The Future is Wild

[orange]

Did anyone watch this on Discovery channel or Animal Planet? What a fantastic show.

Basically they took animals of today and took them through millions of years of evolution, showing what they would be like in the future. Regardless of how accurate the predictions were (apparently they had a Stanford Scientist calling the shots...) it was extremely entertaining. Everything from Spiders that farm Rodents to Giant Tortises and Termite Armies...i really enjoyed it

They ran the program as humans having left the planet to colonize other worlds before disaster stuck earth sending probes back to explore the world...they visited Paris in 100 million years (now an ocean) and Calcutta (the future site of the Swamp of Bengal) as well as New York City (a desert within Pangaea II) and the South Pole (home of the Rainbow Squid and Sharkopath) among others.

Wow...very neat

[chequita guevara]

As long as you were amused.

[orange]

You didn't like?

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Re: The Future is Wild

Originally posted by orange
Did anyone watch this on Discovery channel or Animal Planet? What a fantastic show.

Basically they took animals of today and took them through millions of years of evolution, showing what they would be like in the future. Regardless of how accurate the predictions were (apparently they had a Stanford Scientist calling the shots...) it was extremely entertaining. Everything from Spiders that farm Rodents to Giant Tortises and Termite Armies...i really enjoyed it

They ran the program as humans having left the planet to colonize other worlds before disaster stuck earth sending probes back to explore the world...they visited Paris in 100 million years (now an ocean) and Calcutta (the future site of the Swamp of Bengal) as well as New York City (a desert within Pangaea II) and the South Pole (home of the Rainbow Squid and Sharkopath) among others.

Wow...very neat

Yeah, this stuff fascinates me since I'm in an anthropology minor, and thinking of switching to a major.

But I missed this, what was the title of the show?

And what kind of animals did they find?

[Dinner]

If the future is wild then does that mean it's like girls gone wild?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by orange
You didn't like?

I think what che meant is you shouldn't take it seriously.

[ranskaldan]

Nice.

How would I watch it in Toronto?

[General Ludd]

All i've seen on the Canadian discovery channel as of late are moronic "animal planet pet awards", and these shameless touristist advertisements disguised as documentaries. ("valarie pringle has left the building" :Puke: ) I even saw a nympho-mercial on the bahamas. They had a bikini clad woman running across the beach, swiming, sun bathing, ect... while they talked about the bahama's pristine enviroment and many tourist atractions. Yeah, real educational.

[Dauphin]

To my knowledge evolution isn't a predictive science, even if you are using convergence evolution. (i.e that the same adaptations will evolve over and over again - such as sabretooths)

[Lancer]

That show taught me that LSD is still a problem...



Hoever they got it all wrong. I fairly sure that after an extinction event that blocks out the sun and makes everything dark that mushrooms will grow toes, feet and legs and build a society that encumpasses the world!!! Yeah, yeah, that's it...and thay'll farm cows for their poop fertilizer!!!! And, and...

[Dauphin]

Now for a little fantasy. Imagine that millions of years in the future, the levels of atmospheric oxygen on Earth, or indeed another planet, increase. The largest of the social insects, such as some wasps, double in size, in a way reminiscent of the gigantic insects of the Carboniferous when oxygen concentrations may have soared from the present-day 23 per cent to perhaps 40 per cent. Their brains also enlarge. My colleague Nick Strausfeld from the University of Arizona in Tucson tells me that the superbly miniaturised organs not only have regions analogous to our own brains, but in this hypothetical scenario, they would also be the same size as the smallest mammalian brains. Guess what happens next?

Social insect complexity surges forward. As smart colonies of super-insects evolve rapidly, the once mighty mammals are driven by competitive onslaught to near extinction. Within a few million years these super-coordinated colonies achieve a tactile and chemical language with a syntax and grammar. Their computational networks discover mathematical complexities far beyond the point reached by humans. Space travel is for amateurs; quantum computing opens the portals to galactic exploration. Think about that next time you swat a wasp.

[FemmeAdonis]

I saw it. It was pretty interesting...as far as accuracy...who knows. And who and HOW they came up with these evolved creatures....


it was pretty cool nonetheless.

Felt sorry for the "poggle" I beleive it was..the little rodent that lives in the cave and the silver spider feeds it seeds only to fatten it up and then feed the poor dear to the big queen spider.



mean spiders.

[Lancer]

The other silver spiders get stuck w/ the poggle poop.

See, nothing changes...

[FemmeAdonis]

poor poggles..

is that even what they were called?

[ranskaldan]

Yep

http://www.thefutureiswild.com/flash/index.html

Some other tidbits:

Desert Hopper
This desert living mollusc can grow up to the size of a rabbit. They hop around the desert on a single tough hardened foot, essential for easy movement over the hot surface. During the heat of the day they burrow into the sand but around dawn and dusk they come out to feed on the tough desert plants.

Megasquid
4m tall, weighing 8 tonnes, with tentacles that extend to 3m and rhino-like skin, the megasquid is a formidable creature. It roams the northern forests of the planet 200 million years hence. All eight of its arms have become legs and look like thick columns, each are a 1/3 of a metre in diameter.

Slithersucker
The branches of the lichen trees are covered in long, sticky strand-like projections, which hang down like Spanish moss. These strands entangle passing flish. Once trapped the flish is hauled up to the branch and digested.

Ocean Flish
With birds extinct the skies became an available niche, which became occupied by flish. They have evolved over millions of years from a cod-like ancestor. They are not like flying fish that we know, but have developed true flight, just as successfully as birds and bats did.

Silverswimmer
Virtually all species of fish have been wiped out, leaving all the niches they filled vacant. Silverswimmers are the group that has evolved to make the most of this opportunity. Their ancestors were microscopic crab larvae, but now they are as diverse in size and shape as fish once were, and they fill the sea.

Eh, and as always, don't take any of these seriously. I'd be truly survived if any of these came true at all, but it's fascinating nonetheless.