Paleonet: Homo sapiens

[Aidan Karley]

"Jere H. Lipps" <jlipps at berkeley.edu> wrote :

> Bakker 
> made an effort to designate E. D. Cope as a type, but this may have 
> been more for publicity than a serious attempt.
>
       Shocked! I tell you, I'm shocked that you should even hint that 
the sainted Bob-ness might ever court publicity over serious taxonomic 
issues.
       
> Others have 
> accepted this although Stearns's words seem more to honor Linnaeus 
> than to designate him as a type.
>
       If my memory serves me correctly, both Craig Venter and his 
competitor in self-effacement James Watson, have chucked their genomes 
into the human genotype sequencing hat. Which for the molecular people 
effectively means that they are well on the way to becoming (joint, 
molecular) type specimens.
       Looking at the idea from a different tack, in the late '80s or 
early '90s there was an early effort to demonstrate the efficacy of CAT 
scanning by both digitally and mechanically slicing up a particular 
cadaver. (I can't remember if the digital tomography was by Xray or 
MRI) Ah, got it - the project was called "Visible Human". There's a 
fact sheet at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/visible_human.html 
 You may be able to access the project through a mirror site on 
http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/vishuman/mirror.html .. oh, hang on, 
new version at http://www.dhpc.adelaide.edu.au/projects/vishuman2/
       
       That project opens up (and illuminates as well) whole big cans 
of annelids for what is meant by a holotype.
       
-- 
 Aidan Karley, FGS
 Aberdeen, Scotland
 Written at Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:43 GMT, but posted later.