This Week in Evolution

I hate to bash the New York Times twice in one week, but this is such a stupid idea that I hardly know where to start. Some guy thinks we should build multistory skyscraper "farms" in New York City. He claims that:

For every indoor acre farmed, some 10 to 20 outdoor acres of farmland could be allowed to return to their original ecological state (mostly hardwood forest). Abandoned farms do this free of charge, with no human help required.

If hydroponics is as wonderful as claimed in this article, do you wonder why most farmers still grow stuff in soil, rather than covering their fields with hydroponic tanks? Hint: it's not because they're stupid.

Growing plants on the roof of a building -- a "green roof" -- poses various challenges, but at least a roof can get the same amount of rain and sunlight as a ground-level garden would, assuming no shading by nearby buildings. With a multilevel "vertical farm", however, water and light must somehow be divided among the levels. OK, if the tower is taller than anything nearby, it can get some sunlight coming in sideways, but consider the geometry...

Continue reading "Vertical farms: a pyramid scheme?" »

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 6:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've seen a lot of discussion lately about the poor quality of science reporting and scientific literacy today, but was still amazed to see this in the New York Times:

As this image makes obvious a 14.5-inch reflecting telescope is not 14.5 inches long, but considerably larger.

It's a great story anyway: an amateur astronomer is the first to spot the after-effects of an earth-size planet hitting Jupiter. If he hadn't taken a break from his hobby to watch golf on TV, he might have seen the actual impact.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

...according to the New York Times. Although private ownership is one way to prevent degradation of the commons, this is going too far, in my opinion.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Two layers in contrasting colors represent different geological strata. Nuts mixed into the layers represent fossils: sliced almonds went extinct, leaving no descendants, but chopped pecans survived and speciated, sharing the upper stratum with their sister species, black walnuts. I decorated with a simple version of the "I think" evolutionary tree from Darwin's notebook.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Olivia Judson's column today is great, as usual. But I have some reservations about her proposal to celebrate Dec. 25 to January 4 as the Festival of Newton.

Dec. 25 is already taken. It is, of course, Family Day, although the name is used mainly in Uruguay. The date also has religious significance to many. And the connection between Newton's birth anniversary and Dec. 25 is a mere fluke of human attempts to impose a calendar on a year with an uneven number of days.

Newton was born on the perihelion, the day when the earth is closest to the sun, and that is when we should celebrate him. This is approximately January 4, depending on the year. Taking that day as given, I see two logical time-spans for a winter festival celebrating science.

1) Winter solstice to perihelion. If astronomy were the whole of science, this would be a great choice, but it's not. This period is already enriched with family get-togethers and religious celebrations with generally positive themes and there's more to life than science. Furthermore, US scientists are frantically revising grant proposals to NSF, due the beginning of January.

2) Newton's birthday (and perihelion) to Darwin's birthday (Feb. 12). Most scientists would agree that these two changed our understanding of the universe and ourselves as much as anyone before or since. We could use the time between their birthdays to celebrate past scientific advances, but also today's most exciting frontiers, across all of science.

I'll spare you the words to We All Evolved from One, sung to the tune of All Creatures Great and Small.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We know that some political and religious leaders are proud of their ignorance of evolution, global warming, etc., but did you know that this tradition goes back to Sherlock Holmes? In A Study in Scarlet, he expresses the opinion that it makes no practical difference whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa. Yet, in The Musgrave Ritual, it turns out that incorrect theories make incorrect predictions...

Holmes: “I looked up at the sun. It was low in the heavens, and I calculated that in less than an hour it would lie just above the topmost branches of the old oak. One condition mentioned in the Ritual would then be fulfilled. And the shadow of the elm must mean the farther end of the shadow, otherwise the trunk would have been chosen as the guide. I had, then, to find where the far end of the shadow would fall when the sun was just clear of the oak.�

Watson: I imagine both trees must have grown since the Musgrave Ritual was written, but what do you mean when you say that the sun was “just above the branches� of the oak?

Continue reading "Celebrating ignorance with Sherlock Holmes" »

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

That was one of the questions in a recent poll by The Economist. People in the US and the UK were asked to choose among these answers:
1) the theory of evolution
2) The Bible
3) "Intelligent design"

That's easy. Of the three choices, only The Bible even attempts to explain the origin of the earth. A broad definition of the theory of evolution may include possible explanations for the origin of life -- narrower definitions are limited to explaining how life has changed since its origin -- but "the origin of the earth" is the province of astronomy or geology, not biology. What I've seen of "intelligent design" is mostly whining about alleged gaps in the theory of evolution, rather than attempts to develop scientifically testable explanations of the origin of the earth or anything else, so that's out.

Continue reading "Which explains the origin of the earth?" »

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Most scientists also volunteer their time as "peer reviewers" for scientific journals, checking submitted papers for serious flaws, such as lack of appropriate controls. Reviewers also make good papers better by, for example, suggesting alternative interpretations of results. My own papers have been greatly improved by this process, which makes up for the few times I've thought a paper was rejected unfairly. (Fortunately, there are plenty of good journals, and the odds are against getting the same incompetent or biased reviewer twice.)

As a minimum, reviewers try to make sure that the paper describes what was done and what the results were, clearly and unambiguously. Which brings me to two recent sentences from the New York Times that probably wouldn't have made it through peer review:

And now add to the lengthening list Gov. Eliot Spitzer, husband, father of three teenage daughters, who authorities on Monday said had been involved with a ring of prostitutes.

Police found the soldier, who was still in the vicinity, shortly after 11 p.m., using a helicopter with a thermal camera.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Each generation tends to resemble the previous one, so evolution of whales from land animals, for example, took many generations. One limitation on the power of natural selection is that each generation must be viable. Some creationist suggested that the problem is analogous to "evolving" a sentence one letter at a time to make a substantially different sentence, while requiring that each intermediate step be a valid sentence. The Mosquito Eater has solved this challenge. Cool!

But we no longer need to rely on imperfect analogies to biological evolution. Molecular tools now make it possible to explore multistep evolution experimentally, as I discussed in an early post.

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought this analogy between grad school and Lord of the Rings was pretty funny, but what about Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I'm really tempted to start my next oral exam with:

What is your name?
What is your quest?
What is the long-range dispersal mechanism of Cocos nucifera?

Continue reading "Grad school as an epic quest" »

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Posted by R. Ford Denison at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Fellow science bloggers are discussing the strangest search terms that have led readers to their blogs. I haven't seen anything nearly as weird as what some report, just a few moderately strange ones:

"grants to support carpenter ant research"
"examples of week rocks" (maybe "weak" was meant?)
"opportunity cost essay" (there may be an annoyed economics student out there somewhere)
"disadvantages of shark-fin soup"
"scientists who contributed to the evolution of ecology" (only qualifies as strange because similar search came from two different IP addresses in the Philippines the same day; maybe a school assignment?)
"how plants and animals r useful to humans"
"weird scientific papers" (I think I'm offended by this one)
"this week in" (after TWI Amateur Radio, but before TWI Tech)
"Why should farmers know about evolution??" (not really a strange search, but made me wonder whether the searcher had any pre-existing bias on the question)

Posted by R. Ford Denison at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)