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[dragnar]

Also, it would be hilarious fun if a culture revered cats, and refused to cage them.

There already is, or rather was one, Egypt. They worshipped cats as gods/goddesses, they even had a cat (lion actually) goddess named Bastet. I don't know if they went so far as not caging them, but they definetly mummified them.

Actually they had at least three cat gods/goddesses. Bastet, Isis, and the leader of their pantheon, the sun god Ra. And that's just off the top of my head.

[Shoku]

Also, it would be hilarious fun if a culture revered cats, and refused to cage them.

There already is, or rather was one, Egypt. They worshipped cats as gods/goddesses, they even had a cat (lion actually) goddess named Bastet. I don't know if they went so far as not caging them, but they definetly mummified them.

Actually they had at least three cat gods/goddesses. Bastet, Isis, and the leader of their pantheon, the sun god Ra. And that's just off the top of my head.

Well really if a culture revered any animal it should get the cat privileges like choosing it's owner and cluttering up the log with cancelation messages.

[Kidiri]

One potential way to easily (IMHO) put in dietary restrictions would be to look at a civ's pantheon. If any of the deities are "typically represented as XXXXXX", then you could have a dietary taboo for that animal. For instance, I've seen the occasional dwarven deity represented as a mountain goat. So, goats would be off the menu.

Or, goats might be the main dish. Cultures are funny like that. I think a civ-wide taboo would be a heck of a lot easier to code in than a civ-wide preference. Alternately, it could be tied to the specific religion of that deity, so only members who worship that deity observe the taboo. Kind of nice way to create sub-cultures within a civ.

Woe betide to any followers of gods who appear as a (fe)male Dwarf...

[Nadaka]

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/imgs/crafts.png

HA! I told you guys that we should be able to make ivory crafts now

The image of a dragon tooth crown is just awesome, and very dwarfy.

I notice that there are no walrus tooth items, so maybe there is a size limit to what teeth can be made into stuff?

A bear tooth necklace would be cool though. I could picture the elves having them from animals that died of natural causes.

They'd probably have a strong stigma about cutting animals up, alive or not.

Once the bones were all that was left past the rotting phase maybe but bones often don't survive so well to that point so there would be very rare teeth things available to them.

On the subject of calories and energy consumption; about a third of a human's energy every day goes into pumping Ca²⁺ and K⁺ to keep up the charge gradient along the plasma membranes. Both ions are constantly pushing back through the barrier, and must be pumped back in/out. All reactions in the body require this charge gradient, and failing to pump the ions equals death. I don't know how much energy elephants need for this, but I guess it's going to be the same amount of energy per surface area of membrane.

I don't think the average layman is going to recognize that that is in regards to nerve cells without you at least using the word neuron.

That's fine; he wasn't necessarily talking about nerves.  All live cells constantly pump ions across their membranes, and I imagine that muscles pump more ions overall than nerves.

Calcium and Potassium are the specific ions used to create the polarity changes in neurons that open up the gates that let those ions through making the signals that "travel" down the axon. Muscles do make use of the ions but I've gone and fuzzed up my memory of quite how the chemistry of that works. I've just got all the useless unlabelled diagrams in memory now -_-

Back to meat for a minute...guys, the whole bonus from meat comes when you feed the animals things that you yourself cannot eat.  Eg, you can get a lot more food off dry rangeland by feeding the grass to cows and then eating the cows, since you can't get any food at all directly from the grass

Thing is, most of fodder for mass produced meat is edible for humans (beet, oats, etc.). Still, humans need to eat meat to be healthy (vitamin B12 for one thing), we are omnivores and arguing whatever we should or shouldn't eat meat based on the amount of energy needed to produce the same amount of calories is pointless.

get back to topic

Historically we fed our farm animals with the corn that was too low quality to sell to anyone else and a little bit of stuff we couldn't eat, like the cob left after you've taken the corn off of it. Or maybe we could eat that and just don't.

I think fairly often we'd be able to grow something we could eat instead of food for cattle but ya, it's silly to try and take meat out of our diet. Maybe reduce it from what we do now a bit but there's a fairly obvious balance that works for us.

If you want to be a stickler, corn itself isn't a human food either. We can not properly digest it, causing pellagra where it has been used as a dietary staple without being processed with lye in a way similar to what the native americans did.

[smjjames]

Also, it would be hilarious fun if a culture revered cats, and refused to cage them.

There already is, or rather was one, Egypt. They worshipped cats as gods/goddesses, they even had a cat (lion actually) goddess named Bastet. I don't know if they went so far as not caging them, but they definetly mummified them.

Actually they had at least three cat gods/goddesses. Bastet, Isis, and the leader of their pantheon, the sun god Ra. And that's just off the top of my head.

Huh? Ra is the one with the falcon head, although I may be thinking of Horus, but he is considered the sun god as well. Eye of Horus/Ra and all that.

I know there is another cat goddes and that is the Lion one I'm probably thinking of, but I don't remember the name.

One potential way to easily (IMHO) put in dietary restrictions would be to look at a civ's pantheon. If any of the deities are "typically represented as XXXXXX", then you could have a dietary taboo for that animal. For instance, I've seen the occasional dwarven deity represented as a mountain goat. So, goats would be off the menu.

Or, goats might be the main dish. Cultures are funny like that. I think a civ-wide taboo would be a heck of a lot easier to code in than a civ-wide preference. Alternately, it could be tied to the specific religion of that deity, so only members who worship that deity observe the taboo. Kind of nice way to create sub-cultures within a civ.

Mountain Goats and Hoary Marmots are common representation animals for mountain gods. Although there aren't all that many mountain biome critters (not counting the chasm and magma critters) in the first place.

[Reese]

I know there is another cat goddes and that is the Lion one I'm probably thinking of, but I don't remember the name.

Sekhmet

[avari]

Calcium and Potassium are the specific ions used to create the polarity changes in neurons that open up the gates that let those ions through making the signals that "travel" down the axon. Muscles do make use of the ions but I've gone and fuzzed up my memory of quite how the chemistry of that works. I've just got all the useless unlabelled diagrams in memory now -_-

Well this is massively off-topic, but anyway, it's actually sodium and potassium which are thought to be most important for travelling action potentials :) Calcium plays an important role in synapses though, and is especially important in muscles, where it regulates muscle contraction. Also in the heart calcium instead of sodium is used in signalling. How this relates to elephant intestines etc., I cannot say :p

[RedKing]

If you want to be a stickler, corn itself isn't a human food either. We can not properly digest it, causing pellagra where it has been used as a dietary staple without being processed with lye in a way similar to what the native americans did.

I was going to bring up sweet corn, but apparently even that causes nutritional deficiencies (although any overly homogenous diet is going to be deficient). Though supposedly if you eat corn *and* beans regularly, they balance out. Dorf burritos, anyone? (I swear, between this and the bio-electricity discussion, DF has been highly educational today.)

[smjjames]

I know there is another cat goddes and that is the Lion one I'm probably thinking of, but I don't remember the name.

Sekhmet

Yea thats the one.

[dragnar]

Also, it would be hilarious fun if a culture revered cats, and refused to cage them.

There already is, or rather was one, Egypt. They worshipped cats as gods/goddesses, they even had a cat (lion actually) goddess named Bastet. I don't know if they went so far as not caging them, but they definetly mummified them.

Actually they had at least three cat gods/goddesses. Bastet, Isis, and the leader of their pantheon, the sun god Ra. And that's just off the top of my head.

Huh? Ra is the one with the falcon head, although I may be thinking of Horus, but he is considered the sun god as well. Eye of Horus/Ra and all that.

Oops, mixed up myths, Ra transforms into a cat every night to fight an evil snake I can't remember the name of. Yeah, hre usually has a falcon head.

[Shoku]

Calcium and Potassium are the specific ions used to create the polarity changes in neurons that open up the gates that let those ions through making the signals that "travel" down the axon. Muscles do make use of the ions but I've gone and fuzzed up my memory of quite how the chemistry of that works. I've just got all the useless unlabelled diagrams in memory now -_-

Well this is massively off-topic, but anyway, it's actually sodium and potassium which are thought to be most important for travelling action potentials Calcium plays an important role in synapses though, and is especially important in muscles, where it regulates muscle contraction. Also in the heart calcium instead of sodium is used in signalling. How this relates to elephant intestines etc., I cannot say :p

Alright my memory is refreshed n_n
Calcium interacts with the molecule that blocks ATP binding sites on muscles so that that reaction can go forward.

I never quite had a proper understanding of how the ions worked out to up the membrane voltage so I'll probably forget which ions are involved again quickly :b

If dwarves have non-ion metals making up parts of their bodies they might not need to bother with this set up though as their nerves could actually conduct electricity for a decent distance. Or maybe they'd do the same thing but they'd have faster impulses as if the neurons were myelinated or maybe just like the giant ones in squid.

No idea how it would affect the capacitor effect of the membrane though.

If you want to be a stickler, corn itself isn't a human food either. We can not properly digest it, causing pellagra where it has been used as a dietary staple without being processed with lye in a way similar to what the native americans did.

I was going to bring up sweet corn, but apparently even that causes nutritional deficiencies (although any overly homogenous diet is going to be deficient). Though supposedly if you eat corn *and* beans regularly, they balance out. Dorf burritos, anyone? (I swear, between this and the bio-electricity discussion, DF has been highly educational today.)

Wheat did a decent enough job for Europeans but adding potatoes to their diet was useful for stabilizing their diet further. They've got wheat in northern China as well but I'm not familiar with the usual deficiencies in a rice based diet (or are there none?) They've got soy beans there though so maybe they've always been supplementing their diets with those.

[lordcooper]

ANYWAY, looks like a lotta them itemy things are green now, eh?

Update soon? 

[Nadaka]

ANYWAY, looks like a lotta them itemy things are green now, eh?

Update soon? 

soon, yes soon. When is soon? In time for christmas? In time for my birthday?. I expect sometime in january.

[Reese]

I know there is another cat goddes and that is the Lion one I'm probably thinking of, but I don't remember the name.

Sekhmet

Yea thats the one.

From what I recall about that one, she's a very dwarfy god... but it would be bad to have the egyptian feline gods running around your fort, 'cause you might end up with a godcatsplosion...

[Innominate]

I revere my cat-god by teaching kittens to fly.