February at the Bell

The Bell Museum in Minneapolis is pulling out all the stops in the month of February, celebrating Darwin’s birth month with an orgy of science and sex. I’m going to be there for the events on the 13th and 15th, and I’m really tempted by the talk on the 20th—I’ll have to see if I can get away for that one.

People in Minneapolis/St Paul ought to appreciate that this kind of public outreach is what good museums do, and take advantage of the opportunities!

Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota
10 Church St. S.E. , Minneapolis, MN 55455, (612) 624-7389

In Feburary, the Bell Museum of Natural History celebrates the birthday of pioneering naturalist Charles
Darwin with a series of discussions and films that explore his life and legacy.

Thurs., Feb. 1, 7 p.m. Bell Museum Auditorium
Film — “Genius”
$7, $5 students, seniors and members
A documentary on Charles Darwin, his historic voyage to the Galapagos Islands, and his most influential work:
The Origin of Species. Highlights include expert analysis and insight into Darwin’s impact on today’s world.

Thurs., Feb. 8, 7 p.m., Bell Museum Auditorium
Film — “Kansas vs. Darwin”
$7, $5 students, seniors and members
In May, 2005 the Kansas state school board held hearings that put Darwin’s theory of evolution on trial. See
for yourself what happened — and why.

Tues., Feb. 13, 6 p.m., Varsity Theater, Dinkytown, Minneapolis
Discussion — Cafe Scientifique: “Understanding Evolution”
$5 Suggested Donation.
A panel of University of Minnesota researchers discusses the science of evolutionary biology, and the history
of America’s cultural response to teaching evolution. Learn about new research from professor and science
blogger PZ Myers, Bell Museum Director Scott Lanyon, and historian of biology Mark Borrello.

Thurs., Feb. 15, 7 p.m., Bell Museum Auditorium
Film (Regional Premier) — “Flock of Dodos”
$7, $5 students, seniors and members
Filmmaker and evolutionary ecologist Randy Olson pokes fun at the battle between evolution and intelligent
design. He travels to his home state of Kansas to consult his mother, Muffy Moose, and confronts her
neighbor, a lawyer backing intelligent design.

Tues., Feb. 20, 6:30 p.m., Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W. Lake St., Minneapolis
Discussion — Cafe Scientifique: “Sex, Snails & Evolution”
$5 admission. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Cynthia Norton, biologist and Professor of Animal Behavior at the College of St. Catherine discusses
evolutionary biology and sexual selection. Her research into the reproductive behaviors of hermaphroditic snails
is one example of the diversity of sexual behaviors found in nature. What can biologists tell us about the
evolution of sex?

Thurs., Feb. 22, 7 p.m., Bell Museum Auditorium
Film — “Deepest Desires”
$7, $5 students, seniors and members
Does the difference in the way men and women approach sex have an evolutionary basis? See what happens
when a male and female actor are sent to a London university campus with hidden cameras to ask a simple
question: “Will you sleep with me?”

Victory is sweet

You may recall a ferociously hardfought battle between myself and the Bad Astronomer over the Weblog Awards a while back—a battle I won easily, of course, by the overwhelming majority of approximately 1%—and that we had bet each other various horrendous penalties if the other was the victor. Phil has begun to pay up with a new article on astrobiology, and this coming weekend he’ll be singing my praises at The Amazing Meeting (anyone else here planning to attend? Make sure he does a good paean, and report back to me).

What is it with this weekend? I’m attending ConFusion, Phil will be at The Amazing Meeting, and the science blogging conference is going on at the same time. Is there something magical about this particular weekend that everybody had to schedule something for it?

Ken Ham is still getting his PR for free

Ken Ham is in the news again, and he knows exactly what he’s doing, the cunning little rat.

While foreign media and science critics have mostly come to snigger at exhibits explaining how baby dinosaurs fit on Noah’s Ark and Cain married his sister to people the earth, museum spokesman and vice-president Mark Looy said the coverage has done nothing but drum up more interest.

“Mocking publicity is free publicity,” Looy said. Besides, U.S. media have been more respectful, mindful perhaps of a 2006 Gallup Poll showing almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

Creationists really aren’t stupid—they’re clever in getting the support they need to protect their ignorance.

Looy said supporters of the museum include evangelical
Christians, Orthodox Jews and conservative Catholics, as well
as the local Republican congressman, Geoff Davis (news, bio, voting record), and his
family, who have toured the site.

Everyone knows now not to ever vote for Geoff Davis, right?

They also repeat this weird claim that I have read in every single frickin’ article about the AiG creationist museum…

The museum’s rural location near the border of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana places it well within America’s mostly conservative and Christian heartland. But the setting has another strategic purpose: two-thirds of Americans are within a day’s drive of the site, and Cincinnati’s international airport is minutes away.

It really isn’t that close to the bulk of the country. It makes one wonder about the quality of the reporting going into these stories when no one even bothers to look at a map.

Now we also get a dose of the persecution complex:

The project has not been without opposition. Zoning battles with environmentalists and groups opposed to the museum’s message have delayed construction and the museum’s opening day has been delayed repeatedly.

The museum has hired extra security and explosives-sniffing dogs to counter anonymous threats of damage to the building. “We’ve had some opposition,” Looy said.

That’s just weird, and not at all fitting with the attitudes I’ve heard. Even the most fervent evilutionists I’ve talked to respond to the news of this “museum” with laughter, and look forward to visiting it and mocking it. They say now that even bad reviews are still good publicity, but I don’t think that will last long after they’ve opened: unremitting mockery is not going to help their cause in the long run. There will be a surge of interest when it first opens, followed by a steady decline in attendance.

Eophyllium messelensis

Any other fans of the Phasmatodea out there? For years, we kept a collection of stick insects — they are extremely easy to raise, and although they aren’t exactly dynamos of activity, they’re weird enough to be entertaining — and so I perk up when I notice a paper on them. The latest news is the discovery of a fossil leaf insect (also a member of the Phasmatodea, but a smaller subgroup specialized to resemble leaves rather than twigs) from 47 million years ago that resembles modern forms very closely. The cryptic camouflage of this group is ancient, and probably coevolved with the emergence of angiosperms.

Here’s the specimen.

i-2b69141d7a092d80e17c508143253c1a-eophyllium.jpg
(click for larger image)
Photo (A) and line drawing (B) of holotype of fossil leaf insect E. messelensis gen. et sp. nov. from the Eocene Messel Pit, Germany (MeI 12560). a3–a10, abdominal segments 3–10; ant, antennae; cer, cerci; fl, foreleg; fw, forewing; hl, hindleg; hw, hindwing; int, intestinal tract; ml, midleg; vom, vomer.

In case you were wondering about relationships, here’s a very nice cladogram. One other detail is that there are about 3000 species of phasmids with the stick form, but only 37 that are leaflike, and all are confined to Southeast Asia; this fossil was found in Europe, where no such species are native.

i-38d2d7aba6402a19b04ba12dbf1f77fa-phasmatodea_cladogram.gif
(click for larger image)
E. messelensis gen. et sp. nov. in evolutionary and biogeographical context. (A) Simplified cladogram with a partial geochronologic scale showing the phylogenetic position of E. messelensis and the temporal sequence of character evolution. Oldest fossil records of determined adult representatives of Timematodea and Euphasmatodea are depicted. M, Messel fossil site; B, Baltic Amber. Dating of splitting events of crown-group Phasmatodea is unknown. Euphasmatodea represent an unknown number of lineages. Figures are not to scale. (B) Distribution of extant and fossil leaf insects.

Now I’m pining for our old insect pets — we had to leave them behind in one of our many moves. Anyone want to mail me some phasmid eggs?

Wedmann S, Bradler S, Rust J (2007) The first fossil leaf insect: 47 million years of specialized cryptic morphology and behavior. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 104(2):565-569.

Join us at the SF con next weekend

Just a reminder that I’ll be at MoonBase ConFusion at the Detroit-Troy Marriott in Troy, Michigan this coming weekend. I don’t think it’s too late to get a room, and you can definitely still sign up to attend! I’m committed to do a reading Friday evening, panels on “Remaking Humanity” and “Singularity or Rapture?” on Saturday, an Evolution Q&A on Saturday, and a discussion of evolution with kids on Sunday. Oh, and there’s a casual coffee hour with me on Sunday morning. From the schedule it sounds like there will be parties going on at all hours, too, so I’m hoping no one shows up for that one so I can bogart all the caffeine. I’ll need it.

I’m also bringing along that ferocious grammar Nazi, Skatje. We’ll both be blogging the con in addition to the talking and the wandering and the partying and the spectating and the hey hey glavin.

Sugar and spice and everything nice, too

i-0419e88d7b8e6017210e412d5c5993c4-pussy_tease.gif

I couldn’t resist. Shakespeare’s Sister has a satirical post on the female reproductive tract as a source of gay rays, and evolgen chimes in, noting the similarity of her diagram to the nematode vulva (it’s true—if mammalian vulvas are radiating gayness, nematodes are even more common; Ben Shapiro is probably crawling with hermaphroditic nematodes, all oozing sexual ambiguity all over him). So I had to repost my summary of the evolution of the mammalian vagina, and I want you to look at the diagram of Hox gene expression in the female reproductive tract. It’s like a rainbow! Admittedly, there are no disco balls, pink triangles, or floating Melissa Etheridge CDs, but this is research that has only just begun—as we get more details, we’ll have to sprinkle more symbols in there, and I think Shake’s ideas are excellent suggestions.

Once again, liberal leftist irony stands at the forefront of modern scientific research.

(Oh, and if any guys are feeling left out, I do have an article on penis evolution. All the pictures are in black and white, without any hint of a rainbow.)