Following in Darwin's Footsteps (Kew)

From the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London) comes a book for children that accompanies their education program, The Great Plant Hunt: following in Darwin’s footsteps. Following in Darwin’s Footsteps is due out in May 2010. The Great Plant Hunt also has a YouTube page, which includes a little song:

Speaking of Darwin and plants, the University of Cambridge has launched a new website, Darwin’s Plants from the Beagle Voyage, where “you can see high resolution images of the very plants collected by Charles Darwin on his round-the-world voyage on HMS Beagle 1831 to 1836.”

Lophosoria quadripinnata, in Chiloé, June 1834

Teacher

To a small community, to a big nation

They lend a very strong foundation

They guide us against right and wrong

 They teach us the anthem and also the national song.

Geography tells me where I stand?

It names the river, the barren land

With Languages everyday new word I learn

 The power to express my heart’s churn.

History they bring alive

 Civic senses make us strive

 Matters related to finance and money

Is taught to us through Economy.

Hyacinth it is; I know

‘Cause Botany made me see them and glow

Zoology made me see the smallest of being

 The diseases I could identify, the remedies I could think.

Life’s tough calculation

Was taught through Maths and Stats

Chemistry made me see the logistic chemical reason

 As to why some people are thin and some very fat.

 The mystery of gravity, the history of circuits

 Was taught to me through Physics and Electronics

 Across the continents, strangers I met

 ‘Cause Computers taught me to handle the net.

Importance of health and fitness

 Relaxation for mental and physical stress

 Was taught to me through Physical Education

My inner beauty, I could express.

 You took out the best in me

 You made me a winner in life’s run

 I can’t thank you enough TEACHERS

‘Cause you made learning real fun.

To request another list item - please leave it in a comment

In honor of todays 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” I thought I might try to address a simple question. What is a species?

Simple? Not quite. Like some other things, many biologists have to fall back on “I know a species when I see one.” It’s a slightly slippery concept, this species thing. The problem is, primarily, that nothing in biology is an absolute – including this sentiment.

Biology is a science full of exceptions. It’s very very rarely a cut and dried science, especially around the edges. What a species is is one of those edges.

The most common definition of a species is the “biological species concept”. Basically this states that a species is any population of organisms that has the potential under natural conditions to mate and produce fertile offspring (a group that can get together and have babies that can grow up to have babies).

This works pretty much for most vetebrates (animals with backbones like mammals & birds). Perhaps the most important word in the definition is “potential”. This is included because, obviously, males and males can’t get together to produce offspring, but any male should be able to mate with any female, and their female offspring should be able to mate with any other male.

It also accounts for geography and time – two individuals may live in different places or different times, but if they did live together and mated, then they could produce offspring. A cheetah living in the 1850s is the same species as one living in the 1950s because if they were brought together, they could reproduce. The same is true of cheetahs living today in an Australian zoo and on the African veldt. They could reproduce if they got together.

Another part of this species concept is the “under natural conditions” provision. It covers populations that would never get together unless “forced”. For instance, in captivity, lions and tigers will produce offspring. Most of the offspring are not able to reproduce, but some are. But in the wild, the two species would never mate. Tigers and lions are more apt to kill each other in the wild when they meet than settle down to raise a family.

The final component of the biological species concept is that the kids of any such mating needs to be able to have kids of their own. Lions and tigers when they mate rarely produce fertile offspring. The same is true of most organisms that mate across the species boundary – their kids are sterile and can’t have kids.

There are several other species definitions, and I’ll cover many of those in the near future. Meantime, pick up a copy of The Origin Of Species
and take a read. It’s the most important book in biology. Really.

by Carl Strang

Recently I described this year’s results in my ongoing study of the trailing strawberry bush, Euonymus obovatus, at Meacham Grove Forest Preserve. There was notable growth in the median size of patches or colonies of the plant in 2009, which may have benefited from a controlled burn that took place there in 2007.

The graph shows that Euonymus patch size dropped in 2008, apparently from burn damage. The jump in 2009 I suspect was the result of the fire’s harming Euonymus competitors and giving the trailing strawberry bush an opening. Trailing strawberry bush colonies approached sizes they had not achieved since the 1980’s. I returned to Meacham Grove, as well as Maple Grove, on November 11 to collect data on leaf miners in maple trees. I found that both study areas had received controlled burns.

At least some of the Euonymus twigs were severely scorched.

Burned stems like the one in the photo represent a setback for the species, but the previous burn helped by reducing the competition. Now I am interested in seeing how this trailing shrub will respond over the coming season.

New research has discovered that plants are social creatures.

A common flowering plant, Impatiens pallida, devotes less energy than usual to growing roots when surrounded by relatives. In other words it tries not to take too many resources away from its family.

But, in the presence of genetically unrelated plants, Impatiens pallida grow their roots as fast as they can. Basically trying, in a very shrub like way, to fight with the unrelated plant. Read more here.

Fried Green Tomatoes

About this time of year in the North Temperate Zone people may be getting very tired of fried green tomatoes and green tomato pie.

As a plant physiologist, I was often asked how to ripen green tomatoes. (Rather than go into this here, I’ll refer you to this recent blogpost.)

You probably already know that tomato ripening is promoted by the gaseous plant hormone ethylene.

Regarding ethylene, one of the best online resources I’ve found provides comprehensive information about this gas, including a table listing the relative production of, and sensitivity to, ethylene in a large number of fruits and vegetables.

And if you want to inhibit fruit ripening, there’s even a commercial website for reducing ethylene.

Going Green to Red (or Yellow)

But what’s happening to the tomato when it ripens from green to red? And to the banana when it goes green to yellow (and then brown)?

The change in color is primarily the result in the active conversion of chloroplasts to chromoplasts. The chlorophyll is actively (enzymatically) broken down, and the red and yellow colors are due mainly to carotenoid pigments in the chromoplasts.

Since the fruits are there primarily to promote seed dispersal by animals, red colors apparently tend to attract birds, for example. Interestingly, as reported here, at tropical temperatures (about 90^o F), the Cavendish banana skin tends to stay green, though the fruit ripens.

“Over-ripe” fruits (the brown banana, for example) tend to be primarily the result of senescence.

Fruit Softening

The “softening” of the fruit is the result of the breakdown of plant cell walls by cell wall-digesting enzymes such as cellulases, pectinases, and expansins.

Indeed, scientists were able to extend the shelf-life of the Flavr Savr tomato by effectively turning off the gene coding for a pectinase.

Getting Sweeter

Another characteristic of fruits that tends to attract some animals for seed dispersal is the presence of sugars. Increased sugars in the process of fruit ripening is due mainly to the production of enzymes that break down starch.

Interestingly, the process of fruit ripening involves many enzymes that digest polymers of sugar molecules (i.e., cell walls and starch).

How does ethylene promote ripening?

The expression of many of the above enzymes is promoted by ethylene in plant species that have so-called climacteric fruits, such as tomatoes and bananas. (Please see here for a list of climacteric and non-climacteric fruits.)

Climacteric fruits are characterized by a burst of cellular respiration that is often immediately preceded by, or happens simultaneously with, a sharp increase in ethylene. (Ethylene also may promote its own biosynthesis.)

Ethylene is an essential component of climacteric fruit ripening. Blocking ethylene biosynthesis or action prevents ripening.

Ethylene apparently regulates the expression of many ripening-associated genes, including those coding for enzymes involved in color change, fruit softening, and starch breakdown. (How ethylene activates such genes is a topic for another day.)

How “One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch” (and ripens your green tomatoes).

As mentioned above, ethylene may promote its own biosynthesis in climacteric fruits.

So an over-ripe apple producing a lot of ethylene gas – which diffuses throughout the bunch – triggers the biosynthesis of ethylene in the rest of the apples (and also in your green tomatoes), thus promoting the ripening process.

Bottom line: For climacteric fruits, the gaseous hormone ethylene is indeed “the ripe stuff’.

Donut seeds, by Jason Fulford.

[via]

Luther Burbank was one of the great American Inventors, as important as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, both of whom were friends of his. He suggested to Ford the use of factory automation processes. As a botanist he developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank’s varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus (useful for cattle-feed) and the plumcot.
Burbank’s most successful strains and varieties include the Shasta daisy, the Fire poppy, the July Elberta peach, the Santa Rosa plum, the Flaming Gold nectarine, the Wickson plum, the Freestone peach, and the white blackberry. A natural genetic variant of the Burbank potato with russet-colored skin later became known as the Russet Burbank potato. This large, brown-skinned, white-fleshed potato has become the world’s predominant potato in food processing.
Though most people have heard his name (often in reference to schools names), few know about the contributions he made to the American food table. He also was very spiritual and was referred to in “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda
“His heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast.” (Yogananda, 1946, p. 352)

I’m all ranted out for now, so I shall bring this series to a close.  I have hinted at a number of things we, the average consumer, can do to improve the system.  So, to finish off the series, I am posting a list created by a professor of Environmental Studies, Dr. Richard Andrus, which I think is completely reasonable to attain.

For personal health-

1. Eat more whole foods and avoid processed sugars & starch.
2. Avoid factory farmed meat, dairy & eggs wherever possible.
3. Eat modest amounts of grass-fed meat.

For the environment-

1. Avoid factory farmed meat.  They cause massive pollution issues from concentration of nitrates and massive erosion from corn & soybean production for animal feed.
2. Buy local. This cuts back of food miles and helps reduce CO2 emissions.
3. Buy unprocessed food, as processing takes huge amounts of fossil fuels.
4. Avoid any processed drinks that come in a non-reusable container. The only reusable containers available currently are glass beer bottles from Canada. Recyclable does NOT mean reusable. Most recycled containers end up in the landfill.
5. Buy organic, as long as it’s unprocessed.
6. Grow, cook and brew your own.

For everything!

1. Purchase as little food as possible that results in profits for corporations. There are two reasons. One is that by law they are bound to maximize profits for shareholders, which means they are bound to take advantage of human weaknesses that attract us to unhealthy foods. The second reason is that a prime way to increase profits is do whatever you can legally do to externalize the costs of your activities. This results in pollution from agricultural fields, abuse of farm workers. contamination from factory farms, abuse of farm animals,and  huge production of packaging solid waste.

Andrus, Richard, PhD. Some Simple Dietary Suggestions. Binghamton University. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.

3306202    ปฏิบัติการเภสัชพฤกษศาสตร์    Pharmaceutical Botany Laboratory

สัณฐานวิทยาและพฤกษศาสตร์จำแนกพวกพื้นฐานของพืชสมุนไพร

(Morphology and basic botanical classification of medicinal plants.)

(3306202 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

Shipley Swamp Looking toward Nabnasset Lake, across the beaver pool

There is a pond in Westford Massachusetts where I live called Nabnasset Lake. There is an association of people who own property around the lake and they take care of it. One if the most dramatic actions they take is to draw the lake down in the fall of some years, I believe they do it by opening a dam. The purpose of this is to kill some ‘weeds.’ The weeds are invasive  (I think weed and invasive flora have become synonymous). Apparently the draw down works and the lake water is clean and clear and not clogged with too much foliage.

But the knock effect of this is that many small hibernating creatures that live under the water die along with the weeds.

It seems that even in our war on weeds we can’t avoid collateral damage. I wonder what would happen in Nabnasset if there was no draw down. I guess there would be more weeds — unless another way of dealing with them was sought and found. If we wanted to avoid killing creatures that do no harm, that in fact do good in their role in ecology,  we would try to find another way to deal with the weeds. I don’t know what that would be but if we valued the creatures we are inadvertantly killing we would not draw down the lake.

Maybe we should have spent a little more time thinking this through. Maybe that’s what Obama is doing now. I hope so because the 40,000 troops he is thinking of sending in will no doubt create ‘collateral damage.’ In other words in killing enemies they will — inadvertently —  kill innocent men, women and children.  The same ones that they will be trying to protect.

Ironic, to say the least. A meaure of how imperfect our measures so often are when we set out to kill.

401114     พฤกษศาสตร์ทั่วไป     General Botany

ความรู้ทั่วไปเกี่ยวกับสัณฐานวิทยา กายวิภาควิทยา สรีรวิทยา นิเวศวิทยา การจัดหมวดหมู่และวิวัฒนาการ การใช้ประโยชน์จากพืช

(General principles of plant morphology, anatomy, physiology, ecology, classification and evolution. Uses of plants.)

(401114 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401115     หลักพฤกษศาสตร์     Principles of Botany

การศึกษาเบื้องต้นเกี่ยวกับโครงสร้าง หน้าที่และความหลากหลายของพืชความสัมพันธ์ของพืชกับสิ่งแวดล้อม อิทธิพลของพืชต่อมนุษย์และสัตว์

(General principles of plant structure, function and diversity. Relationship between plants and environment. Influence of plants to human and animals.)

(401115 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401462     พฤกษ์เศรษฐกิจ     Economic Botany

ประวัติ ลักษณะทางพฤกษศาสตร์ การกระจายทางภูมิศาสตร์ การผลิตและความสำคัญทางเศรษฐกิจของพืชคาร์โบไฮเดรต พืชโปรตีน พืชน้ำมัน พืชเส้นใย พืชให้ พืชเครื่องดื่ม พืชสมุนไพรและเครื่องเทศ พืชสวนและป่าไม้เศรษฐกิจ มีการศึกษานอกสถานที่

(History, botanical structure, geographic distribution, production and economic signify-cance of plants yielding carbohydrate, protein, oil, fiber, dye and breverage. Medicinal plant and spices, horticultural crops and economic forest. Field trip required.)

(401462 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401464     การใช้คอมพิวเตอร์และการจำลองแบบทางพฤกษศาสตร์     Computer Applications and Modeling in Botany

แบบจำลอง การวิเคราะห์ซิมิวเลชัน การเขียนโปรแกรมคอมพิวเตอร์ ระบบฐานข้อมูล การวิเคราะห์สมการที่เหมาะสม และการวิเคราะห์ข้อมูลทางพฤกษศาสตร์

(Models, simulation analysis, computer programming, database system, analysis of fitting equation and statistical analysis in botany.)

(401464 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401492     การอ่านทางพฤกษศาสตร์     Reading in Botany

การอ่านและวิเคราะห์ทางพฤกษศาสตร์

(Critical reading in botanical research literature.)

(401492 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401496     เรื่องเฉพาะทางพฤกษศาสตร์     Selected Topics in Botany

เรื่องเฉพาะทางพฤกษศาสตร์ในระดับปริญญาตรี หัวเรื่องเปลี่ยงแปลงไปในแต่ละภาคการศึกษา

(Interesting topics in Botany may vary in each semester.)

(401496 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

401499     การฝึกงานทางพฤกษศาสตร์     Botany Practicum

การฝึกงานตามความต้องการของสาขาวิชาเอก

(Technical and or professional experience on or off campus.)

(401499 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

Monday, November 16th is the deadline for submissions to Charlie’s Playhouse’s “Ask the Kids” [about evolution] project.  More information here.

I somehow neglected to share Ben Fry’s very cool digital rendition of the six editions of On the Origin of Species and the changes therein: “The Preservation of Favoured Traces.”

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences blog that accompanies their new Darwin as a geologist exhibit (my pics) has a short write up on the “Darwin in the Field” conference I attended last July, here. Also, the newsletter of the Palaeontological Association (they provided funding for the conference, including travel money for myself and a post-doc at the Smithsonian) has a report of the conference written by, well, me! You can see it at the bottom of page 56 in this PDF.

Two freely available articles from Bioscience: “The Darwinian Revelation: Tracing the Origin and Evolution of an Idea” [PDF] by James Costa and “Ten Myths about Charles Darwin” [PDF] by Kevin Padian [previous posts with Padian].

Nature has started a series on Darwin and culture called “Global Darwin”: “Darwin and culture,” “Global Darwin: Eastern enchantment,” and “Global Darwin: Contempt for competition.” These pieces explore a variety of reactions to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Also titled “Global Darwin” is a 2009 lecture by Jim Secord. Access it here. At the same site are lectures by Janet Browne and Rebecca Stott.

Here is a page for the National Library of Medicine’s exhibit Rewriting the Book of Nature: Charles Darwin and the Rise of Evolutionary Theory, and two sets of pictures on Flickr showing a Darwin exhibition (Darwin’s Legacy) at the National Museum of Natural History, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Darwin Online has put up the annotated copy of On the Origin of Species owned by Darwin’s third son, and experimental assistant, Francis.

Videos of many lectures from the University of Cambridge’s Darwin Festival in July are up on YouTube.

Darwinfest: Bold Ideas Change Worlds, at ASU, has its own website. Darwin biographer Janet Browne will give a lecture on November 13th. Previous lectures from throughout 2009 are available for download.

Historian of science Jim Endersby will talk on “Darwin, Hooker, and Empire” on November 18th  in conjunction with the American Philosophical Society’s exhibition Dialogues with Darwin: An Exhibition of Historical Documents and Contemporary Art. Website here, and a fun Flickr photo set of post-it notes that visitors filled out and placed on a tree of life diagram. Another recent lecture of Endersby’s, “Smashing Species: Joseph Hooker and Victorian Science” for the Royal Society, can be downloaded as an mp3.

Christ’s College, Cambridge has a website for Darwin, with lots of resources.

“Who can head the words of Charlie Darwin…”

Cambridge Library Collection’s Life Science series offers reprints of many historically important books (71 titles), many of which are on Amazon.

Via Genomicron, “This View of Life: Evolutionary Art for the Year of Darwin”:

Evolutionary art is the topic of many books this year: Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture by Jonathan Smith; Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts by Jane Munro; Darwin: Art and the Search for Origins; The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture by Barbara Larson and Fae Bauer; Darwin’s Camera: Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution by Phillip Prodger; Reframing Darwin: Evolution and Art in Australia by Jeanette Hoorn; and Darwin’s Pictures: Views of Evolutionary Theory, 1837-1874 by Julia Voss.

In Evolution: Education and Outreach is an article by U. Kutschera called “Darwin’s Philosophical Imperative and the Furor Theologicus“: “In 1859 Charles Darwin submitted a manuscript entitled “An Abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Species and Varieties through Natural Selection” to John Murray III, who published the text under the title On the Origin of Species. On many pages of this book, Darwin contrasts his naturalistic theory that explains the transmutation and diversification of animals and plants with the Bible-based belief that all species were independently created. On the last page of the first edition, published in November 1859, where Darwin speculated on the origin of the earliest forms of life from which all other species have descended, no reference to “the Creator” is made. In order to conciliate angry clerics and hence to tame the erupted furor theologicus, Darwin included the phrase “by the Creator” in the second edition of 1860 and in all subsequent versions of his book (sixth ed. 1872). However, in a letter of 1863, Darwin distanced himself from this Bible-based statement and wrote that by creation he means “appeared by some wholly unknown process.” In 1871, Darwin proposed a naturalistic origin-of-life-concept but did not dare to mention his “warm little pond hypothesis” in the sixth definitive edition of the Origin (1872). I conclude that the British naturalist strictly separated scientific facts and theories from religious dogmas (Darwin’s “philosophical imperative”) and would not endorse current claims by the Catholic Church and other Christian associations that evolutionary theory and Bible-based myths are compatible.”

EEO also has a piece about the traveling Darwin exhibition by Chiara Ceci, “Darwin: Origin and Evolution of an Exhibition”: “Two hundred years after his birth, Darwin, originated by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is the most important exhibition about the English scientist ever organized for the general public. This traveling exhibition has appeared in many versions worldwide, and a study of the relationships between local developers of the various editions of the exhibition underlines how a scientific exhibition and, more generally, science communication can succeed in striking a good equilibrium between universal content and cultural determinants.”

“Discover the principles of evolution through animations, movies and simulations” at Evolution of Life.

Several articles have appeared this year in the Journal of the History of Biology touching on Darwin and evolution in general: “Capitalist Contexts for Darwinian Theory: Land, Finance, Industry and Empire” (M.J.S. Hodge); “The Origins of Species: The Debate between August Weismann and Moritz Wagner” (Charlotte Weissman); “Edward Hitchcock’s Pre-Darwinian (1840) ‘Tree of Life’” (J. David Archibald); “Tantalizing Tortoises and the Darwin-Galápagos Legend” (Frank J. Sulloway); “‘A Great Complication of Circumstances’ – Darwin and the Economy of Nature” (Trevor Pearce); “Charles Darwin’s Beagle Voyage, Fossil Vertebrate Succession, and ‘The Gradual Birth & Death of Species’” (Paul D. Brinkman); “Darwin and Inheritance: The Influence of Prosper Lucas” (Ricardo Noguera-Solano and Rosaura Ruiz-Gutiérrez); and “Of Mice and Men: Evolution and the Socialist Utopia. William Morris, H.G. Wells, and George Bernard Shaw” (Piers J. Hale).

A Darwin article in Plant Biology: “From Charles Darwin’s botanical country-house studies to modern plant biology”: “As a student of theology at Cambridge University, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) attended the lectures of the botanist John S. Henslow (1796-1861). This instruction provided the basis for his life-long interest in plants as well as the species question. This was a major reason why in his book On the Origin of Species, which was published 150 years ago, Darwin explained his metaphorical phrase `struggle for life’ with respect to animals and plants. In this article, we review Darwin’s botanical work with reference to the following topics: the struggle for existence in the vegetable kingdom with respect to the phytochrome-mediated shade avoidance response; the biology of flowers and Darwin’s plant-insect co-evolution hypothesis; climbing plants and the discovery of action potentials; the power of movement in plants and Darwin’s conflict with the German plant physiologist Julius Sachs; and light perception by growing grass coleoptiles with reference to the phototropins. Finally, we describe the establishment of the scientific discipline of Plant Biology that took place in the USA 80 years ago, and define this area of research with respect to Darwin’s work on botany and the physiology of higher plants.”

And another in Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences: “Dog fight: Darwin as animal advocate in the antivivisection controversy of 1875″: “The traditional characterization of Charles Darwin as a strong advocate of physiological experimentation on animals was posited in Richard French’s Antivivisection and medical science in Victorian England (1975), where French portrayed him as a soldier in Thomas Huxley’s efforts to preserve anatomical experimentation on animals unfettered by government regulation. That interpretation relied too much on, inter alia, Huxley’s own description of the legislative battles of 1875, and shared many historians’ propensity to foster a legacy of Darwin as a leader among a new wave of scientists, even where personal interests might indicate a conflicting story. Animal rights issues concerned more than mere science for Darwin, however, and where debates over other scientific issues failed to inspire Darwin to become publicly active, he readily joined the battle over vivisection, helping to draft legislation which, in many ways, was more protective of animal rights than even the bills proposed by his friend and anti-vivisectionist, Frances Power Cobbe. Darwin may not have officially joined Cobbe’s side in the fight, but personal correspondence of the period between 1870 and 1875 reveals a man whose first interest was to protect animals from inhumane treatment, and second to protect the reputations of those men and physiologists who were his friends, and who he believed incapable of inhumane acts. On this latter point he and Cobbe never did reach agreement, but they certainly agreed on the humane treatment of animals, and the need to proscribe various forms of animal experimentation.”

“Darwinism Comes to Penn” [PDF], in The Pennsylvania Gazette: “A century-and-a-half after the November 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, a Penn microbiologist looks back at how Darwin’s ideas were received by some of the University’s leading thinkers.”

In the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, “WWDD? (What Would Darwin Do?)” [PDF], looks at evolution research and publishing: “We have just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. While I hope we all rejoiced in the success of evolutionary biology and its continued growth, we should not become complacent. Although these are indeed events to celebrate, we still face the real threat of general ignorance of Darwin’s ideas. World leaders (or would-be world leaders) still promote superstition, stories and unthinking acceptance of dogma over scientific evidence. Evolutionary biologists have succeeded in investigating the magnificence, the wonder, the complexity, and the detail of evolution and its role in generating biodiversity. Evolutionary biologists have been less successful in making this relevant to those who are not biologists (and even, alas, some biologists). Is evolutionary biology likely to thrive when governments demand an immediate return on their research investment? How do we begin to educate others as to the value and importance of evolutionary research? I do not begin to claim that I can fathom the mind of Darwin, but I cannot help wondering – what would Darwin do today? Would he respond? How would he respond? And, what would be the form of his response?”

Jerry Coyne on “Why Evolution is True”:

Daniel Dennett on “Darwin and the Evolution of Why”:

A new book “offers a primer in the history of the development of evolution as a discipline after Darwin’s book and in how evolution is defined today”: The Origin Then and Now: An Interpretive Guide to the Origin of Species (Princeton University Press, 2009) by UCR biologist David Reznick. You can read the introduction on the publisher’s page for the book.

Richard Dawkins closes his latest book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by going through and detailing each line of the famous closing paragraph (“There is grandeur in this view of life…”) of On the Origin of Species. It’s available online, for you, to read, and ponder.

“The Evolution of Charles Darwin,” a 4-part series on CBC Radio One: “Ideas pays tribute to Charles Darwin and celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of his transformational and contentious book, On the Origin of Species. Darwin’s theory of evolution through Natural Selection completely changed how we think about the world. In this 4-part series, Seth Feldman guides us through the life and ideas of Charles Darwin, a creative genius. The series is produced by Sara Wolch.” Via Adrian.

Via The Evolution List, The Darwinian Revolutions Video Series: “This series of six online videos is a brief introduction to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and its implications.” The short videos are: Darwinian Revolutions, Evolutionary Ancestors, Lamarck’s Theory, One Long Argument, Mendel-Eclipse of Darwin, and The Evolving Synthesis.

The November 2009 issue of Naturwissenschaften is devoted to Darwin. The articles are “Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, directional selection, and the evolutionary sciences today” [PDF] (Ulrich Kutschera); “Darwin’s warm little pond revisited: From molecules to the origin of life” [PDF] (Hartmut Follmann and Carol Brownson); ”Charles Darwin, beetles and phylogenetics” [PDF] (Rolf G. Beutel, Frank Friedrich and Richard A. B. Leschen); ”The predictability of evolution: Glimpses into a post-Darwinian world” [PDF] (Simon Conway Morris); and “Evolutionary plant physiology: Charles Darwin’s forgotten synthesis” [PDF] (Ulrich Kutschera and Karl J. Niklas).

Two more articles consider Darwin and the origin of life. In Endeavour James E. Strick offers “Darwin and the origin of life: public versus private science”: “In the first twenty years after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, an intense debate took place within the ranks of Darwin’s supporters over exactly what his theory implied about the means by which the original living organism formed on Earth. Many supporters of evolutionary science also supported the doctrine of spontaneous generation: life forming from nonliving material not just once but many times up to the present day. Darwin was ambivalent on this topic. He feared its explosive potential to drive away liberal-minded Christians who might otherwise be supporters. His ambivalent wording created still more confusion, both among friends and foes, about what Darwin actually believed about the origin of life. A famous lecture by Thomas H. Huxley in 1870 set forth what later became the ‘party line’ Darwinian position on the subject.” In Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, Juli Peretó, Jeffrey L. Bada and Antonio Lazcano offer another analysis in “Charles Darwin and the Origin of Life”: “When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species 150 years ago he consciously avoided discussing the origin of life. However, analysis of some other texts written by Darwin, and of the correspondence he exchanged with friends and colleagues demonstrates that he took for granted the possibility of a natural emergence of the first life forms. As shown by notes from the pages he excised from his private notebooks, as early as 1837 Darwin was convinced that “the intimate relation of Life with laws of chemical combination, & the universality of latter render spontaneous generation not improbable”. Like many of his contemporaries, Darwin rejected the idea that putrefaction of preexisting organic compounds could lead to the appearance of organisms. Although he favored the possibility that life could appear by natural processes from simple inorganic compounds, his reluctance to discuss the issue resulted from his recognition that at the time it was possible to undertake the experimental study of the emergence of life.”

A conference at the Wedgwood Museum: “THE WEDGWOODS AND THE DARWINS – THE MARRIAGE OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY”

PZ Myers live-blogged on Pharyngula talks given at Chicago’s big Darwin festival, Darwin/Chicago 2009. Science Life also has a piece about the conference.

From the August 24, 2009 issue of Significance, two Darwin articles: “Darwin, Mendel and the evolution of evolution” by R. Allan Reese: “The history of science is full of myths. Darwin has his fair share; but Gregor Mendel, his fellow scientist and contemporary, has suffered even more. R. Allan Reese disentangles what we like to believe about Mendel from what we should believe—and finds a modern species whose origin was not by conventional evolution;” and “Cousins: Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics” by Nicholas W. Gillham: “Sir Francis Galton, scientist, African Explorer and statistician, was a key figure in statistical history. He was the man who devised the statistical concepts of regression and correlation. He was also Charles Darwin’s cousin. And, inspired by his reading of Darwin, he was the founder of eugenics: the “science” of improving the human race through selective breeding. Nicholas Gillham tells of a darker side to statistics and heredity.”Sir Francis Galton, scientist, African Explorer and statistician, was a key figure in statistical history. He was the man who devised the statistical concepts of regression and correlation. He was also Charles Darwin’s cousin. And, inspired by his reading of Darwin, he was the founder of eugenics: the “science” of improving the human race through selective breeding. Nicholas Gillham tells of a darker side to statistics and heredity.”

In Archives of Natural History of October 2009 is a short article, “Letters from Alfred Russel Wallace concerning the Darwin commemorations of 1909″ by Henry A McGhie.