{"id":889,"date":"2009-02-04T12:28:43","date_gmt":"2009-02-04T17:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=889"},"modified":"2009-03-28T19:40:12","modified_gmt":"2009-03-28T23:40:12","slug":"the-backward-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=889","title":{"rendered":"The Backward Whale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you take a look at a whale or dolphin\u00e2\u20ac\u201cany whale or dolphin anywhere on Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u201cit will follow certain rules. It will have a blowhole. It will not have legs. It will have horizontal tail flukes it raises and lowers to swim (as opposed to fish that bend from side to side). And it will have been born tail first (as opposed to the head-first position of land mammals). These sorts of rules set whales and dolphins off from other living animals, but only if you look at life as it is today. If you move back in time\u00e2\u20ac\u201cespecially back between about 50 million and 40 million years ago\u00e2\u20ac\u201cthe rules collapse.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/loom\/2009\/02\/03\/the-backward-whale\/\">Read the whole story at &#8220;The Loom&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you take a look at a whale or dolphin\u00e2\u20ac\u201cany whale or dolphin anywhere on Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u201cit will follow certain rules. It will have a blowhole. It will not have legs. It will have horizontal tail flukes it raises and lowers &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=889\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-el","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":890,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=890","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":0},"title":"My Titanoboa beats your backward whale","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Jonathan, your backward whale is wimpy. Yes, you read that right. Wimpy! The University of Florida presents Titanoboa! Partial skeletons of a new giant, boa constrictor-like snake named \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Titanoboa\u00e2\u20ac\u009d found in Colombia by an international team of scientists and now at the University of Florida are estimated to be 42\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=890#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=712","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":1},"title":"Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Scientifique Gainesville report","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida Citizens for Science secretary Mary Bahr provided the following report on the recent Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Scientifique, Gainesville. ------------------------------ We had about 85 people show up for our tours of the Museum fossil hall and the following discussion that Kevin Folta, Joe Meert, and Johnathan Bloch started with their fascinating presentations.\u00c2\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Science Cafes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Science Cafes","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=19"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3304,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3304","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":2},"title":"More reactions to Schools Without Rules article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that's part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers):\u00c2\u00a0Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. In a previous post I highlighted some reactions to the article,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3010,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3010","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":3},"title":"News Roundup 12\/10\/17","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote a piece about the new instructional materials bill we have in Florida as well as the pre-filed bill that's waiting for the next legislative session: Book-banning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a crusade for Florida's simplest minds. And now, a new bill would allow activists to suggest new\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3010#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":405,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=405","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":4},"title":"11th editorial, other tidbits","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The 11th newspaper editorial supporting evolution in the schools appeared in the TCPalm today. Editorial: Science classes need to evolve And, since Charles Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On the Origin of Species\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was published in 1859, in which his theory of evolution was first introduced, scientific research and discoveries have added immensely to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Analysis\/Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3368,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3368","url_meta":{"origin":889,"position":5},"title":"Florida legislator is back to protect us from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153witchcraft\u00e2\u20ac\u009d","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Kim Daniels will be back in Tallahassee for the next legislative session, having won her recent primary election and facing no opponent in the general election. Daniels was a sponsor of the Religious Expression in Schools law that we here at Florida Citizens for Science opposed in 2017. She was\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3368#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}