Common sense?

The political rhetoric is already at flame-thrower level, and we're just getting started.  In a few months, presidential candidates will be calling for each other's heads on pikes.  That alone wouldn't worry me much, if it weren't that the future of science and the environment are among the chips on the table.  A laughable Republican field ranges from future also-ran moderates like Jon Huntsman to lunatic potential nominees like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann (with the Alaskan she-beast waiting in the wings).  On the other side, Democratic leaders, including Barack Obama, appear increasingly cowardly in the defense of their core principles.  The result?  A climate in which Perry's disparaging remarks about evolutionary theory or Bachmann's denial of the evidence supporting climate change will find an increasingly receptive audience on the right and meet timid resistance on the left.  That's frightening.  We can't afford another step backward.  It would behoove conservatives, and serve the nation, if they would remember that much of our history of environmental protection has Republican  roots.  It would be easier to respect the right if they would embrace this history rather than running from it.

A little depressing

The webs of aging spiders are not as well-spun as those of their younger counterparts.  My web is getting a little rough around the edges.

Randomly timed article...

...on the attributes of effective liars.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with current events.

A taxonomy that I can get into

So maybe we can identify the gene for buck-toothedness



Image by Neil Bromhall/OSF/Getty

Latest genome to be sequenced - the "coolest mammal on the planet", the naked mole rat.  Jokes aside, it's a remarkable animal with a complex social structure.

Fisher decline

When I was a kid, I owned just about every Golden Guide that was available.  Used to carry them around in my back pocket while I scoured the North Florida woods near my home.  I valued them for what they could tell me about the species I encountered, but I was just as fascinated by the ones that came from faraway locales that I could only imagine.  I remember being fascinated by the subarctic weasels like martens and fishers.  I still have a mental image of their depiction of a fisher, standing alertly on a spruce limb with its squirrel prey.

So, it's a little depressing to read that fishers (at least those in California) are in serious decline.  A study conducted by the Hoopa Valley Tribe and the University of Massachusetts shows that, between 1998 and 2005, fisher numbers went down almost 80% on the Hoopa reservation in northwestern California.  A number of factors may be at work, including habitat destruction, disease, and bobcat predation.

Jaws

Jaws apparently weren't an instant hit in the world's oceans.  New research published in Nature shows that it was almost 30 million years after the appearance of the first jawed vertebrates before they were able to make a serious dent in the success of previously dominant jawless fish.  Also worth noting that there was no detectable niche shift on the the part of the developing jawed fishes to fill the niches vacated by their declining counterparts. 

Science and Tot-Mom

The world is abuzz with today's acquittal of Casey Anthony, accused of murdering her two-year old daughter Cayley.  I hadn't followed the case closely until this weekend, when circumstances resulted in a an unavoidable exposure to a barrage of closing arguments from both sides.  When word broke that the jury was bringing back a verdict today, I couldn't help but pay attention.  Then, when the not-guilty bomb dropped, I was drawn to social media like Twitter and Facebook to follow the reaction.  I've been a bit stunned at the racial twist that seems to be developing in the responses - a popular post points to the discreprancy between this verdict and the conviction of Michael Vick for animal abuse.  Other posts suggest that if Casey Anthony's first name were of a more ethnic nature, the outcome would have been different.  I've even seen a few people making reference to Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela.  Really?

The most common racially-driven comparison seems to revolve around the "We got OJ, you got Casey." theme.  I don't really get it.  I don't see where race enters the picture (although I do think it may play a role in the aftermath - Casey Anthony as a reality TV star?)  What I do find most interesting, though, also involves a comparison between the infamous 1995 O.J. Simpson trial and the current media circus.  Among the most disheartening aspects of the Simpson trail (and there were many) was the degree to which the defense team was able to convince jurors that the tremendous weight of the scientific evidence could be disregarded as unreliable or misleading.  I saw the Simpson case, in many ways, as a rejection of science. 

My limited knowledge of the Anthony case suggests to me that, this time around, the opposite is true.  While circumstances seem to point toward this young mother as the likely killer of her child, the LACK of convincing scientific evidence is apparently the major reason that she's being set free.  That, in some sad, sad way, seems like a victory.

This land

Night music with Bon Iver

Traveling south tomorrow. Be back soon.

Cookiecutter

A new study from researchers at the University of Florida details the first known attack of a cookiecutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) on a live human.  The victim, a long distance swimmer, was attacked in 2009 while swimming the channel separating the islands of Hawaii and Maui.  Previously, cookiecutter bites have been found on drowning victims and assumed to have been post-mortem. 

The cookiecutters jaw and tooth structure is unique, and the resulting wound is a nasty one.  The bite scoops out a a golf-ball sized chunk of flesh and leaves a deep, round wound. 

Researchers believe that cookiecutters use their bioluminescence to hide among schools of squid.  When large fish like tuna are attracted to the squid, the small sharks attack.

Some computer animations..

Björk

For some time now, my daughter has been trying to enlighten me to the gifts of Björk, the Icelandic singer-songwriter whose music, and voice, are among the most distinctive out there. I've resisted. The voice grates on me a little.

But, I may have to try again. Her new album and her tour promoting it are named Biophilia, after E. O. Wilson's theory regarding an evolved bond between humans and other organisms. The show features narration by naturalist David Attenborough, Björk's childhood hero.  Any artist that is inspired by these two guys deserves another listen.

Teaser for the album...

Release the Kraken!

Photo by Jeff Gage, University of Florida

More squid news.  A 25-foot giant squid, Architeuthis dux, found off of Florida, is now in the collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. A group of fishermen found the animal about 12 miles off Port Salerno.

Admittedly, even the giant squid doesn't impress greatly when in this state.  So, take a look at one the few encounters with the real,  live beast.

A graphical look....

...at percentage changes in state appropriations, by year, in Alabama and our neighbors.  We were doing OK at making up the gap for a while.  Not any more.

Rising cost of an education

Our economic mess has impacted just about everyone, including college students.  Today, the U.S. Department of Education posted information on education costs at Universities around the country.  If you follow the link "College Affordability and Transparency", you'll find information about the most and least expensive institutions of various types.  For example, you can find out that tuition and fees at Penn State will cost you $14,410, while one of the lowest tuitions for a four year public institution can be found at Great Basin College - only $2,010 compared to the national average of $6,397.

A more interesting link is the one that carries you to the "State Spending Charts."  Here you'll find data on changes, since 2003, in state and local appropriations, tuition costs, and government grants.  The national data shows that appropriations increased slightly from 2003 through 2008, then declined dramatically (-7.0%) between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 with the tanking economy.  It's worth taking a few minutes to take a look at how that national average compares to individual states.  A few states actually showed increased appropriations during the time frame - Ohio, for example, showed an increase in appropriations of over 6%.  A few states are noteworthy in the tremendous decline.  Alabama, of course, is one of them.  State and local appropriations per fulltime undergraduate student in the Heart of Dixie declined 22.2% between '07-'08 and '08-'09. 

Maybe Miss Alabama's level of understanding of biology isn't all that surprising, after all.

Arribada

Photo from USFWS

Good news from Mexico.  7,000 Kemp's ridley sea turtles on a nesting beach.

Chasing the red devil in the Sea of Cortez

I talked today to my zoology students about cephalopods, and shared with them this video of William Gilly and his work with Humboldt, or "jumbo", squid.

And then found this. Gilly is currently in the Gulf of California (as the Sea is more commonly known) on board the research vessel New Horizon on an NSF-funded project studying the big squid. Since this site takes its name from a quote in Steinbeck's Log from the Sea of Cortez, it seems appropriate to follow the expedition. 

In this case, I do wish they all could be California girls...

Not a big proponent of beauty pageants.  They remind me of a visit to the local livestock market.  But the recent Miss USA pageant certainly produced some interesting moments.  Most notable?  One of the questions posed to the contestants - "Should evolution by taught in schools?"

The fact that most of the young ladies waffled is understandable - a young woman trying to become Miss USA is in the same intellectual boat as a politician hoping to be elected to the State Senate.  Make it sound like you have an opinion, but don't say anything that you might have to answer for later.  Still, Miss California (the eventual winner) was among the few contestants who came fairly close to the mark.  



An excessive number of "you knows", but she is, after all, from California. And you don't have to "believe" in evolution, any more than you have to believe in gravity. It just is. Add to that the apparent confusion of evolution with the origins of the universe. Still, for a 22-year model, it's not bad. The best answer, of course, would be something like, "What a stupid question. Of course. You can't understand biology without an understanding of evolution."  Probably not getting that at a beauty pageant.

You'll certainly get a lot of "teach both sides."  You can see all the responses here.  Count the number that suggest that a treatment of evolution should be balanced with the "other theories", or that students should be exposed to "both sides of the story."



Sorry, kids.  If you want your science teacher to "teach" the science of intelligent design, you're out of luck.  There's nothing to teach.  "We should teach other theories."  Like what?  It's science class, girls.  Not theology, not philosophy.

And then, alas, there's Miss Alabama, You saw her leading off that last clip. Madeline Mitchell from Russellville and the University of Alabama, has a strong and completely misguided view.

“I do not believe in evolution, I do not believe it should be taught in schools, and I would not encourage it.”

That's Madeline Mitchell, senior at the University of Alabama majoring in elementary education.  Madeline, who graduated from Russelville High School in 2007.  Well, take a look at this, Madeline.  These are figures from the most recent Program for International Student Assessment indicating where U.S. 15-year olds stand in science in relation to students from other nations.  The figure shows the top ten nations, and the U.S.  Notice the gap between Australia in the 10th spot and the U.S.  That's to represent the gap between 10th and 23rd. 

Are we willing to accept this?  Well, in certain circles, the answer appears to be yes.

Let's hope that Madeline will be able to make a living modeling lingerie.  Maybe she can land a gig on a soap opera. Anything to keep her out of the classroom.  If that sounds mean-spirited, I'm sorry.  But I take science education seriously.  Madeline doesn't.

Today's irony - Miss Georgia - "We're smarter than ever these days."

Just as I suspected...

Obviously, the minor problems associated with burning of fossil fuels are nothing compared to the global threat posed by alternative energy sources.


In The Know: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

Kids could drink that water and get wind in their brain.

Transmutation on Tuesday

Wherein we talk evolution, or cases thereof.

A new paper from Stuart Newman, a development biologist at New York Medical College, is generating some heat in an already torrid arena - the one that looks at the evolution of birds and of flight.  The most notable features of birds, of course, are feathers and wings and the flight that they allow.  Not far behind, though, is the prodigious musculature that drives those wings.  In some birds, the pectoral muscles alone make up 20% of the mass of the animal. 

This seems simple enough to explain.  Flight isn't easy.  I routinely offer a free A to any of my vertebrate zoology students who can open the second floor windows of Bibb Graves Hall and take off.  No one's claimed it yet.  On the surface it seems clear that, as birds developed flight, they gradually developed the powerful musculature to drive it.

Newman has another idea, and it's related to genetics (as, it seems, everything is these days).  It appears that the dinosaur ancestors of birds lost the gene to produce uncoupling protein-1 (UCP1).  This gene is required  for the ability of "brown fat" tissue to generate heat.  In newborn mammals, it is the heat generated by this tissue that provides protection from hypothermia.    Newman suggests that, following the loss of this gene, the ancestors of birds had to rely on increased muscle mass to generate the needed heat.  He thinks that this increased muscle mass enabled them to move to an upright, bipedal posture.  And, he further believes, it was this upright posture that enabled the anterior appendages to be modified for extravagances like flight.

Let your love shine

OK, let's extrapolate the heck out of this.  There are some 2000 species of fireflies in the world.  In some, the females fly; in others, the females are wingless.  These flightless females sit on the ground or a twig and attract males with their luminescence.  It's the strategy of the male, though, that's interesting.  Biologists from Tufts University examined 32 species of fireflies.  They found that, in species with flying females, males provide sperm supplemented with protein that helps the female produce more eggs.  In most species with wingless females, the male provides no nutritional bonus.

What's motivates the different approach?  Perhaps it's just not necessary.  Could be that the flightless females don't need the extra energy. but their flying counterparts do.  Or maybe the males are just pissed off that they have to get up and go to work while the missus sits home and watches firefly Oprah.

The only good shark is a live shark

This sounds like a good thing.  But is it?  Research published in Current Issues in Tourism demonstrates that sharks are worth more alive than they are dead.  Austin Gallagher and Neil Hammerschlag from the University of Miami examined ecotourism businesses from 83 locations around the world and found that sharks, in addition to their ecological significance, can provide a significant boon for local economies.  They were able to value a single living reef shark at $73 per day, while the same shark dead might have a one-time value of $50.  Worth noting - shark-driving tourism produced more than $78 million in revenue in 2007. 

Obviously, it would be a major step forward to convince local governments and businesses that a swimming shark is more valuable to them than one reduced to fins and jaws.  My major concern with shark ecotourism are those operations which put humans AND sharks in harm's way by feeding animals as a means of providing photo ops for their Mike Nelson wannabe clients.  I'd love to believe that a tour operator could make a decent living by providing an opportunity to view sharks in the natural habitat, without catering to the guys who think that their penis size goes up if they're in a photo frame with a tiger shark.

Borneo's cool

Any place that has 24 species of carnivores, including animals like the Sunda stink badger, the the Borneo bay cat (pictured), and the hairy-nosed otter is OK by me.

Taz

Genome sequencing has come a long way since the Haemophilus influenzae, the first bacterium to be sequenced, had its hereditary pants pulled down in 1995.  Since that time, nearly 200 organisms have been sequenced.  Certainly most would point toward Homo sapiens as the most significant of these, I'm going with the Tasmanian devil.

Interesting, and disturbing, sidebar to this story is the devil's extinction threat rising from a contagious form of cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease.  The concern that low genetic diversity might be related to the spread of the disease was one factor motivating the genome sequencing project.

Mentoring on Monday...

...wherein we talk about that most peculiar species, the student.  The topic for a while is going to be grad school.  The specific topic for today will be, finding one.

Quite simply, if you want to be a practicing biologist in this day and age, you will almost certainly need to go to grad school.  There are exceptions - I know some very good, very successful biologists who stopped at the baccalaureate level.  They're few and far between and, almost without fail, they've only been able to actually DO biology after years of grunt-work.  It's just too competitive out there for a student to have any realistic expectation of finding a job in the field without a Masters or Ph.D.

So, let's start with the premise that you've decided you want to go to graduate school in biology.  What strategy will allow you to be successful?  While, admittedly, there's sometimes a lot of luck involved, I think the following protocol will stand you in good stead.

Start early.  Once you've made the decision that you want to be a biologist, begin to narrow down your options.  What is it about biology that fascinates you?  Read, watch videos, talk to your professors.  How do you want to spend your days when the preparation is finished?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  Describe the adult, hard-working you, and describe him/her fully.

Once you've identified the biologist you want to be, find others that are actually doing that now.  This is an important part of the process, and may have a lot to do with where you spend the next few years.  So, put some effort into it.  For example, let's say I've decided that I want to work with the ecology of squid (a particularly sexy choice).  How do I build an opportunity to pursue this in graduate school.  That's going to involve a little searching, and there are a couple of strategies.  The best, and most direct, is to find researchers that are actually doing what you want to do.  Get into the literature and see who's publishing in that area.  I like to use Google Scholar, and do an "Advanced Scholar Search".  This allows you to create a finely tuned search for particular topics with delimiting variables.  For example, I might enter into the search window "cephalopod ecology", and I might limit the search to papers published between 2008 and 2011.  When I conduct this search, I get a return of some 3,700 papers, sorted by how well they match my search.  I'm typically able to read the abstract for any of them, and (on our campus at least) the full-text of those to which our University library has a subscription  I find, for example, an article in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries written by Gretta Pecl and George Jackson examining potential climate change effects on inshore squid species.  Unfortunately, when I examine the paper, I find that Drs. Pecl and Jackson are both at the University of Tasmania - probably not an ideal option for our typical Small Southern student.  However, a little further down the page, I find a 2008 Ecology paper by Rui Rosa, Heidi Dierssen, Liliana Gonzalez, and Brad Seibel looking at diversity patterns of cephalopods in the Atlantic.  On inspection, I find that Dr. Dierssen is in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Connecticut while Dr. Seibel in the Biology Department at the University of Rhode Island.  A quick check of web pages reveals to me that Dr. Seibel is an associate professor whose lab specializes on the physiology of animals in extreme environments, while Dr. Dierssen is an assistant professor at Connecticut where she heads up the Coastal Ocean Laboratory for Optics and Remote Sensing.  She also has an interest in biogeographical distributions of marine organisms, which is probably her interest in the cephalopod work.  So, I now have the names, addresses, and email contacts for two people who are actually involved in research in the area that interests me.  The ball is rolling.

I should say that, for many students, there are geographic or financial limitations on where they can go to grad school.  If that's the case, you may need to define your interest in more general terms.  Let's say, "ecology of marine invertebrates."  Now, go to the departmental pages for the schools in your state/region.  Look at the faculty interests, and find out who matches best with you.  The fit may not be as perfect, but at least you can find someone near you who's doing work that is potentially interesting.

Next Tuesday - making contact. 

The B word

Know your candidates.  Michelle Bachmann declared her candidacy for president today, and a disturbing number of folks in my neck of the woods actually think she's a viable candidate.  I vote largely on the basis of science and education policy.  So, as a public service.

Bachmann on evolution

Bachmann on climate change

Bachmann on stem cell research

Bachmann on environmental issues

Bachmann on education

To summarize, it would be difficult to construct, part by part, batshit-crazy idea by batshit-crazy idea, a more perfect anti-science, anti-education candidate.  She out-Palins Palin.  I would be tempted to wish for a Bachmann nomination, with the thought that she would be easy to defeat in November of 2012.  However, my faith in my fellow Americans is not as strong as it once was.  Like a rampaging rogue elephant, she needs to be stopped in her tracks.

Bunny huggers?

Not quite sure how to react to this news, in which an English politician disparages those who would insist that developers pay for archaeological excavation before starting development.  It's certainly another depressing illustration of the strategy of dismissing those of us who wish to protect what we have (be it historical artifacts, pristine habitats, or endangered species) as somehow silly or juvenile.  On the other hand, it's a bit refreshing to see that such inanity is not limited to the U.S.  Our brothers across the pond can be assholes too.

Coming home

Some good news.  The New Zealand population of southern right whales, hunted to extinction in their home grounds over a century ago, have found their way home.  Researchers have determined that at least seven whales are now migrating from the sub-Antarctic waters now used by the species to the coastal waters of New Zealand.  They expect more to follow.

Eye evolution

Nice slide show from Scientific American illustrating a variety of eyes found in the animal kingdom.

Deniers, prepare your rationalizations

Neodenticula seminae, a diatom that went extinct in the North Atlantic about 800,000 years ago, is back.  It's drift from the Pacific has been made possible by the melting of polar ice in the Arctic.

Black skies....

...over west Alabama.  It'll be along time before people around these parts see skies like this the same way.

Blowing bubbles

Interesting work here on feeding in humpback whales from David Wiley and others.  While the bubble feeding behavior of humpbacks is well.  Wiley and his coworkers used tags to record depth and orientation of whales below the surface.  Their results show that the behavior is more complex than previously known.  The whales were seen to swim upward in what the researchers dubbed a "double loop."  In this complex behavior, humpbacks make a spiral loop upwards that concentrates fish in the center of the ring, slap their flukes on the surface, and then make a second upward lunge with their mouths open to capture their prey.  Wiley and his coworkers also found that the whales work in teams, but may steal the prey from bubble nets of other whales.

Check out humpback's bubble feeding here...

Fast enough?

There's little question that coming decades will bring dramatic environmental changes.  While we can only guess at the severity and rapidity of those changes, there is real concern about the power of evolutionary change keep pace with a deteriorating environment.  There have been attempts to model such changes, but Graham Bell and and Andrew Gonzalez report, in the June 10 edition of Science, the results of experimentation to help answer that question.

The McGill University researchers exposed 2000 yeast cultures to changing environmental stresses (in the form of salt) and found that, in many cases, evolutionary change was sufficient to allow the yeast to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.  The ability of populations to evolve was enhanced by previous exposure to the stress and by the ability to acquire beneficial mutations from neighboring populations by dispersal.

Quite likely that studies such as this one will become increasingly interesting in a culture where we seem determine to destroy our environment as rapidly as possible.

Fossil art

In my Subtropical Ecology course, we devote some time to a discussion of the Pleistocene fossil fauna of peninsular fauna, including a fascinating group of mammals rivaling that of modern-day Africa.  These megafauna included a number of probscideans such as mammoths and mastodons.  A newly published paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science describes a fantastic new piece of evidence tying this fossil fauna to the earliest human inhabitants to the region.

13,000 year-old engraving on Florida
fossil (Credit: Chip Clark/Smithsonian)

Amateur fossil collector James Kennedy, in inspecting a fossilized long bone from an unidentified mammals, noticed the engraving pictured here.  It shows an elephant-like animal, whether mammoth or mastodon cannot be clearly determined.  Experts at the University of Florida have determined that the engraving is authentic.  This means that the artwork was likely produced at least 13,000 years ago, when the last of the ancient proboscideans disappeared from the region.

The fossil was uncovered at a site known as the Old Vero Site, where the fossils of Pleistocene mammals are found side-by-side with human fossils of the same age.  While such proboscidean art is common in Europe, this find represents the first instance of from the Americas.

Rest in peace, Big Man

Have a good life, Will and Kate

Meanwhile, in the real world.

Actually, don't want to be that guy.  It's just been a particularly gut-wrenching year in our part of the world.  Cynicism abounds.  However, the good people of Small Southern seem to have largely escaped the full hell of this round of storms.  Some of my students and colleagues lost homes, which is certainly tragic enough.  Still, as far as we know, no loss of life in our little academic community.  That can't be said for our neighbors to the northeast.  Hang tough, T-town.

A little something for the shark lovers

In the waters off California's Farralon Islands, the great white may not be top dog.  Some video from a National Geographic special that will air tomorrow...

In transit

Left Louisiana marshes behind.  Headed for Alabama marshes.  Will leave them late tonight.

Roots

Much of my Ph.D. work centered on Louisiana's LUMCON Lab at Port Fourchon.  Many long days and nights in Bay Champagne and the nearby marshes.  Haven't been back in almost 20 years.  Until today.  Collecting meiofauna samples in Timbalier Bay, and dredgimg up some good memories.

Invaders from Mars?

Rest assured that when convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life emerges, it will generate some buzz.  It would be hard to imagine a scientific find that would more profoundly impact our understanding of our place in the universe.  Are there new claims?  Sure.  Is there new evidence?  Maybe.  But the scientific community remains largely unimpressed.

Where do you fall?

I'm pretty much on the pitcher's mound.

I've earned a little...

...night music. I feel some Richard Thompson coming on.

BBB redux

The other video from our initation banquet.  Quite a few of these photos are from the Subtropical Ecology class that many of these students took last fall.  That's the Subtropical Ecology class that I promised myself I'd develop a lengthy blog post about a long time ago.  Reminder to myself.  Regardless, here you go...

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

For my zombie-loving friends...

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

Controversy revisited

OK, I'll call it a controversy as long as we identify it as the creationism controversy.  While there are certainly controversies within evolution (e.g. gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium) there's nothing controversial about evolution, at least in scientific circles.  The controversy has been created by people who are motivated to undermine scientific thought.  Here, the folks at Scientific American provide a state-by-state update on some current issues.  What's really interesting is how the nature of the controversy differs between regions.  Hover your mouse over California, and you'll find out that the University of California has been allowed to deny credit to applicants who took biology courses employing textbooks that reject evolution.  Visit Ohio, and you'll learn that a local school board has fired a teacher for teaching creationism in his science classroom.  But visit Louisiana and Tennessee, and you'll find lawmakers promoting bills that encourage the critical examination of scientific theories, with specific mention of biological evolution, the chemical origin of life, human cloning, and global warming.  If the inclusion of that last (scientifically) unrelated topic doesn't clearly illustrate that this all comes down to politics, nothing will.

Here in Alabama, home of Small Southern, it's a very rare high school science teacher that has the fortutide to teach the truth in his/her science classroom.  It requires real courage, a quality far too rare in education these days.  That's a shame.  There's a war going on, and the future of this country is at stake.  We're on the front lines - don't be a coward.

That time of year again

Last night, our chapter of Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society initiated some 25 new student members.  A good night for a great bunch of students.  A growing tradition are the little music videos that we do to compile some of our photos and experiences. We did one to remember our time on the water - we have a real preoccupation with water - as well as to advertise the upcoming Tombigbee River course that my colleague plans to offer this summer.  So, I give you...

Ornithologists

From xkcd comics.

The "controversy" continues

An update here on Scientific American from Jennifer Miller, one of the Dover, PA, science teachers who refused to read the statement undermining evolution and supporting "intelligent design" that the local school board had placed in the district's books.  This, of course, led to one of ID's more highly publicized failures when Judge John Jones ruled that ID was not only nonscientific, but that the whole episode was simply a ruse to allow the advancement of a creationist agenda in public school science classrooms.

Miller talks about her experiences in the classroom since Judge Jones' ruling.  She sounds like she's probably a very good science teacher.  Her comments remind me of the atmosphere my college-level evolution classes - there's no controversy and very little skepticism.  Once students have an understanding of how the process works, all but the most heavily propogandized are able to follow the weight of the scientific evidence.

More troubling is the discussion of what goes on in other classrooms.  Many (most?) of our high school science teachers continue to avoid the topic of evolution or, worse, confuse their students with false information and flawed logic.  Whatever your religion or philosophy, cowardice and hypocrisy are not admirable traits.  If you're one of those science teachers, do your job.  Or find another.

Morning music

It's Johnny's birthday...



Takes me back to a time when things were simpler. Or, at least, we thought they were.

Chris DiCarlo...

...was in Tuscaloosa tonight as part of the University of Alabama's ALLELE (Alabama Lectures on Life's Evolution) series.  I took a group up from Small Southern for the talk.  The science was a fairly low-level summary of what we know about our African origins.  The more interesting part of the talk dealt with the philosophical questions that rise from that knowledge.  Can scientific proof of our commonality save us? 

I have my doubts - we seem to be hard-wired for hatred.  Still, spreading the word can't hurt.  So, we're 95% similar, DNA-wise, to chimpanzees.  Well, we're a lot more similar to each other.  It's kin selection, guys.  We're carrying each others genes - let's look out for each other.  For the interested, here's a DiCarlo pub that summarizes his main points.

Although I enjoyed the DiCarlo talk, it was a toss-up between him and the stage production of Moby Dick.

Darwinian night music

Talking Darwin to the Honors group tomorrow.  Getting in the mood with Chris Smither.

Wait a minute....

...I was promised dolphins and coral reefs.

Two Brothers

In 2008, archaeologists discovered a large anchor in the shallow waters of French Frigate Shoal in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  All indications now are that the anchor is a link to a remarkable historical chapter, one that helped give rise to one of our greatest literary works. 

In 1820, the whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket and captained by George Pollard, Jr., was stove in by an enraged sperm whale and sank.  If the story sounds familiar, it should - it became the foundation for Herman Melville's Moby Dick.  Of course, Melville's Ishmael was picked up by the Rachel the day after Captain Ahab's Pequod went down. The survivors of the Essex disaster were not so lucky.  The drifted in their whaleboats for three months, reduced to drawing lots to determine who would survive and who would be cannibalized.  Captain Pollard himself helped execute, and eat, his own nephew.  Their trial by ocean is the subject of another truly great book, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.

After the Essex survivors eventual rescue, Pollard was granted another captaincy, this time on the Two Brothers.  His luck, however, had not improved.  In 1823, the Two Brothers struck a reef in the Hawaiian Islands and went down.  The crew survived, but Pollard's career ended.  He spent the rest of his days as a night watchman in Nantucket.

It is the anchor of the Two Brothers that was spotted in French Frigate Shoals in 2008.  The find has now been extensively investigated, and is the subject of this piece at National Geographic.  It's not biology, but it's pretty good stuff.

The attack begins

Today marks the beginning of the new Republican-led Congress' attack on a number of pieces of important environmental legislation.  It's predictable, and it's worrisome.  It's important, too.  If you'd like to follow it, The Wilderness Society is blogging live from Capitol Hill.  A number of key votes coming up tonight.  I suspect the folks at the Society would not object to my cutting and pasting of their "Threatened 13" - key elements of the attack on the environment.  Take a look - there's a recurring theme here:

From the Wilderness Society....

"The Threatened 13" are The Wilderness Society’s list of worst budget cuts proposed by House leadership. That list includes:


1.Eliminating the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). According to the Department of Interior’s budget brief for 2012, the $675 million that it requested for public land conservation “will contribute an estimated $1.0 billion in economic output and support about 7,600 jobs … Activities funded under the LWCF will continue to ensure public access to the outdoors, preserve natural resources and landscapes, and protect irreplaceable cultural and historic sites.”

2.Stopping science in its tracks. Driven by radical ideology, not proven facts, the House majority has decided to deny the existence of global warming by eliminating funding for climate change science. The legislation would cut at least $123 million for climate research -- funding needed to assess our vulnerability to climate disruptions and to develop the tools needed to adapt to climate extremes.

3.Eliminating forest planning that keeps the damage caused by offroad recreational vehicles under control. This impairs public safety for all national forest users and threatens drinking water resources, big game species, and other key resources.

4.Eliminating the EPA’s authority to hold polluters accountable when they foul our air and poison our water.

5.Closing National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.

6.Cutting back on forest rangers, youth outdoor education, and law enforcement.

7.Limiting access to hunting and fishing – slashing the local jobs those activities create. Putting off maintenance projects, fighting invasive plants, restoration work, timber cutting, and managing wildfire.

8.Putting off maintenance projects, fighting invasive plants, restoration work, timber cutting, and managing wildfire.

9.Preventing federal agencies from moving forward with their responsibility to protect wild lands, wildlife habitat, and watersheds.

10.Eliminating the Department of Interior’s ability to inventory, monitor and protect potential new Wild Lands (Wilderness areas).

11.Failure to adequately fund the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program, which would threaten drinking water supplied to 66 million people. The cut could also eliminate up to 2,500 jobs. The program funds road and trail improvements, maintenance work and road removal projects that improve the health of local watersheds.

12.Revoking the President’s ability to keep our wild places safe by using the Antiquities Act, which has protected iconic places like the Grand Canyon.

13.Weakening of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is the most important conservation law that ensures that federal agencies take a careful look at the effects of their actions on the environment and that the public has an opportunity to provide input and information to federal decision makers. Without NEPA, the public’s ability to protect their communities would be largely silenced.

The linked page provides an opportunity for you to express your concerns to your legislators.  Take advantage of it.

Organic chemist...

...meets salt marsh.

Fresh meat

Working today in the marsh with two new student helpers.  Here's the "before" picture.

The Frankenstein syndrome

This semester, I'm helping out in a special topics class for our Honors Program which we call Science and Literature. We're investigating the interface between those two divergent aspects of human endeavor, and why the relationship so often appears antagonistic. We started with a reading of C.P. Snow's 1959 lecture The Two Cultures, and followed that up with an investigation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In that light, I thought the guys might be interested in this offering by Phillip Ball from New Scientist...

The Frankenstein syndrome: Why fear making humans? - life - 14 February 2011 - New Scientist

It discusses the reluctance of many to welcome new reproductive technology, relating it to mythological and literary depictions of human-making. As we've discussed in class, these inevitably end badly. Why is that? Does it reflect some deep wisdom, Kass' "wisdom of repugance"? Or does it just make for a better story?

Night music....

....Mumford & Sons.  I like it.

First numbers are in...

..for meiofauna from our sites in oiled/unoiled areas in Alabama coastal marshes.  They're interesting, to say the least, but just a first step.  We leave Monday to collect a second set of samples.  Hoping to see a bit more this month from the ongoing macrofauna collections in our weirs.  Progressively higher tides as we move into the spring should make the weir samples more interesting - not much to see in the first set.  Taking a couple of new victims, including a prospective thesis student, for their first exposure to the salt marsh. Thankfully, it looks like the bitter cold is passing.  Hopefully, our next thermal challenge will be an afternoon sampling in August.

Don't forget your booties...

...cause it's cold out there today.  It's cold out there every day.

It's Science Saturday, boys and girls.  Math version - Kandinsky Did, Can You? Think about it. Then work on the new ecology storage building, and prep for a coast trip. Back later to discuss.

Florida find

Not sure what's more interesting here, the video of the blanket octopus (which may show the greatest size difference betweent the sexes of any large animal), or the "ooh, that's scary" attitude of these so-called newspeople.

Catchy....

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Back on the road...

It's been a long, cold, winter (in multiple senses), and I haven't been very diligent with the morning run.  Bess and I are feeling the effects of our inactivity.  So, it's time for a new leaf.  Hopefully, that carries over to SKTS.  The book now is The Emperor of All Maladies:  A Biograhy of Cancer.  It's not my normal read (probably helping explain my lack of desire to run the Loop in the freezing pre-dawn), but the topic has hit close to home during the long winter.  Better the beast you know.  Add in the fact that most of my advisees see biology as simply an entry into medicine, and this is subject matter that I need to get into.

Experimenting...

...with the phone.

Being shit on isn't always bad...

Typically, having someone move into your home and shit on the floor is a bad thing.  Not always.  Here's a coevolutionary relationship between a woolly bat and a pitcher plant in which both benefit.