Galapagos Islands

ADid you figure out the answers to last week’s quiz? They’re all the way at the bottom of this post, but I’m sure you figured out that answer A was the Galapagos Islands.

The Galapagos Islands were formed more than 8 million years ago, and thanks to ongoing volcanic activity, some of the islands are still growing.

After the islands were formed, species (plants, spores, animals) would occasionally arrive here from the mainland, but because they were now in a completely different ecosystem, they evolved differently – for example, small turtles were able to grow into very big turtles.

1024px-Darwin's_finches_by_GouldWe understand this now, but Darwin had to figure all of that out for himself when he first visited the Galapagos. He did, eventually, but it took him a while to put all the pieces together. One thing he did notice when he visited the islands were the birds.

He recognized that the finches were different between different islands, but at the time Darwin thought that they were different birds. Only after Darwin analysed the animals they collected, upon the Beagle’s return, did he realise that they were all the same bird, with local variations generated on each island.

Darwin’s finches became a famous example of evolution. They’re the finches that The Finch and Pea are (half-)named after, and they’re the finches that my work uses as mascot for certain things (here’s one!). Seriously, I can’t seem to get away from those birds!

The Galapagos are still a place where biologists come to study nature. In fact, there is a research foundation, the Charles Darwin Foundation, based on one of the islands. The Charles Darwin Research Station is at risk of closing and is in desperate need of financial support to stay solvent.

Earlier this year, they launched a project in collaboration with Google, which use Google streetview images to let people explore the Galapagos from home and record any species they view in the images.

First I didn’t find much more than cool plants…

Galapagos

…but then I looked somewhere else and found a blue-footed booby!

booby

Have fun exploring the Galapagos. And as promised, here are the results from last week’s quiz:
Continue reading “Galapagos Islands”

Apocalypse 1908: The First Anthropogenic Climate Change Novel

Louis Pope Gratacap’s The Evacuation of England (1908)

Digging the Panama Canal in 1907
Digging the Panama Canal in 1907

One of the pleasures of reading older post-apocalyptic fiction is seeing how the major themes and plot ideas of today’s genre were first introduced more than one hundred years ago. But just because writers came up with these great ideas doesn’t mean that their books are any good. Many of them are; however the American writer Louis Gratacap’s pioneering post-apocalyptic novel wins the prize as the most turgid and unreadable novel I’ve ever read. In fact, I’ll admit it: I didn’t actually read the whole book; my reading quickly changed into a slow skim. Over at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, John Clute has the same opinion:

Gratacap’s range was wide, incorporating much material which has become central to sf, but his books are overlong, choked by his compulsive didacticism, and nearly unreadable today.

So why bother with The Evacuation of England? Because Gratacap came up with a major innovation that is absolutely central to post-apocalyptic SF today. To my knowledge (please correct me if I’m wrong), Evacuation is the first novel in which civilization is destroyed by a natural disaster caused by human beings. It’s the world’s first anthropogenic climate change novel. Continue reading “Apocalypse 1908: The First Anthropogenic Climate Change Novel”

Scientific American and Blogs

Today, the editors of Scientific American published a post announcing a new vision for the Scientific American blog network. It is not exactly clear how that new vision is going to play out. It does seem to mean that many excellent blogs on the network, including those written by friends, will go away.

Blog editor Curtis Brainard’s discussion of controversy surrounding one of their blogs reads like a prelude to today’s announcement.

We are currently revising guidelines with our blogging community with the aim of preventing missteps.

The new “Blog Network Guidelines” are strict, and appear specifically geared to preventing controversies like a blog posting racist and sexist arguments.

It is too early to comment on whether this is the “right” approach. Frankly, I am hopelessly conflicted as a number of friends doing excellent work will be losing a gig. It is, however, telling that Scientific American is recognizing that they have to take responsibility for everything that appears under their brand:

Among other things, people expect a higher level of accuracy, integrity, transparency and quality from media organizations, and that expectation applies as much to blog content as it does to more traditional content such as news and features—especially because many readers do not differentiate between the two types of content.

On a lighter note, this booilerplate disclaimer is ridiculous:

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those ofScientific American.

If the views of “The Editors” do not necessarily reflect the views of Scientific American, whose do? In this case, it seems obvious that the only resolution is to conclude that Scientific American as a publishing company is incapable of holding “views”, which may be upsetting to certain members of the Supreme Court.

Science Caturday: Feline scientists in training

Hi folks — Greg Gbur aka “Dr. SkySkull” here!  Michele couldn’t be here for Science Caturday this week and she asked me to fill in.  My wife and I have a lot of cats at home, who are of course all scientists in training, so I thought I’d share a few of their research interests.

First up is Rascal, one of our youngest cats at about 3 years old.  He recently showed interest in a “simple electric train” that you can built with magnets, a battery, and coiled copper wire.  A video demonstration of this effect has been making the rounds recently, and I just wrote a blog post explaining the physics of it.

"Iz magneto-electric mouse!!??"
“Iz magneto-electric mouse!!??”

Next up is Fluff, who is about the same age as Rascal but is not related.  We went on a “kitten-adopting frenzy” around that time!  Fluff has shown great interest in magnetic levitation, though in the end of his research he decided that he hates it.  And terra-cotta warriors.

These little platforms are fun to play with and can be ordered online.  They use time-varying magnetic fields to stably levitate the platform, in a manner similar to that of maglev trains.

Our cat Sophie has followed in my career path somewhat!  I started my physics career studying fundamental particle physics, and eventually decided that I preferred less fundamental but still interesting optical science.  Sophie started out ruminating over the implications of string theory…

"What if the whole universe is made of stringzzzz...zzz..."
“What if the whole universe is made of stringzzzz…zzz…”

…but, like me, grew fascinated by pretty lights!  Christmas trees tend to do that to cats.

"My Dogz... it's full of starz!"
“My Dogz… it’s full of starz!”

I could go on, but I think you can see the point! Have a happy holiday season, everyone!

Science for the People: Science Up Your Holidays 2014

sftp-square-fistonly-whitebgThis week, Science for the People observes its annual holiday tradition, helping you find gifts for the science lovers on your list. Brian Clegg, John Dupuis, and Rachelle Saunders share their most-treasured science books from 2014, as well as classics to help fill out anyone’s science library. And they speak to writer/illustrator James Lu Dunbar about “The Universe Verse,” a scientifically-accurate rhyming comic book about the origins of the universe.

Visit the Science for the People blog for more information and links to the books mentioned in this episode.

*Josh provides research help to Science for the People and is, therefore, completely biased.