Old Weblog - January 2004
British botanists are celebrating 2004 certain they are near their goal of saving the seeds of all UK plants. The Millennium Seed Bank project says it must find two more species to reach its target of protecting all the UK's seed-bearing flora from disappearing.
Saving the seeds won't, of course, protect all the UK's seed-bearing flora from disappearing, but it's a worthy enterprise nevertheless.
…The love lives of toadfish still puzzle biologists. No one knows, for example, exactly how or why the fish developed its astonishing love call. Although there is only one type of female, the males come in two types: the dominant Type 1 that thrums the loudest and longest, and the wilier Type 2 males that vibrate much more softly.
The £50,000-plus project will go on public display in [Darwin's birthplace, Shrewsbury] from Thursday, when visitors to Shrewsbury's museum and art gallery can let judges know their favourites … The six artists have all returned with sculptures celebrating evolution guru Charles Darwin.
Climate change could drive a million of the world's species to extinction as soon as 2050, a scientific study says. The authors say in the journal Nature a study of six world regions suggested a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion.
Undoubtedly very worrying news—although, in the very (very) long-term, one thing paleontology has shown us is that life bounces back (albeit in wonderful new forms). Indeed, you could argue that extinction forms a vital component of evolution, as it frees up ecological niches for new species to evolve into and exploit. Without the extinction of the dinosaurs, we would probably still be shrew-like beasts, cowering in holes, living off insects. Mind you, perhaps that would have been a better scenario, as far as life on Earth is concerned.
Global warming may drive a quarter of land animals and plants to the edge of extinction by 2050, a major international study has warned. In the worst case scenario, between a third to a half of land animal and plant species will face extermination. The predictions come from extinction models based on over 1100 species covering a fifth of the Earth's land mass.
The best case scenario is the extinction of 9% of species.
The multimillion-pound boom in herbal medicine is threatening to wipe out up to a fifth of the plant species on which it depends, wrecking their natural habitats and jeopardising the health of millions of people in developing countries. And yet the herbal medicines industry has been accused of doing nothing about it.
Historical figures including Socrates, Charles Darwin, and Andy Warhol probably had a form of autism, says a leading specialist. Prof. Michael Fitzgerald, of Dublin's Trinity College believes they showed signs of Asperger's syndrome… Asperger's is associated with poor social skills, and obsessions with complex topics such as music.
Another person with a trendy book to sell. I do wish people wouldn't do stuff like this. I've also read of Freudian shrinks retrospectively psycho-analysing Darwin and deducing he hated his father. And there was some other chap who liked to assign IQ scores to dead celebrities—as if the concept of IQ wasn't dodgy enough already.
The orang-utan, Asia's "wild man of the forests", could disappear in just 20 years, a campaign group believes. WWF, the global environment network, says in the last century the number of apes fell by 91% in Borneo and Sumatra.
The key cognitive step that allowed humans to become the only animals using language may have been identified, scientists say. A new study on monkeys found that while they are able to understand basic rules about word patterns, they are not able to follow more complex rules that underpin the crucial next stage of language structure. For example, the monkeys could master simple word structures, analogous to realising that "the" and "a" are always followed by another word. But they were unable to grasp phrase patterns analogous to "if... then..." constructions.
A new census of gorilla populations in the national parks of three countries in Central Africa has shown a surprise increase in numbers. The survey suggests the number of mountain gorillas has risen by 17% since 1989, despite insecurity and the threat from poachers.
Modern farming in Europe has reduced the numbers of 24 common bird species by a third in a quarter of a century, a report by European ornithologists says… They say the declines were steepest in countries in north-west Europe, in the regions of most intensive agriculture.
The blind mole rat continually monitors its direction using the Earth's magnetic field when it makes long underground journeys, new research has revealed. It is the first animal discovered to have this talent.
The more you read about these mole rats, the more incredible they seem.
A complete mammoth skull has been unearthed in southern England, only the second to be found in Britain.
The monkey, a symbol of cleverness and vitality, has found favor with the Chinese more than ever before as its sheepish predecessor, the goat, prepares to cede its place on the Chinese Lunar New Year falling on Thursday. […] According to the General History of Tibet, Tibetan legends on man's evolution from monkeys had been told in 800 AD, 1,000 years before Charles Darwin was born.
…Although I'm sure the people who invented these legends would be the first to concede that Darwin gave their theory some much-needed scientific credibility!
It is possibly the longest-running murder mystery of them all. What, or even who, killed humankind's nearest relatives, the Neanderthals who once roamed Europe before dying out almost 30,000 years ago?
Suspects have ranged from the climate to humans themselves, and the mystery has deeply divided experts. Now 30 scientists have come together to publish the most definitive answer yet to this enigma.
They say Neanderthals simply did not have the technological know-how to survive the increasingly harsh winters. And intriguingly, rather than being Neanderthal killers, the original human settlers of Europe almost suffered the same fate.
My initial reaction to the first couple of paragraphs of this article was great scepticism, but the people carrying out the study have amassed some impressive evidence. Somehow, though, I think this controversy will run and run.
A giant gate to commemorate Shrewsbury's most famous son, Charles Darwin, will tower over the town centre by the end of 2004. The Darwin Gate has won a competition entered by more than 100 internationally-acclaimed designers to be the town's first piece of public art in more than a century.
Direct measurement of water on the surface of Mars - in the form of ice on the southern polar cap - tops the list of the first scientific data returned by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express mission.
Scientists have decided that a fossil found near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire is the remains of the oldest creature ever to live on land. It is thought that the one-centimetre millipede which was prised out of a siltstone bed is 428 million years old.
Wow! That's even older than my mate Fitz.
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short. The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour. He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.
The way this article reads, anyone would think this (undoubtedly talented) parrot was doing something more than responding vocally to certain stimuli. His claimed talents include the non-existent phenomenon of 'telepathy'. I think his owner must have been sniffing too many of their aromatherapy oils.
The Neanderthals were not close relatives of modern humans and represent a single species quite distinct from our own, scientists say. 3D comparisons of Neanderthal, modern human and other primate skulls confirm theories that the ancient people were a breed apart, the researchers report.
Researchers believe a jawbone found in Khorat, Thailand, and dating to the Late Miocene era between seven and nine million years ago belongs to a newly discovered relative of orangutans. The jawbone from the new hominoid, named Khoratpithecus piriyai, is similar to the lower jaw, or mandible, of modern orangutans. And like today's orangutans, the ancient jawbone shows no evidence of anterior digastric muscles, the tell-tale muscles used to lower the jaw in most other primates.
The catastrophic decline of griffon vultures in south Asia is being caused not by a mysterious disease, as had been thought, but a common painkiller given to sick cattle.
The origins of Sars have been made clearer by a genetic study that traces it back to wild animals in China. As scientists worry about the potential for bird flu to one day become a major killer, the study shows how Sars "jumped" to humans a year ago.
A major new festival to celebrate the life and work of Charles Darwin - Shrewsbury's most famous son - gets under way this weekend. Darwin Month, sponsored by the Shropshire Star, will see the town packed with events paying tribute to the revolutionary scientist.
That's more like it.