Savive’s “Top 25 Greatest Quotes”

1. Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.
Mark Twain
2. It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone.
Marilyn Monroe
3. A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
Abraham Lincoln
4. Nothing is as good as it seems beforehand.
George Eliot
5. Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.
Sun Tzu
6. Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
Victor Hugo
7. Zeal should not outrun discretion.
Aesop
8. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.
Alexander Hamilton
9. The pen is mightier than the sword.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
10. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
Jesus Christ (The Bible, Matthew 26:52)
11. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Sun-Tzu
12. Power Corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
13. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Fred R. Barnard
14. Carpe Diem (Seize the day)
Horace
15. Divide and Conquer.
Julius Caesar
16. I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas Edison
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vince Lombardi
17. It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi
18. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.
Vince Lombardi
19. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
20. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
21. The journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.
Confucius
22. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S. Truman
23. Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier then putting it back in.
Will Rogers
24. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
Will Rogers
25. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Will Rogers

Origin of The "Arctic Fox"

The Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus) is an amazing creature that lives year round in the harsh conditions of the Arctic Tundra. Many sources claim that the Arctic fox is part of the Vulpes genus—along with just about every other fox—but in fact all taxonomy lists classify them as Alopex lagopus ("Virginia Hayssen," n.d.). The Arctic Fox originated from the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), some 1.2 million years ago (Nowak, 2004). As Red Fox populations moved north and south, some moved into much colder conditions and became isolated. There, they had to evolve rather quickly to keep up with the frigid conditions of the frozen arctic tundra.

As a result of Natural Selection, the Red Fox’s red colored fur changed dramatically into a purely white fur in the winter and brown in the summer. The white coat grows very thick and covers their ears and even their paws. In the winter they follow polar bears around, scavenging off of the scraps that the bear kills leave behind ("Planet Earth: Ice Worlds: Polar Bear and Cubs," n.d.). In the summer months, this remarkable creature’s fur turns from pure white to brown. This camouflages it once again, making it harder for predators to detect it. This color change also makes it harder for them to be seen by the prey that they are after. In the summer this coat gets much thinner than in the winter months. All of these changes contribute to the overall fitness of the fox in this particular environment.

This change in coat color and thickness arose by a process called Natural Selection, which is the process of decent with modification in which individuals in each generation differ slightly from the members of the preceding generation (Audersirk, Audersirk, & Byers, 2007). Basically the Red Fox population that migrated to arctic areas passed favorable traits (Traits that would help future generations thrive in the area) to their offspring. These favorable variations slowly continued mutating for several hundred-years until it created a whole new genus and species. The reason for this gene mutation was so that the fox was able to adapt to the environment. If these changes had not taken place, the fox may not have survived or thrived in that area. Eventually—because of this abiotic pressure—every individual in that population possessed this favorable trait; with many other generational changes taking place as well.

References:

Audersirk, T., Audersirk, G., & Byers, B. E. (2007). Biology: Life on Earth with Physiology (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall.

Nowak, R. M. (2004). Walker's Carnivores of the World. New York: The Johns Hopkins UP.

Planet Earth: Ice Worlds: Polar Bear and Cubs [Television series episode]. (n.d.).

Virginia Hayssen. (n.d.). In Clark Science Center - Smith College. Retrieved August 12, 2009, from http://www.science.smith.edu/departments/Biology/VHAYSSEN/msi/msigenus.html