Old Weblog - November 2003

Tiny transmitters have been attached to migratory swans so their epic journey can be tracked for the first time. One whooper swan and five Bewick's swans are being tracked by satellite so their progress can be followed online.
The dingo it seems had an accomplice in driving the Tasmanian "tiger" [Thylacine] off mainland Australia - human hunters. There appears little doubt the famous feral dog out-competed the tiger for food and helped push it back to its final island habitat 3,000 years ago. There appears little doubt the famous feral dog out-competed the tiger for food and helped push it back to its final island habitat 3,000 years ago.
Scientists have proved that even the most seemingly innocent chat with a woman can be enough to send male sex hormones soaring.
Although this might be seen as proving the bleeding obvious, it was a nice, simple experiment they carried out.
Board gives final approval to biology books (Star-Telegram [Texas]: 07-Nov-03)
Biology books in Texas will continue to present the origin of life according to the theories of Charles Darwin. The State Board of Education gave final approval Friday to 11 biology books, among others, despite a major campaign to poke holes in Darwin's theory of evolution as presented in the textbooks.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today visited the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and issued a strong call for protection of the natural environment. Addressing the Charles Darwin Foundation at Galapagos National Park, Mr. Annan hailed Ecuadorans for "the legal and institutional framework that they have put in place, in a participatory way, to protect this treasure".
Sociable baboons make better mums (New Scientist: 13-Nov-03)
Sociable mums make much better mothers than less gregarious ones, suggests a new study of baboons. Baby baboons born to outgoing mums who enjoy hanging out with other females are considerably more likely to survive their crucial first year than infants born to less friendly mothers, reveals the behavioural study.
Introducing a bogus ancestor into our family tree can throw the entire study of human evolution off course. This is exactly what happened with the Piltdown skull, which was exposed as an elaborate hoax exactly 50 years ago this month.
Alaska's native horse was killed off by food shortages caused by climate change - not human hunters, scientists say. Researchers found the horses shrank in size before their extinction 12,500 years ago, which fits with the theory that they did not have enough to eat.
Analysis of different croaks has revealed that at least one species of amphibian has developed regional accents in its mating calls. The accented croaks are thought to have developed during the last ice age when populations of pool frogs were separated for thousands of years.
Monkeyflower Mutation Provides Evolution Insight (National Geographic: 12-Nov-03)
For years scientists have grappled to understand the number and type of genetic mutations required for a new species to evolve. Does it require the accumulation of many minute mutations? Or can a single mutation spark a big change? Now researchers studying pink and red flowers in the monkeyflower (Mimulus) family have found a persuasive answer: A single mutation can recruit a whole new set of pollinators, serving as the fork in the road that leads to a new species.
Can Codependent Species Survive Forest Breakup? (National Geographic: 12-Nov-03)
A new study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that habitat fragmentation dangerously disrupts the life cycle of the tropical African tree Leptonychia usmabarensis. The tree, found only in one mountain range, relies on birds to eat its fruit and disperse the seeds it produces as few as five times each century.
Flies key to evolution study (Taipei Times: 13-Nov-03)
Flies have been around for at least 250 million years, surviving global warming and freezing and major "extinction events" such as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. Yet we know surprisingly little about this constant and frequently irritating companion to man and animal life. In an attempt to rectify this, Australian scientists have joined a global effort to map the genetic structure and evolutionary history of the fly which could also entail a major rethink of Darwinian principles. One of them, David Yeates, an entomologist, describes the task as "an incredibly important project considering flies comprise about 10 percent of animal life forms on the planet."
Environmentalists say the northern stronghold of native British crayfish, in the rivers Wansbeck and Aln, could be under threat from the spread of the aggressive signal crayfish, from the United States.
Invasions by alien species and the destruction of habitats by people have boosted the number of species on the Red List of Threatened Species to more than 12,000 for the first time.
Natural selection (Boston Globe: 18-Nov-03)

…The only thing the [Harvard] Agassiz Museum is missing is science. The extensive display of Galapagos finches -- the kind that inspired Charles Darwin to develop his theory of evolution -- includes no reference to Darwin or explanation for the different shapes of their beaks. The only family tree in the museum shows the modern wolf descending from the cave bear descending from the sabertoothed tiger.

Now, nearly a decade after deciding to refocus its mission on public outreach instead of simply collecting specimens, the museum is slowly starting to update its displays—many of which date back a century or more.

Clearly more science is needed, but it is to be hoped that the revamp doesn't spoil the experience of visiting the museum. There is something very wonderful about old Victorian Natural History museums stuffed full of dead animals in glass cases. The Dublin Natural History Museum is my favourite.
The world's most alkaline lifeforms are living in contaminated water in the US.
The first "new" British fern to be discovered for over 50 years has been spotted by an amateur naturalist. Civil engineer Matt Stribley found what turned out to be the diaphanous bladder fern by the banks of a Cornish river.
The species is new to the British Isles. It's great to hear that amateur scientists are still doing their bit.
New whale species found in museum (New Scientist: 19-Nov-03)
A new species of baleen whale has been discovered. The stunning find, made after researchers studied the body shape and genetics of a few leviathan skeletons gathering dust for the last 25 years in a Japanese museum, brings the total number of known species in the main genus of baleen whale to eight.
The dodo probably died out in 1690, nearly 30 years later than the last confirmed sighting of the bird. Some of the flightless birds survived unseen for decades, according to a statistical analysis by scientists reported in the journal Nature.
Darwin's Atolls Theory Challenged (Discovery Channel: 21-Nov-03)
Though his theory of evolution may be holding up, Charles Darwin's well-regarded theory of how ring-shaped islands called atolls formed in tropical oceans is getting some serious revising, a University of Arizona geologist said. William Dickinson believes that sea-level changes and erosion played big roles—and these, in turn had a big implications for how and when Polynesians spread through the South Pacific.
Darwin's atoll theory isn't really being challenged; this is more of an update. Darwin's theory that atolls are formed by coral growning on top of submerging volcanos is still basically correct.
Scientists have found new evidence that the greatest extinction in the Earth's history was triggered by an asteroid.
At last the answer in black and white, or beltz and zuri if you happen to be Basque, or noir and blanc, if you are French. You owe the words to Hittite-speaking farmers from Anatolia, who invented agriculture and spread their words as they sowed their seed, 9,500 years ago… Charles Darwin noted in 1871 that language seemed to have evolved in much the same way as animals and plants had. Dr Gray used the evolutionary approach three years ago to track the spread of languages from Asia eastwards across the Pacific.
A small songbird [the long-legged thicketbird] believed to have become extinct more than a century ago has been found alive and well in Fiji.
Preemies from the Precambrian (Astrobiology Magazine: 11-Nov-03)
Scientists are using a new technique called microCT - a spin-off of the medical CAT scan - to study rare fossils of the early-stage embryos of what may be Earth's oldest animals.
An article I missed earlier in the month.