Old Weblog Archive - August 2002

Cold spelt end of dinosaurs #
Cold was killing dinosaurs long before the asteroid commonly thought to have been their downfall hit, according to scientists. That asteroid 65 million years ago in the Cretaceous period was probably the "final straw".
BBC: 31-Aug-02

Farming threat to sparrow #
There is more bad news for the survival of one of Britain's best loved birds, the house sparrow. Conservationists say the bird's future looks grim because the birds cannot get enough food to survive the winter.
BBC: 29-Aug-02
It's true: house sparrows have become noticeably less common in Britain since I was a child. Natural Selection at work, yet again.

Darwin's letters return to their roots #
177 years after Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, the 12 volumes of correspondence published so far are being sent to the Charles Darwin Research Station, a facility based on the islands.
BBC: 27-Aug-02
For anyone not familiar with The Correspondence of Charles Darwin [Cambridge University Press], the 12 volumes published so far are meticulously researched and extremely readable. Highly recommended.

Satellite tracker finds goose in freezer #
A goose fitted with a £3,000 electronic transmitter to chart its migration has been tracked 4,500 miles (7,245 kilometres) by satellite - to an Eskimo hunter's freezer.
BBC: 26-Aug-02
Each goose can be adopted for a £75 contribution to the research programme. Adopters receive e-mails and mobile phone text messages with their goose's location. Cool (in both senses of the word).

The Alfred Russel Wallace Page #
A website about Darwin's contemporary and colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace. The site is maintained by Charles H. Smith, Associate Professor and Science Librarian at Western Kentucky University, who has been studying the work of Alfred Russel Wallace for over twenty years. The site contains commentaries, bibliographies, lists, a biography, and the full-text of over 200 of Wallace's writings.
Note that single 'l' in Russel.

Mitochondria can be inherited from both parents #
Mitochondria may not be inherited solely through the maternal line, according to new research that promises to overturn accepted biological wisdom.
New Scientist: 23-Aug-02
Note the word may...  So, Mitochondrial Eve might turn out to have been Mitochondrial Steve.

Meteorite 'changed Earth's history' #
Scientists say they have found evidence that a gigantic meteorite, twice as big as the one which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs, collided with Earth billions of years ago.
BBC: 23-Aug-02

Lions' dark secret to attraction #
Scientists in the United States have found that female lions prefer males with dark coloured, hairy manes.
BBC: 22-Aug-02
I can't believe they didn't call this piece The Mane Attraction.

Replica ships plan for Devonport #
Plans to build replica 19th century ships at Devonport could bring much needed jobs to the region. One of the first boats planned is HMS Beagle, the vessel on which naturalist Charles Darwin mapped out many of his ideas on evolution.
BBC: 18-Aug-02

Atheist gives Thought for the Day #
A scientist has become the first atheist to deliver a Thought for the Day on the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme. In his two-and-a-half minute slot, Professor Richard Dawkins from Oxford University, argued science gave a better explanation of life than religion... However, Prof Dawkins's broadcast did not replace the regular daily slot but ran an hour afterwards as an unofficial "Thought".
BBC: 14-Aug-02
For the uninitiated, Thought for the Day is the BBC's daily religious propaganda slot, which appears bang in the middle of its most prestigious radio news programme. I wrote to them once to express my displeasure. It would appear that I'm not the only one.

Language Gene Is Traced to Emergence of Humans #
A study of the genomes of people and chimpanzees has yielded a deep insight into the origin of language, one of the most distinctive human attributes and a critical step in human evolution. The analysis indicates that language, on the evolutionary time scale, is a very recent development, having evolved only in the last 100,000 years or so.
New York Times: 15-Aug-02 [Free registration required]
The conclusions rely on an estimate for the time at which a distinctly human variant of a gene first appeared in the human genome.

Hard work and natural selection [article deleted] #
Charles Darwin's memoirs, written for his children, were never meant for publication. But they shed intriguing light on the single-minded and intensely private scientist.
Guardian:03-Aug-02

Bad behaviour linked to gene #
The chances of anti-social behaviour among boys who are maltreated as they grow up may be determined by their genetic make-up, research suggests.
BBC: 02-Aug-02
Hmm... Let's read that again, with a little added emphasis:
The chances of anti-social behaviour among boys who are maltreated as they grow up may be determined by their genetic make-up, research suggests.
It's the same old story: you simply can't separate the environmental contribution to behaviour from the genetic contribution (dodgy identical twin studies notwithstanding). The headline might equally validly have read Bad behaviour linked to upbringing (although, to be fair, the researchers clearly recognise this; it's the BBC who came up with the potentially misleading headline).

Atlas maps the web of life #
An interactive atlas of the world's natural wealth paints a graphic picture of humanity's inexorable spread.
BBC: 01-Aug-02