 100d
Apparently there is a certain amount of inbreeding with cattle, but several large herds without any interbreeding with cattle are closely managed to prevent inbreeding.
5too@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 99d
So I'm not bothered by the inconsistent scale... but why is there a dinosaur peeking through the bottom of the 1889 column?!
PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 10 pts · 99d
They were closing in on extinction?
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 100d
I don't know the history of bison population. From the image, I assume there used to be a ton of bison. But then a science experiment involving velociraptors went awry, and only a small group of bison were left alive. Then those bison made an uprising against the velociraptor-experiments and invaded their area, allowing their population to grow again.
How far off am I?
fossilesque@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 100d
Jolteon@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 99d
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 99d
Wait. I need to know more about the Aperture Science dinosaur in 1889.
just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 99d
So thats why charles in rdr2 was so mad about some foreigners killing bisons. Never knew they were endangered (also im not an american)
orioler25@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 99d
They weren't naturally, the US state nearly exterminated the species as a tool of genocide against multiple Native American nations.
just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 99d
"They were god damn monsters" (said in arthur morgan's voice)
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 100d
Science/Biology question for someone. If the Bison that exist today are all sourced from those last 300 Bison, are there genetic bottlenecks/recessive traits and defects that we've just permanently given to the entire Bison species forever and ever?
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org · 4 pts · 100d
Thank goodness for the Bronx Zoo and the WCS.
Jaimesmith@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 99d
Not perfect recovery, but still a powerful reminder that “too late” isn’t always true. Stopping the damage is step one.
ICastFist@programming.dev · 2 pts · 99d
THERE! ARE! FOUR!
LIGHTSBISONS!!eyes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 99d
There are 300 bison! presses button*
DancingBear@midwest.social · 2 pts · 100d
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 99d
Yes, for real. It is a shame that the European water buffalo is extinct for thousands of years. But we there are obviously Asian water buffalo in say Italy for mozarella production. It might make for a good proxy. Thankfully we do have some permafrost examples, so cloning might be an option.
Pman@lemmy.org · 2 pts · 100d
What is the genetic diversity of the bison? Are they are going to be very inbred soon and die out?
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 99d
No.
Trex202@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 100d
I thought this was about vaccines until I read the bottom.
kandoh@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 99d
It does the job
pomfegranate@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 100d
Not gonna lie, thought those were coffee tables until I zoomed in
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 100d
semi-serious question: i think almost every species extinct in recent history can be brought back to live with genetic engineering?
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 100d
Not really.
First of all, because we would need the DNA of those animals. Sure, you can cobble some shit together, to make an animal that looks like that extinct species, but it would not actually be that extinct species.
Another issue is the biome/niche that species lived in. They either went extinct because of changes to their environment, or, they went extinct, and that caused changes in their environment. So if you want to bring the species back, you also need to make sure they have a suitable environment to survive in.
You also can't just bring back one. A population needs generic diversity to adapt and survive. So to de-extinct a species, you need to bring back like 25 generically varied examples. Much more work than just creating a single specimen.
Behavior matters for a species as well. If orcas went extinct in the wild, and we brought them back with a breeding program in zoos and aquarium and just released those solitary orcas into the wild, do you think they would act like orcas? Would they hunt with the same techniques? I think the pack mentality would be gone, their "language" would be gone, and I don't think they would survive.
The reality is, extinction is a permanent thing. We may possibly have the ability to bring a species "back" but there will be permanent, population-altering irreversible effects from going extinct in the first place.
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 100d
As a biologist, can confirm.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 100d
Just to add to your point. But if anyone wants a good example of what a genetic bottleneck can do to a species look no further than the cheetah, poor bastards have nigh universal anxiety. Let alone the fact that they are about as genetically diverse as a rural Icelandic town populated exclusively by scions of the Von Habsburgs, seriously they are all universal donors for each other and donated organ rejections are basically non existent.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 100d
In theory, and ignoring a wide variety of yet unsolved problems, sure!
j5y7@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 100d
60,000,000? Seems like they would've starved anyway.