A challenge to members

Hi all,
I hope Everyone is returning from a great weekend.

I have a challenge for all of you...actually, my wife has a challenge.

You all know the story...my wife's knickname is Starbuck, she hates Lost, hence my screen name
She told me that one of the main reasons that she doesn't like Lost is that it is so illogical to her as to be completely rediculous.

You know the kind...highly educated molecular and marine biology chicks who think they know it all.


Well I asked her what on the show doesn't make sense to her and she rattled off a list of things that, on the surface I must admit, don't make a lot of sense.

So here is her challenge to us:
She poses a question and we members explain things to her scientific, logical mind and maybe, MAYBE, she'll look at Lost again.

(Help, I'm desperate here)

This weeks challenge question:
HOW COULD POLAR BEARS LIVE IN A TROPICAL ENVIRONMENT, ESPECIALLY IN THE WILD? THEY ARE NOT EVOLVED FOR THAT AND THEY WOULD BE DEAD IN A MATTER OF DAYS. (and since it was the 1970's when they brought the bears there, no genetic engineering explainations either)

Members, have at it! I know we can win this one

There are Polar Bears that live at the Philadelphia Zoo, and they seem to do just fine.

That's what I thought too but I asked the "bear guy" at the Columbus Zoo what would happen if the polar bears got out. First he said they'd probably eat someone and then he said they could easily be dead in a few days if they couldn't get them back in the enclosure becasue they would overheat. (it was July and about 90-degrees-F outside)

Well we know that some parts of the island are really cold, the area where the frozen donkey wheel is located seems to me to the perfect cold habitat to allow polar bears to survive.

Stitch

Actually here is a detail from the blastdoor map, it mentions the polar bears and what they were hoping to achieve with them in this strange habitat!



Stitch

That's an excellent point Stitch, one I should have remembered.

My Starbuck, however, points out that the first application of gene therapy did not take place until September 1990 and since the Dharma people were wiped out in 1988, the work with the bears would have occured significantly before that time frame with the bulk of the reterritorialization work being done before gene therapy would have become reasonably available to the Dharma scientists.

Ok heres a shot. There are obviously a lot of things that we don't know about yet. If the San Diego Zoo can keep them alive by supplying a cold water tank, then, who is to say that the others didn't have the same tank that the zoos have? Could they have escaped around the same time that Sawyer shot him?

And the 1990 research could have been performed if the others traveled foward in time and grabbed a gene scientist and their reseach and took them back to the island. After all, we have seen the others recruit other doctors for their research (juliet). And we have seen them travel back in time (supposedly Alpert when visiting John in the NICU)

I found this in a journal:

[T]here’s one very hard piece of evidence that casts doubt on the doomsday predictions: a polar bear jawbone that appears to be at least 110,000 years old, meaning that polar bears have survived eras with considerably warmer temperatures than today.
My colleague Andy Revkin reported in December, at his Dot Earth blog, that the discoverers of the jawbone told him there was “no threat of outright extinction within a century or more” and that “this finding reinforces the idea that they can endure.”

And this:

Actually, the polar bears have their very own built in swamp cooler: their fur! When the polar bears come out of the water, the air flows over their wet, hollow hair cooling their skin. In addition, zoo keepers at the Zoo frequently give the polar bears cool treats such as giant ice blocks and fishcicles to help them stay extra cool.


just some stuff i found

MSHL - I think if Dharma have created the technology of harnessing a Casimir Effect to teleport people through time and space, I don't have too much problem with them doing some de-terretorialising before the 'real world' got to grips with the gene therapy.

That's where the fiction comes into their science.

Someone had to be the first to discover Gene Therapy, test it, apply it, and then announce it. Maybe it was the DI. That's what they were there for wasn't it?

I think we have to allow Dharma some creative licence, I couldn't find any intersting polar bear videos, but I did find this:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=61f_1213548609

a compilation of cctv of people unexpectedly meeting wild animals on the street, in shops etc

After seeing it, I am relieved that I live in the U.K! probably the most scary thing I ever came across was an angry badger.

I think Stich was spot on with that one. Nice research. Next Question!!

Good post MSHL. This type of thing could surely occupy us during the break.

But, if you want to quickly defuse your wife's argument just point out something "illogical" that she likes. Star Wars. Spider-Man. Lord of the Rings. Pirates of the Carribean. King Kong. She has to like something that doesn't completely follow perfect logic.

That way next time she says "Lost is so illogical, it is ridiculous", you can say "But you like X and that is very illogical too." Maybe that will get her to give Lost a shot. We could always use another fan on board.