The Red Notebook
June, 2007
As we are encouraged to do these days, my partner Jen (FCD) and I have set aside a corner of our garden and allowed it to run wild. We call it our wild patch.
OK, if truth be known, it is supposed to be our vegetable patch, but it has got a bit out of hand. The nettles run rampant, the bracken I dumped there last summer to rot away has taken root, and the pile of lopped branches we left there to tidy up later has disappeared under a jungle of grass and raspberry canes. The wildlife loves our wild patch, and so do I. It is my favourite part of our garden.
This afternoon, as I was noseying around the wild patch, I noticed a mass of tiny caterpillars emerging from a protective silk tent at the top of a stinging nettle. A quick internet search led to Steven Cheshire's wonderful British Butterflies website, and revealed that the caterpillars were those of a peacock butterfly [photo].
Wild patches are the new black. Why not make your own? It involves (literally) no work at all, and is extremely rewarding. In fact, it's not entirely unlike being the Duke of York.
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Some recent radio programmes and podcasts I have enjoyed that are available online (you wouldn't believe how long it took me to retrieve all the following links, so make good use of them!):
- BBC Radio 4 Frontiers: Linnaeus (RealPlayer, eugh!)
Peter Evans celebrates the 300th anniversary of Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish Natural Historian, who gave us many of the names of plants and animals we still use today. (Why doesn't this excellent series have a podcast?)
Related links: Show notes | Home page - BBC Radio 4 In Our Time: Ockham's Razor (RealPlayer, humph!)
Why is William of Ockham significant in the history of philosophy, how did his turbulent life fit within the political dramas of his time and to what extent do we see his ideas in the work of later thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and even Martin Luther? (Note: His eponymous razor is hardly mentioned—and might not even have been his—but don't let that put you off.)
Related links: Show notes | Home page | RSS feed - Guardian Science Weekly Podcast: 21st May, 2007 (MP3, yay!)
Featuring Alison Pearn from the Darwin Correspondence Project on Darwin the scientist, Darwin the student, Darwin the devoted dad, and even Darwin the comedian. (Guardian story here.) [Note: Alison Pearn is featured at two different points on the podcast.]
Related links: Show notes | Home page | RSS feed | Subscribe via iTunes - TED Talks: E.O. Wilson: Help build the Encyclopedia of Life (MP3, yup!)
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere.
Related links: Show notes | Home page | RSS feed | Zipped MP4 video - Royal Society Podcast: Robert Hooke (M4V, iPods only, naughty!)
A fascinating look at the disorganised paper trail left by Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's first Curator of Experiments, and at the efforts of contemporary historians to piece together his paperwork and restore his legacy. (I just wish the ever-enthusiastic Lisa Jardine had let her archivist colleague get a word in edgeways.)
Related links: Home page | RSS feed | Archives weblog (and Feed) - New Scientist Podcast: Darwin's Descendant (MP3, woot!)
Author Matthew Chapman recounts his experience as a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin covering a court case that pitted evolutionary biologists against proponents of Intelligent Design. (One of the last episodes of the late, lamented New Scientist podcast.)
Yesterday, as I was trying to photograph bees on some unknown shrub in my garden, I noticed that none of the bees was actually entering the flowers of the shrub; the flowers were too small to accomodate the bees' bodies. Instead, the bees appeared to be drinking nectar from the flowers by biting holes through the outside of the flowers. After a while, I noticed that some of the bees weren't biting new holes, but were revisiting old ones.
Then I vaguely remembered reading about such behaviour somewhere in Darwin's correspondence. A quick search later, and there it was. Darwin had written to the Gardeners' Chronicle magazine to elaborate on earlier observations made by other readers:
Darwin, C. R. to Gardeners' Chronicle, [16 Aug 1841]
Perhaps some of your readers may like to hear a few more particulars about the humble-bees which bore holes in flowers, and thus extract the nectar. This operation has been performed on a large scale in the Zoological Gardens […] I observed some plants of Marvel of Peru, and of Salvia coccinea, with holes in similar positions; […] I first noticed them a week since, when, from the brown colour of their edges, they appeared to have been made some time before. The beds of Stachys and Pentstemon are frequented by numerous humble-bees of many very different kinds; at one moment I saw between twenty and thirty round a bed of the latter flower; they fly very quickly from flower to flower, and always alight with their heads just over the little orifices, into which they most dexterously insert their proboscis, and in the case of the Pentstemon, first into the orifice on one side and then into the other, so that they thus extract the nectar on both sides of the germen. […]—C. Darwin.
It is quite a long letter, but worth reading in its entirety, if you have time, as a nice example of how detailed an observer Darwin was, and how his observations could lead to new speculations (in this case, regarding acquired knowledge in insects).
Personally, I was just delighted to have noticed for myself an animal behaviour noticed and commented on 166 years earlier by my hero. But perhaps I didn't really notice it for myself. Fortune favours the prepared mind; perhaps I had subconsciously remembered my earlier reading of the above letter, and had been on the look out for the behaviour described within it. Either way, I was quite pleased with one of the photographs I managed to take:
It isn't every Thursday morning that one makes a paradigm-destroying observation while rushing, umbrella-in-hand, to one's car. But that is exactly what happened to me last Thursday. It was pouring with rain, I was running six minutes late for work, I was wet and cross about it, when suddenly, there it was, as bold as brass and as bright wet as day, in front of my very eyes: a common (but, until that point, not at all garden) snail, Helix aspersa, sliming its way across my driveway.
You have no idea how ridiculously happy this made me feel. It is six years this month since I moved to my home in the Yorkshire Pennines, and, in all that time (with one very minor exception), I have seen (if you'll forgive the inappropriate cliché) neither hide nor hair of a snail. And, believe me, I've looked.
I first wrote about the lack of snails in my garden in 2002, in an essay entitled …So Let's All Be Scientists! It was my contribution to Darwin Day Collection One: The Single Best Idea Ever [ISBN: 0972384405, Amazon.com], a collection of articles, reviews and cartoons in celebration of Darwin and science. In the essay, I suggested a number of hypotheses—some of them more serious than others—why there were no snails in my garden.
Until 06:16 last Thursday, the acidic soil hypothesis (i.e. the acidity of the soil preventing snails from forming shells) was my favourite explanation for the dearth of snails, but that has had to go by the wayside. I am now beginning to favour the out-competed-by-slugs hypothesis. For the first four years that I lived in this house, the garden was literally plagued by slugs: thousands and thousands of slugs. But, for the last two years, the number of slugs has dropped considerably. I'm not sure why this should be—a combination of an unusually dry summer last year, and more dilligent weeding by yours truly is my best guess—but maybe the marked drop in slugs has let the snails get a (literally) single foot in the door. A Darwinian mollusc war in my own garden: who'd have thought it?
I will continue to monitor the situation with renewed interest.
One-hundred and forty-nine years ago today, if his own account of events is to be believed (which has been questioned by some), Charles Darwin received the biggest bombshell of his scientific career. Having delayed publishing his theory of evolution by means of natural selection for many years, he received a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, who was in Ternate on the Malayan Archipelago (modern day Indonesia), indicating that he was about to be scooped: in bed with a tropical fever, Wallace had independently come up with the theory of Natural Selection.
Wallace's letter no longer survives (which is wonderful for conspiracy theorists), but we do still have the letter Darwin immediately wrote to his friend and confidante, Charles Lyell:
My dear Lyell
Some year or so ago, you recommended me to read a paper by Wallace in the Annals, which had interested you & as I was writing to him, I knew this would please him much, so I told him. He has to day sent me the enclosed & asked me to forward it to you. It seems to me well worth reading. Your words have come true with a vengeance that I shd be forestalled. You said this when I explained to you here very briefly my views of "Natural Selection" depending on the Struggle for existence.— I never saw a more striking coincidence. if Wallace had my M.S. sketch written out in 1842 he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as Heads of my Chapters.
Please return me the M.S. which he does not say he wishes me to publish; but I shall of course at once write & offer to send to any Journal. So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be smashed. Though my Book, if it will ever have any value, will not be deteriorated; as all the labour consists in the application of the theory.
I hope you will approve of Wallace's sketch, that I may tell him what you say.
My dear Lyell | Yours most truly | C. Darwin
In subsequent letters, the distraught Darwin clearly hinted that he needed help to establish some priority. Lyell and Hooker (who both knew of Darwin's theory) came to their friend's rescue. Wallace was in communicado in the back of beyond and could not be consulted, so they took it upon themselves to knock together a brief, joint Darwin-Wallace paper, which Hooker read to the Linnean Society on 1st July, 1858. The paper had the magnificent title:
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection. By CHARLES DARWIN, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S., & F.G.S., and ALFRED WALLACE, Esq. Communicated by Sir CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S., F.L.S., and J. D. HOOKER, Esq., M.D., V.P.R.S., F.L.S, &c.
Darwin was at pains to point out throughout the affair that he wanted to do the honourable thing by Wallace. But, however you look at it, you can't help feeling that poor, young Wallace was stitched up slightly in order to give Darwin his (justifiable) priority. But, when he eventually heard of the joint paper, Wallace was delighted to have been published alongside Darwin, and, in later years, he always gave Darwin due priority for the theory the two men came up with independently.
As for the Darwin-Wallace joint paper, it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. It wasn't until the following year that Darwin's own bombshell, dashed out in a rush to avoid further potential priority disputes, hit an unsuspecting, but hardly unforewarned, world in the form of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
The rest, as they say, is his story.
It pains me to say it, but the UK government's decision to withdraw its nomination of Downe as a World Heritage Site was probably its most sensible option. At least it can now renominate Downe in two year's time—which would coincide nicely with Darwin's bicentennial.
But, like the government, I am completely stumped as to why Unesco might think for one second that Darwin's former home and its environs might not be a suitable location to celebrate achievements in science. Indeed, I can think of few other places that fit the bill so admirably. Where else in the world (apart from the Galápagos Islands, which already have World Heritage Site status) can you visit a living landscape that inspired the natural world's greatest genius?
I was genuinely apprehensive about visiting Down House. I live eight miles from Haworth in West Yorkshire, home of the Brontës. I have only visited their famous parsonage once, and came away with the impression that, had I known or cared the first thing about the Brontës, I would have been dreadfully disappointed. There's nothing to see, basically: it's just an empty building with a few insignificant Brontë mementoes. I feared Down House would be the same.
But my fears were unfounded. Visiting Down House was one of the most moving and—dare I say it?—spiritual experiences of my life. It's almost as if Darwin has just popped out for a stroll around the Sandwalk. Indeed, the Sandwalk—Darwin's thinking path—alone should be enough to justify Downe World Heritage Site status.
Let's hope Unesco sees sense in 2009.
Howard Schamest, FCD writes:
Richard,
In talking about evolution with my 9 year old niece, who, like so many American kids wants a "hip" jargonized mnemonic to remember, I suggested she say: Chucky D and the Big E. Where previously she was vague about the name Charles Darwin and the term evolution, she now proudly and enthusiastically tells her friends about Chucky D and the Big E.Perhaps other FOCD’s might find this mnemonic useful for their children.
Chucky D!? And to think I worried that Charlie is my Darwin might be a little too disrespectful.
But each to his own, and horses for courses, and all that… If Chucky D and the Big E helps some child somewhere remember who the great man was, then I'm happy to spread the meme.
But I wonder if the expression '(to give someone) the Big E(lbow)' is in circulation on the western bank of the pond.
What on earth is an interested member of the general public supposed to think? I do wish those scientist types would make up their minds. Compare and contrast:
BBC (28-Mar-2007): Mammal rise 'not linked' to dinos
The extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago had little effect on the evolution of mammals, according to a study in the journal Nature…
[A new mammal supertree construction] shows that the placental mammals had already split into [their main] sub-groups by 93 million years ago, long before the space impact and at a time when dinosaurs still ruled the planet.
Reuters (20-Jun-2007): Mammals burst on the scene after dinosaurs' exit
… We wanted to test whether there were any Cretaceous placentals," [John] Wible [of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, whose research appears in the journal Nature] said in a telephone interview. "If the molecular dates are correct, we should be finding things that look like modern placentals in this time period and we are not."
They found that none of these Cretaceous forms of early mammals are related to any living placental mammals. "They are just extinct dead ends," he said.
Wible said his work reinforced the idea that the death of the dinosaurs created an opportunity for explosive growth of modern mammals.
"You've got all of these ecological niches that were occupied by the dinosaurs. They go extinct, and you've got wide open spaces. It's like the Oklahoma land rush," he said.
All joking aside, though, this is a fascinating subject. And, as far as I understand these two studies from the press reports (rather than the original papers), they don't necessarily contradict each other.
… But I could be wrong!
I'm sure this one must have done the rounds before, but I don't remember seeing it, so what the heckerly-weckerly:
(More evolution-themed Simpsons nuggets here.)
Today marks 600 days to go until Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. They're cutting it a bit fine if they're going to get that boat built on time. So why not pop over to the Beagle Project website and make a humongous donation?
What else are you going to spend it on? You can't take it with you, you know.
Last week, I wrote:
For the first four years that I lived in this house, the garden was literally plagued by slugs: thousands and thousands of slugs. But, for the last two years, the number of slugs has dropped considerably. I'm not sure why this should be—a combination of an unusually dry summer last year, and more dilligent weeding by yours truly is my best guess…
Well, perhaps I might have to revise my reason-for-slug-dearth hypothesis. Look what I saw in the garden this afternoon:
OK, I admit it doesn't seem likely that all my slugs have been eaten by mice, but I was pretty amazed to see a mouse eating a slug in the first place.
I was even more amazed to be able to get so close to this little chap. In fact, I managed to get so close that my macro lens couldn't focus on him. That's very close indeed. If you look very carefully at some of the other photos I took, you can just make out my reflection in his eye.
Some recent podcasts that I have enjoyed:
-
Guardian Science Extra: Steve Jones (mp3)
Interview with Steve Jones about his new book, Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise.
Related links: Home page | Feed | Subscribe via iTunes -
Guardian Science Extra: Richard Dawkins (mp3)
Interview with Richard Dawkins author of the 'The God Delusion', about religion, science, and his recent argument with Robert Winston.
Related links: Home page | Feed | Subscribe via iTunes -
TED Talks: Measuring the fastest animal on earth (mp3)
UC Berkeley biologist Sheila Patek gives a wide-ranging talk on the effort to measure the hyperfast movements of peacock mantis shrimp heels using high-speed video cameras recording at 20,000 frames per second. She and her team slowed down the movements of these amazing animals and showed they had the fastest known feeding strike in the animal kingdom. (In 2006, Patek's team announced an even faster animal part: the mandible of the trap-jaw ant.)
Related links: Show notes (inc. video) | Home page | Feed -
TED Talks: Biomimicry (mp3)
With 3.8 billion years of research and development on its side, nature has already solved problems that human designers and engineers still struggle with. In this inspiring talk, Janine Benyus provides fascinating examples of biomimicry—the way humans mimic nature in the products we build and the systems we implement. And because the champion adapters in the natural world are, by definition, those that can survive without destroying the environment that sustains them, biomimicry can contribute to the long-term health of our planet.
Related links: Show notes (inc. video) | Home page | Feed
A few days ago, I wrote about an apparent disagreement between two sets of scientists over the evolution of mammals. I confessed to general confusion as to whether the findings of two different studies actually conflicted with each other. It turns out they did. New Scientist this week contained a short article which nicely summarised the differences:
New Scientist: When did placental and marsupial mammals split?
… According to the fossil record, our ancestors didn't split into modern groups of placental and marsupial mammals until after the dinosaurs bit the dust at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. So say John Wible of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, who have compared late Cretaceous fossils with modern placental groups…
That bolsters the traditional view of palaeontologists, but flies in the face of molecular studies of genetic divergence of living species, which put the origin of placentals 80 to 140 million years ago… "We're in total discord with the molecular dates," Wible says. He thinks genetic clocks fail to account for the post-Cretaceous burst of mammalian evolution.
Are palaeontologists missing fossils, or do bursts of evolutionary diversification throw off molecular clocks? You have to take both sides seriously, says Rich Cifelli of the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman.
I have to say, I've always had my doubts about the use of so-called genetic clocks to estimate dates of key evolutionary events. It stands to reason that genetic analyses should be able to give us a very good idea of the sequence in which such events happened, but using them to estimate actual dates for these events seems (to this ill-informed outsider at least) hopeful in the extreme.
The very concept of a genetic clock assumes that genetic mutations occur at a constant rate. This may or may not be the case, but to me it seems a bit too convenient. Physicists use radiocarbon dating and potassium-argon dating to give pretty good estimates of the ages of particular samples (although such techniques are not without their problems), but the biological world is far more messy than the physical one with its precise radioactive half-lives. My gut feeling is that using genetic clocks to provide actual dates for evolutionary events is giving in too much to physics-envy.
For the time-being, I'll side with the palaeontologists, who deal with hard—albeit sparse—physical evidence.
But what the hell do I know? If I turn out to be wrong, I will happily stand corrected.
The Natural History museum has a fascinating news story about sexual arms races in diving beetles.
Apparently, every time male diving beetles evolve better suction cups on their feet to hold on to females during mating, the females evolve countermeasures to decrease the effectiveness of the suction cups. This is because the optimal time, length or the number of matings is not the same for males and females.
Who says romance is dead?
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