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Beagle Project Blog
Peter Mchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03850862887931603954noreply@blogger.comBlogger582125
Updated: 49 min 25 sec ago
T minus 6 hours to Dr. Kiki's Science Hour
I was delighted to meet Dr. Kirsten Sanford, an undisputed member of online science communication royalty, at Science Online '10. I was even more delighted and honoured, too, when she invited me to court: that is, to appear on Dr. Kiki's Science Hour!
Tune in TODAY at 3pm PST/11pm GMT for the live show, or catch it on or after Saturday on twit.tv. There are chat rooms: please do participate!
Tune in TODAY at 3pm PST/11pm GMT for the live show, or catch it on or after Saturday on twit.tv. There are chat rooms: please do participate!
Darwin writes home about the Concepción earthquake
My dear Caroline,
[…] We are now on our road from Concepciòn.— The papers will have told you about the great Earthquake of the 20th of February.— I suppose it certainly is the worst ever experienced in Chili.— It is no use attempting to describe the ruins—it is the most awful spectacle I ever beheld.— The town of Concepcion is now nothing more than piles & lines of bricks, tiles & timbers—it is absolutely true there is not one house left habitable; some little hovels built of sticks & reeds in the outskirts of the town have not been shaken down & these now are hired by the richest people. The force of the shock must have been immense, the ground is traversed by rents, the solid rocks are shivered, solid buttresses 6–10 feet thick are broken into fragments like so much biscuit.— How fortunate it happened at the time of day when many are out of their houses & all active: if the town had been over thrown in the night, very few would have escaped to tell the tale. We were at Valdivia at the time the shock there was considered very violent, but did no damage owing to the houses being built of wood.— I am very glad we happened to call at Concepcion so shortly afterwards: it is one of the three most interesting spectacles I have beheld since leaving England—A Fuegian savage.—Tropical Vegetation—& the ruins of Concepcion— It is indeed most wonderful to witness such desolation produced in three minutes of time.
— Charles Darwin to his sister Caroline
10–13 March, 1835
A lifetime supply of data
Culture 3.0 has an interview with Darwin biographer Janet Browne entitled Darwin Behind the Scenes. One of the questions is about the Darwin's Beagle voyage:
Do you believe that the light bulb went off in [Darwin's] head during the voyage of the Beagle?
You know, I do think that. I think that historians have perhaps swung too far the other way for many years, and believed that it only happens after the voyage. But if we go back and we look at those notebooks, the field remarks that he writes down, his observations in his private diaries, it seems that he was becoming unsettled by the idea of "species".
We see in his notes an intelligent young person thinking through the consequences of what he was reading and what he was discovering, and beginning to formulate big questions. Yes, those big questions only really become answerable when he returns, when what had seemed like simple varieties became species, and he wonders: what kind of creator does such a thing? It was certainly a long process, but what we forget is that the Beagle voyage provided Darwin with a lifetime supply of data to pursue.
In fact, his first publications were in geology, he was a wonderful geologist, and had been places where very few geologists had traveled. We forget that he was also a zoologist, he loved botany, and so he was a very skillful, complete naturalist. Those of us who only read The Origin of Species tend to forget the other aspects of his life. And it’s the voyage of the Beagle that supplies him with that information.Seems to me we could do with another HMS Beagle to inspire young scientists, and give them a lifetime supply of data with which to work.
[h/t Adrian Thysse]
Do you believe that the light bulb went off in [Darwin's] head during the voyage of the Beagle?
You know, I do think that. I think that historians have perhaps swung too far the other way for many years, and believed that it only happens after the voyage. But if we go back and we look at those notebooks, the field remarks that he writes down, his observations in his private diaries, it seems that he was becoming unsettled by the idea of "species".
We see in his notes an intelligent young person thinking through the consequences of what he was reading and what he was discovering, and beginning to formulate big questions. Yes, those big questions only really become answerable when he returns, when what had seemed like simple varieties became species, and he wonders: what kind of creator does such a thing? It was certainly a long process, but what we forget is that the Beagle voyage provided Darwin with a lifetime supply of data to pursue.
In fact, his first publications were in geology, he was a wonderful geologist, and had been places where very few geologists had traveled. We forget that he was also a zoologist, he loved botany, and so he was a very skillful, complete naturalist. Those of us who only read The Origin of Species tend to forget the other aspects of his life. And it’s the voyage of the Beagle that supplies him with that information.Seems to me we could do with another HMS Beagle to inspire young scientists, and give them a lifetime supply of data with which to work.
[h/t Adrian Thysse]
The Beagle Project on Little Atoms radio and podcast
Last Friday, the 12th of February (Darwin's 201st birthday, as it happens), I was interviewed by Skepchick extraordinaire Rebecca Watson and Neil Denny (not a Skepchick) on Little Atoms, a weekly live talk show on Resonance 104.4FM and official podcast of The Skeptic magazine. We talked about my work at the Natural History Museum on Darwin's mockingbirds and DNA barcoding and, of course, about The HMS Beagle Project. You can listen again to the 30-minute interview by downloading it or on iTunes.
From the left: Rebecca Watson, me and Neil Denny live on the air!
Links to projects I mentioned in the interview:
From the left: Rebecca Watson, me and Neil Denny live on the air!
Links to projects I mentioned in the interview:
- Floreana mockingbird NHM Species of the Day
- Saving Darwin's muse: evolutionary genetics for the recovery of the Floreana mockingbird in Royal Society Biology Letters
- DNA barcoding
- DNA barcoding plants
- iSpot
- The Beagle Project in Brazil
- The Beagle Project and NASA
- The Beagle Project and NASA sign International Space Act Agreement
- How it is that I failed to say that the mockingbird specimens I worked on were the ones collected by Darwin and Fitzroy, I do not know.
- The overall NASA budget wasn't cut, but the Constellation program was canceled.
- I tend to say 'tend to' too much
Astronaut Mike Barratt's guest post 'Cosmopithecus' selected for Open Laboratory!
Cosmopithecus, the Beagle Project Blog guest post by NASA astronaut and Beagle Project collaborator Mike Barratt, which he wrote during his long-duration flight aboard the International Space Station last year, has been selected for inclusion in Open Laboratory!
Mike emails to say he's really pleased and proud that his post was chosen. He wanted to write more posts during his flight but 'all the electrons were constrained to the mission and medical logs'. Yeah, what a slacker.... oh wait... he says that in addition to the blog post, he also wrote 'a few medical papers' during the flight. You heard that right, readers, he actually kept up his academic publication record while in space! Massive props.
Needless to say, we are honoured to have hosted his guest post and delighted that it's been selected for Open Lab!
Photo: NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 20 flight engineer, holds storage containers with his legs while floating freely in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. NASA photo ISS020-E-021255.
Mike emails to say he's really pleased and proud that his post was chosen. He wanted to write more posts during his flight but 'all the electrons were constrained to the mission and medical logs'. Yeah, what a slacker.... oh wait... he says that in addition to the blog post, he also wrote 'a few medical papers' during the flight. You heard that right, readers, he actually kept up his academic publication record while in space! Massive props.
Needless to say, we are honoured to have hosted his guest post and delighted that it's been selected for Open Lab!
Photo: NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 20 flight engineer, holds storage containers with his legs while floating freely in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. NASA photo ISS020-E-021255.
Drift....ing along with the tumbling tumbleweeds
Wow. Sorry about that, folks. We probably should have given you some advance warning about what posterity may very well come to call The Great Beagle Project Blog Post Gap of 2010, but, to be honest, we didn't see it coming. In our defense, I've heard this happens to bloggers from time to time... I guess this was our time.
*shakes off cobwebs*
So, what better way to celebrate Charles Darwin's 201st birthday than by reanimating the blog associated with a project that not only celebrates Darwin's legacy but aims to re-live it?
In the coming days and weeks, you can look forward to:
*shakes off cobwebs*
So, what better way to celebrate Charles Darwin's 201st birthday than by reanimating the blog associated with a project that not only celebrates Darwin's legacy but aims to re-live it?
In the coming days and weeks, you can look forward to:
- an updated and refreshed side-bar
- an updated blogroll
- a new series of posts called 'And now, the news' that will keep you up to date with Beagle Project information, status and activities
- a consolidation of labels, to help you navigate our archive and find what you're looking for
- last but not least, regular posts!
There is grandeur in this view of life
...and Symphony of Science has neatly captured that sentiment in their latest video, The Unbroken Thread:
The Beagle Project is back online
It's alive, UHLIIIIVE! The Beagle Project domain that is. Sorry for the week-long black-out. Service is now restored and our website and email are up and running again. *blots forehead with hankie*
The bad news is that all emails to addresses ending '@thebeagleproject.com' during the last week were bounced back. If you have tried to email one of us during the period 22-29 December, please do re-send now. Thanks for your patience.
The bad news is that all emails to addresses ending '@thebeagleproject.com' during the last week were bounced back. If you have tried to email one of us during the period 22-29 December, please do re-send now. Thanks for your patience.
Domain is down/open thread
Our website is down, including all emails ending @thebeagleproject.com. We're working on it, but for now please communicate with us in one of the following ways:
- Leave a comment under this post, which will serve as an open thread for project communication until the domain is back up.
- If you're on twitter, send a mention or direct message to @beagleproject
- Email me here.
178 years ago today
As opening lines to great adventure stories go, it's one of the best:
After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.
Brings a lump to my throat every time I read it.
After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.
Brings a lump to my throat every time I read it.
'In a moment overthrown'
Darwin's first big theory wasn't evolution by natural selection, it was a mechanism for the formation of coral reefs and atolls. The story of Darwin and corals is beautifully narrated by David Dobbs in his book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which I'm nearly finished reading now and plan to review here later.
Today I'm writing to add our support to the global call for action to save coral reefs from extinction by climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and overfishing:
Today I'm writing to add our support to the global call for action to save coral reefs from extinction by climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and overfishing:
Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen from Earth Touch on Vimeo.
Watching this I couldn't help recalling how, at the end of his Journal of Researches (a.k.a. The Voyage of the Beagle), Darwin wrote,'Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld, may be ranked the stars of the southern hemisphere—the water-spout—the glacier leading its blue stream of ice in a bold precipice overhanging the sea—a lagoon island raised by the coral-forming polypi—an active volcano—and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake. The three latter phenomena, perhaps, possess for me a peculiar interest, from their intimate connexion with the geological structure of the world. The earthquake must however, be to every one a most impressive event : the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the most beautiful and laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.'That last thought is especially poignant now that we are seeing the most beautiful and laboured works of nature in a moment overthrown.... by us.We'll need sailing vessels, Part II (repost)
Originally posted on 9 January, 2008.
In Part I of this post I wrote about an important but oft overlooked message to be carried by the new Beagle: that a return to sailboats as a viable form of transportation is an essential piece of the climate-saving puzzle.
Today, I stumbled upon this BBC video hilariously entitled Ship using 'sail' technology, with sail in quotes, just like that, as if the BBC thought its readers might not be sure what sails were for.
My laughter turned to cheers, however, when I watched the video, which reports that the first cargo ship to harness wind power in more than a century is going to sail across the Atlantic this year.
'The age of sail may not be past,' it begins. 'In the age of climate change, windpower is making a remarkable comeback.'
According to the video, the new merchant ship is equipped with something called a SkySail, a high-tech 160 square-metre kite that will deliver 20% savings in CO2 emissions and fuel costs, which is equivalent to $1600 US Dollars per day.
The video ends by echoing the hopes of SkySail's developers, that the SkySail's maiden voyage will 'herald a new age of sail'.
SkySail in action
In Part I of this post I wrote about an important but oft overlooked message to be carried by the new Beagle: that a return to sailboats as a viable form of transportation is an essential piece of the climate-saving puzzle.
Today, I stumbled upon this BBC video hilariously entitled Ship using 'sail' technology, with sail in quotes, just like that, as if the BBC thought its readers might not be sure what sails were for.
My laughter turned to cheers, however, when I watched the video, which reports that the first cargo ship to harness wind power in more than a century is going to sail across the Atlantic this year.
'The age of sail may not be past,' it begins. 'In the age of climate change, windpower is making a remarkable comeback.'
According to the video, the new merchant ship is equipped with something called a SkySail, a high-tech 160 square-metre kite that will deliver 20% savings in CO2 emissions and fuel costs, which is equivalent to $1600 US Dollars per day.
The video ends by echoing the hopes of SkySail's developers, that the SkySail's maiden voyage will 'herald a new age of sail'.
SkySail in action
Why we need a new Beagle (reason 4,283)
Edward O. Wilson on a recent Guardian Science Extra podcast (quote begins at 11:27):
You couldn't duplicate Darwin today. We have lots of young men and women now with comparable dedication, but they can't develop the way that Darwin did. There is no equivalent opportunity like the voyage of the Beagle.
Not yet, Prof. Wilson.
Not yet.
You couldn't duplicate Darwin today. We have lots of young men and women now with comparable dedication, but they can't develop the way that Darwin did. There is no equivalent opportunity like the voyage of the Beagle.
Not yet, Prof. Wilson.
Not yet.
We'll need sailing vessels (repost)
Originally posted on 9 April 2007.
"If we want to make it to the future, we'll need sailing vessels" writes Dmitry Orlov of Boston, Massachusetts in the second of a trio of can-do environmental citizenship stories from Orion Magazine's new department Making Other Arrangements.
By "make it to the future", Orlov means maintenance of a functional civilisation in an environmentally sustainable future. Sailboats will figure heavily, Orlov argues, and in doing so he reminds us that a 21st Century Beagle should fly the flag for more than just science.
"Sailors and their ships run on food and water and wind—all renewable" writes Orlov. "Sailboats can be made from renewable materials as well: wood, hemp, flax, and pitch ... the trends that will once again make sailing a viable form of transportation are already in place."
Always a rich source of segues, Orion this month offers up yet another Beagle aim. In "Leave No Child Inside" (for those who understandably tune out American politics, this is a play on George Bush's No Child Left Behind strategy that many argue leaves plenty of children behind), Richard Louv paints an achingly appealing picture of a future in which children and nature are reconnected as a central function of education.
"Such a future is embodied in the nature-themed schools that have begun sprouting up nationwide," writes Louv, "like the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center Preschool, where, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April 2006 'a 4-year-old can tell the difference between squirrel and rabbit tracks—even if he can’t yet read any of the writing on a map.'"
And so should be the Beagle: a floating nature-themed school that gets youngsters outside and fosters their native intelligence of nature amongst other virtues. And on these I'll give Orlov the last word: "The culture of sailing is rich, ancient, and largely intact. It is also a culture that fosters competence, fitness, self-reliance, and courage, which are all sadly missing from the world we see around us."
"If we want to make it to the future, we'll need sailing vessels" writes Dmitry Orlov of Boston, Massachusetts in the second of a trio of can-do environmental citizenship stories from Orion Magazine's new department Making Other Arrangements.
By "make it to the future", Orlov means maintenance of a functional civilisation in an environmentally sustainable future. Sailboats will figure heavily, Orlov argues, and in doing so he reminds us that a 21st Century Beagle should fly the flag for more than just science.
"Sailors and their ships run on food and water and wind—all renewable" writes Orlov. "Sailboats can be made from renewable materials as well: wood, hemp, flax, and pitch ... the trends that will once again make sailing a viable form of transportation are already in place."
Always a rich source of segues, Orion this month offers up yet another Beagle aim. In "Leave No Child Inside" (for those who understandably tune out American politics, this is a play on George Bush's No Child Left Behind strategy that many argue leaves plenty of children behind), Richard Louv paints an achingly appealing picture of a future in which children and nature are reconnected as a central function of education.
"Such a future is embodied in the nature-themed schools that have begun sprouting up nationwide," writes Louv, "like the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center Preschool, where, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April 2006 'a 4-year-old can tell the difference between squirrel and rabbit tracks—even if he can’t yet read any of the writing on a map.'"
And so should be the Beagle: a floating nature-themed school that gets youngsters outside and fosters their native intelligence of nature amongst other virtues. And on these I'll give Orlov the last word: "The culture of sailing is rich, ancient, and largely intact. It is also a culture that fosters competence, fitness, self-reliance, and courage, which are all sadly missing from the world we see around us."
The new Beagle won't just promote science-based action on climate change, she'll embody it
A Greenpeace vessel floats offshore to welcome flights arriving at Copenhagen airport (Kreutzmann Nanna/AP).
As anyone not locked in a closet knows, a certain climate change summit is taking place this week in Denmark. There's already lots being written and even more said about it, so we just want to add this one thing: sails, people.
Hopenhagen, they're calling it, and that's just what we're all doing: hoping it's successful. But at The Beagle Project we also believe that hope isn't enough. We all need to take action on climate change, not just look to politicians. And so I give you our climate change pledge:
The new Beagle will:
As anyone not locked in a closet knows, a certain climate change summit is taking place this week in Denmark. There's already lots being written and even more said about it, so we just want to add this one thing: sails, people.
Hopenhagen, they're calling it, and that's just what we're all doing: hoping it's successful. But at The Beagle Project we also believe that hope isn't enough. We all need to take action on climate change, not just look to politicians. And so I give you our climate change pledge:
The new Beagle will:
- be a research platform to investigate climate change (and its inextricable link to biodiversity change)
- carry the urgent message of the need for climate action to audiences literally around the world
- celebrate her namesake's captain Robert Fitzroy who founded the science of weather forecasting (he coined the term 'forecast'), established the use of the then-new telegraph to transmit weather reports so that storm warning cones could be raised in ports saving countless lives and established the Met Office, today a leader in climate change science
- embody the commitment to climate action by traveling mainly under the power of that greenest of green energy sources - wind
On Origin's anniversary, it's time for some legacy-thinking
150 years ago today John Murray published Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. This is the last of three Darwin anniversaries spanning 18 months, a period of celebration we've been calling Darwin200 here in the UK.
For me, as both director of science for this here Beagle Project and also the science coordinator for the Natural History Museum's Darwin200 campaign, it's been pretty much all Darwin all the time for the entire time. I confess to having succumbed a little to Darwin fatigue – I don't get quite as excited as I used to at the sight of a First Edition of On the Origin of Species for example, and I worry that any Darwin-related projects or stories proposed for the next few years will suffer from unfair backlash ('Oh this is a Darwin project? Wasn't the anniversary in 2009?').
And this has got me thinking: what will be the legacy of these celebrations? What, if anything, have we done that will have a lasting effect on the academic and/or public consciousness? Some of the Darwin200 projects have involved permanent installations – Andrew Smith's young Darwin statue at Christ's College in Cambridge is a literally gleaming example – but many more have been of a more ephemeral sort: conferences, plays, musical performances, special exhibitions, etc. As good as these have been, they're over now.
One solution is to immediately embark on yet another commemoration, another 'Year of [insert scientist's name or scientific discipline here]'. Directly on the heels of Darwin200, many of that group's partners will be smoothly transitioning to the International Year of Biodiversity. But if I've learned one thing from Darwin200 it's that it will be over before we know it. It's time for some legacy-thinking. By that I mean creative thinking – and action to go with it – about how to capture and extend the momentum of these commemorations beyond their sell-by dates.
We believe that The Beagle Project, though indeed initiated during the build-up to 2009, will bear Darwin's legacy well into the future, without hinging on any special day, month, year or even decade. Our vision is a project that will generate and maintain enthusiasm for science and the natural world not only by commemorating the achievements of the past but by creating the opportunity for new adventures and the discoveries that will change our future.
For me, as both director of science for this here Beagle Project and also the science coordinator for the Natural History Museum's Darwin200 campaign, it's been pretty much all Darwin all the time for the entire time. I confess to having succumbed a little to Darwin fatigue – I don't get quite as excited as I used to at the sight of a First Edition of On the Origin of Species for example, and I worry that any Darwin-related projects or stories proposed for the next few years will suffer from unfair backlash ('Oh this is a Darwin project? Wasn't the anniversary in 2009?').
And this has got me thinking: what will be the legacy of these celebrations? What, if anything, have we done that will have a lasting effect on the academic and/or public consciousness? Some of the Darwin200 projects have involved permanent installations – Andrew Smith's young Darwin statue at Christ's College in Cambridge is a literally gleaming example – but many more have been of a more ephemeral sort: conferences, plays, musical performances, special exhibitions, etc. As good as these have been, they're over now.
One solution is to immediately embark on yet another commemoration, another 'Year of [insert scientist's name or scientific discipline here]'. Directly on the heels of Darwin200, many of that group's partners will be smoothly transitioning to the International Year of Biodiversity. But if I've learned one thing from Darwin200 it's that it will be over before we know it. It's time for some legacy-thinking. By that I mean creative thinking – and action to go with it – about how to capture and extend the momentum of these commemorations beyond their sell-by dates.
We believe that The Beagle Project, though indeed initiated during the build-up to 2009, will bear Darwin's legacy well into the future, without hinging on any special day, month, year or even decade. Our vision is a project that will generate and maintain enthusiasm for science and the natural world not only by commemorating the achievements of the past but by creating the opportunity for new adventures and the discoveries that will change our future.
