Recently in Evolution Category

First things first. The 3-part series is called Becoming Human, and it begins tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time (and 7 p.m. my time, so check your local schedule).

The website, which is in a beta edition right now, is called simply “Evolution.” Today, it features articles on Becoming Human, Evo-Devo, and The Evolution of Motherhood, among others. It looks as though a regular feature will include links to recent news articles, and there are also links to apparently original material by Neil Shubin, Sean Carroll, and Carl Zimmer. There are additional links to a number of relevant books and websites. Finally, you can watch “Intelligent Design on Trial” and “Darwin’s Darkest Hour” just by following links prominently displayed on the “Evolution” website.

As part of a year-long Darwin Lecture Series, evo-devo guy Sean Carroll will be giving a webcast talk based around his Making of the Fittest. The talk is on Wednesday, November 4, and you can sign up for the live webcast here.

Photograph by Michael Klaas.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Cloud birth – an eruption of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii.

Photograph by Paul Burnett.

Latrodectus hesperus - (male) western black widow spider. Mr Burnett assures us, “Yes, that’s my thumb and forefinger. And yes, it was alive, although unhappy.”

In spite of the Disco ‘Tute’s recent efforts to imply that the Smithsonian Institution is somehow sympathetic to anti-evolutionist films, the stodgy old place persists in being a place where evolution education is important. Most recently it has announced (pdf of press release) the upcoming opening of a new exhibition hall devoted to human origins:

A new exhibition hall dedicated to the discovery and understanding of human origins will open next year at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Based on decades of cutting-edge research by Smithsonian scientists, the David H. Koch (pronounced “coke”) Hall of Human Origins will premiere March 17, 2010, which also marks the 100-year anniversary of the museum’s official opening on the National Mall.

The $20.7 million exhibition hall will be complemented by ongoing human origins research and education programs, which are all key components of the museum’s broader initiative, “Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” The initiative focuses on the epic story of human evolution and how the defining characteristics of the species have evolved over 6 million years as its ancestors adapted to a changing world. The museum will launch a compelling new Smithsonian Human Origins Web site and a revolutionary virtual experience hosted on the Blue Mars 2150 virtual Web site. It will include a complete reproduction of the physical exhibition plus additional features visitors can only experience on the Web.

It’s noteworthy that the main funding is coming from two people with science and engineering backgrounds, the eponymous David H. Koch, a chemical engineer and executive vice president of Koch Industries, and Peter Buck, a physicist and co-founder of Subway restaurants. It’s good to see there’s significant science philanthropy to offset the likes of Howard Ahmanson, a major funder of the Disco ‘Tute.

Photograph by Paul Blake.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Fossilized Ladder Ripples, Torpedo Creek Quarzite near Mount Oxide in the Western Succession of the Mount Isa Inlier, Queensland, Australia. In environments such as tidally influenced areas, water currents often go in different directions, resulting in unusual ripple patterns (hard to explain tidally influenced areas in a global flood). Torpedo Creek Quartzite is about 1.69 billion years old.

Today I received this e-mail:

Creation evolution free videos what is the real deal?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUu5hBp1AU8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0Ic03c6f8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbh1P6DW5I

In spite of the (lack of) punctuation in the first line, the links led me to several excellent, convincing, and professional-looking videos with titles like “Evolution is REAL Science #1.” A few more clicks, and I found the home page of the producer, Jeremy Mohn, as well as his blog.

Photograph by Darren Garrison.

Hyla versicolor–gray tree frog.

If you can’t see the frog, just go below the fold.

As Matt Young pointed out recently, the fifteen year wait for the complete publication of the Ardipithecus ramidus skeletal material discovered by Tim White, and his research group, is over. The material was finally published in Science and is open access. I will discuss the morphology of Ardipithecus ramidus and its implications in a second post. In this post I would like to look at the geological, environmental, and taphonomic background to the discoveries. I examine these first because they provide strong evidence to back up some of the behavioral interpretations of Ardipithecus ramidus.

Update Tonight

That’s the title of a 2-hour NOVA program that will be shown Tuesday, October 6, on PBS. DDH is a drama presented by NOVA and National Geographic. It was written by the British screenwriter John Goldsmith and directed by John Bradshaw. It stars Henry Ian Cusick as Darwin. You may find an interview with the playwright and a wealth of other material, not least the WGBH Evolution website, linked to the website of the program. (Originally posted September 25.)

Photograph by Kari Tikkanen.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Sorbus aucuparia–European Rowan, or Mountain Ash

I don’t know how I missed this, but some guy named Charles Darwin is blogging a sea voyage he’s on. It seems he’s keeping a journal, and he is blogging the entries so the rest of us can tag along. Read it as an antidote to the Luskin/Wells stupidity.

Hat tip to Phil Plait.

This week’s Science has a special issue devoted to the fossil hominid Ardipithecus ramidus. It looks as though you may read at least some of the 11 articles free, and you may see a video featuring (mostly) Tim White. The fossil is interesting in part because it appears to show that certain expected traits may be absent from the last common ancestor of chimps and humans.

NESCent has announced a travel award for an evolution blogger to attend ScienceOnline2010 (January 14–17^th, 2010, in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park). Bloggers should submit a blog post that highlights scientific results appearing in 2009, dealing with current or emerging evolutionary research. Posts should be 750–1500 words and must mention the contest.

For complete contest information, visit NESCent.

If you submit something to this contest drop me a line as well, and I’ll try to highlight your entry on PT as well.

Photograph by Dan Moore.

Photography contest, Honorable Mention.

Erosional landscape at Zabriskie Point, Amargosa Range, Death Valley National Park. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago, long before Death Valley sank and widened.

To keep this short, I’ll just quote the NCSE announcement:

he new film about Darwin, Creation, will be distributed in the United States after all, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter (September 24, 2009). The film is expected to be released by Newmarket Films in December 2009. Earlier the producer of the film, Jeremy Thomas, lamented to the Telegraph (September 11, 2009), “It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it’s because of what the film is about. … It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America.” A few days later, however, NBC Bay Area (September 15, 2009) reported that a distribution deal was imminent.

In her review of Creation at The Panda’s Thumb blog, NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott described it as “a thoughtful, well-made film that will change many views of Darwin held by the public – for the good.” It also received praise from Steve Jones in Time Out London (September 22, 2009), who called it “a great film about a great man and a greater theory” and by Adam Rutherford in his Guardian blog (September 23, 2009), where he wrote, “we should … be grateful that this film is moving and beautiful, just like the creation Darwin so luminously untangled,” adding, “Creationists the world over deserve to see it.”

Huzzah!

The San Diego Zoo has a webcam up on their baby panda: Panda Cam. If you don’t get enough cute in your day, you need to check it out.

HT: Jerry Coyne

Mark Aldrich of Smith College has posted a prodigious number of cartoons under the title “Cartooning Evolution, 1861-1925.” You may look at thumbnails listed under various categories: Darwin and Evolution, Evolution as Social Comment, Victorian Science, and The Scopes Trial as interpreted by northern and southern newspapers and national magazines. Each thumbnail has a link to a larger image. According to Mr. Aldrich, many of the cartoons are readily available from the Library of Congress and other sources.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education for the reference.