1831: HMS Beagle, a 10-gun, Cherokee-class brig sloop of the Royal Navy’s survey service, sets sail from Plymouth, England on its second voyage as a survey vessel.
On board, at the invitation of Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy, is a young biologist called Charles Darwin. Darwin’s account of The Voyage of the Beagle, published in 1839, establishes [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Charles Darwin’
Dec. 27, 1831: Beagle Sets Sail With a Very Special Passenger
December 27th, 2010 |
No Comments
Dec. 13, 1809: First Removal of Ovarian Tumor
December 13th, 2010 |
No Comments
1809: Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a pioneer in abdominal surgery, examines his patient and makes the decision to attempt the first surgical removal of an ovarian tumor, earning him the sobriquet “Father of Ovariotomy.”
The 45-year-old patient, Jane Todd Crawford, had been misdiagnosed as being pregnant with twins. McDowell, who ran a surgical practice in Danville, Kentucky, [...]
Royal Mint issues commemorative £5 John Lennon coin
October 30th, 2010 |
No Comments
Late John Lennon has been immortalised in a commemorative 5 pounds coin that has gone on sale for 44.99 pounds only weeks after what would have been his 70th birthday. Lennon won the Royal Mint’s public vote for the next “Great Briton†to be immortalised on a limited edition coin, joining William Shakespeare, Sir Winston [...]
Pinta Island tortoise Pictures
June 26th, 2010 |
No Comments
Lonesome George is the sole surviving member of the Pinta Island Tortoise race, the giant tortoise being a symbol for the fragility of the Galapagos islands, and a constant reminder for vigilance and conservation of the species. The species was considered extinct until 1971, when a lone example was located by rangers. Since then, the [...]
A new giant lizard
April 8th, 2010 |
No Comments
The golden age of zoology was the 19th century, and the islands of South-East Asia were particularly rich hunting grounds. Indeed, it was on an expedition to the area that Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the idea of evolution by natural selection and, through a letter to Charles Darwin describing his hypothesis, panicked Darwin into publishing his own thoughts on the matter in “The Origin of Species”. It might therefore be thought that by now the area’s jungles would have been picked clean of large, showy species. Not so, apparently. This week Biology Letters, one of the journals of the venerable Royal Society of which both Wallace and Darwin were fellows, describes something novel from northern Luzon, in the Philippines, that is large, showy and also slightly strange. It is a monitor lizard as long as a man is tall, which is a close relative of the notoriously carnivorous Komodo dragon, yet which is, itself, vegetarian. Varanus bitatawa is, as is often the way of these things, well known to local hunters. Until Luke Welton and Rafe Brown of the University of Kansas came along, though, it was unknown to science.
…
Sexual selection: Horny ladies
March 4th, 2010 |
No Comments
If females must compete, evolution will furnish them with weapons to do so
WHEN a species evolves traits that seem to have little to do with individual survival—bright colours, say, or oversize horns, it is typically the male alone who sports these excesses. Observing this, Charles Darwin proposed the idea of “selection in relation to sex” as a follow-up to his theory of natural selection. He defined it as the struggle between members of one sex, “generally male”, to possess the other. The plumage of peacocks attracts peahens. The stag’s antlers are there to fight off other stags. And so on.
But females, it turns out, have some tricks of their own. Nicola Watson and Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia have published a paper this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society about Onthophagus sagittarius, a species of dung beetle in which not only do both sexes sport horns, but those of the females are larger than those of the males. They set out to discover whether female competition accounted for these impressive armaments, and whether there was a trade-off between horns and fecundity. …
Feb. 8, 1865: Mendel Reads Paper Founding Genetics
February 8th, 2010 |
No Comments
1865: Gregor Mendel reads his first paper on genetics to the local scientific organization. It will be decades before Mendel’s intellectual seeds take root in the fertile grounds of Darwinism and grow a scientific revolution.
Mendel was born in 1822 and became an Augustinian monk, living at the monastery in Brünn, Moravia. (Moravia was then ruled [...]
Jan. 27, 1888: National Geographic Society Gets Going
January 27th, 2010 |
No Comments
1888: Bound together by an enthusiasm for geography and travel, a small cadre of distinguished businessmen, explorers, scientists and scholars officially incorporates the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.
What began 122 years ago as a small, elite society for “the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge” is now one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific [...]
Sex scenes make sense, says Jennifer Connelly
September 22nd, 2009 |
No Comments
Jennifer Connelly believes that sex scenes are mostly uncomfortable, but insists they’re nowhere near as bad as everyone make them out to be.
She told Britain’’s Guardian newspaper: “Sex scenes are incredibly awkward, they”re always uncomfortable. I think they”re overused and people get very flustered by them.
“People don”t know how to discuss them and there’’s a [...]
The cost of keeping cool: a huge bill
July 23rd, 2009 |
No Comments
Researchers claim the birds don’t primarily use the huge appendage for sexual display, or as a tool for getting at hard-to-reach fruit, or to scare other birds – but as a giant radiator
To Charles Darwin it was emblematic of sexual desirability. To French naturalists it was “grossly monstrous”. But even to the uneducated eye, it was conspicuous as an alarmingly oversized appendage.
The toucan’s bill is one of the most bizarre products of evolution, but in the past 200 years scientists have failed to agree why it has grown so huge. Some argue it helps the birds collect hard-to-reach fruit, while others say it is a warning to rivals, or helps them raid other birds’ nests for food.
Research by Canadian and Brazilian scientists puts forward a completely new theory that helps explain how the toucan got its bill. In a report in the journal Science, they claim the appendage doubles as a giant radiator that keeps the birds cool in the heat of the tropics.
Glenn Tattersall, a comparative physiologist at Brock University in Ontario, used a heat-sensitive camera to film toco toucans, which have the largest bills of all the toucans. The adults’ bills can grow to 20cm – a third of their body length.
The thermal camera revealed that the birds use their bills to control their body temperature by adjusting blood flow into the appendage. By opening or closing blood vessels in the beak, the birds can lose as little as 5% or as much as 100% of their body heat through their bill.
The study puts toucans’ beaks on a footing with elephants’ and rabbits’ ears as nature’s solution to life in a hot climate.
Thermal images of the birds show that at sunset, as they were preparing for sleep, their bills cooled by around 10C in a matter of minutes. The large, exposed beak makes up around 40% of their overall surface area, so it rapidly radiates body heat and helps them to fall asleep. Immediately before nodding off, the birds cover their bills with their wings.
Tattersall describes in Science how the bill might also help the birds cool down after the exertion of flying. One bird in the study warmed up from 31C to 37C within 10 minutes of taking to the air. “When the blood vessels in the bill are dilated, the bird can lose nearly five times as much heat as they produce,” Tattersall said.
He suspects that other birds use their bills as cooling systems too, which might explain why birds in polar regions tend to have smaller beaks than those in warmer climates.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Like I said
July 23rd, 2009 |
No Comments
By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine
Former boxing world champion Chris Eubank is having his teeth fixed and hopes it will cure his lisp. But is a speech impediment a barrier to success
Churchill, Newton, Darwin, Eubank – can you spot the odd one out If you’re talking about speech impediments then there isn’t one, they all had or have one. But in case of former boxing world champion Chris Eubank, not for much longer.
He is spending £30,000 on getting his teeth fixed and hopes it will cure his pronounced lisp. "Before long nobody will be able to accuse me of having a lisp," he says.
For a man who goes to great lengths to stand out from the crowd – note his penchant for tweeds, monocles and seven-tonne articulated lorries – it seems a strange move. After all, his lisp is one of the things he is best known for.
But his expensive dental work suggests he is still conscious of it at the age of 42. And judging by the bad puns in the papers’ coverage of the news, he has good reason. So how do you deal with a speech impediment
We will never really know with Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, but we do know their stutters certainly didn’t hold them back professionally. The same can be said of Winston Churchill, he defined history with his words and actions – not his stammer.
Jonathan Ross famously cannot pronounce his Rs, a phonetic difficulty that is technically known as rhotacism. It hasn’t affected his multi-million pound career as a chat-show host and presenter, but it’s definitely one of the things that defines him in the public eye.
For James Alexander Gordon it was case of tackling it head on and overcoming it. As a child he suffered from slurred speech, a condition known as dysarthria, but it didn’t stop wanting to be a radio presenter.
‘Sobbing’
He has been the voice of the football results on BBC radio for over three decades, and his voice is so distinctive students in Sweden use it to practice their inflection.
"Speech therapists didn’t even exist back then but I had two strong-willed parents who drove me on," he says.
"I loved language and sounds from an early age and was encouraged to read and speak all the time. This love meant overcoming my impediment was a challenge, but never horrid or a chore.
SPEECH PROBLEMS- Apraxia – Unable to consistently and correctly say what you mean
- Cluttering – Repeating syllables or phrases multiple times
- Dysprosody – Changes in the intensity, rhythm, cadence and intonation of words
- Rhotacism – Difficulty pronouncing Rs
- Selective Mutism – Unable to speak in certain situations
Source: Speech Disorder
"I just kept at it and it took a combination of the mental and physical to succeed. Because of the support of my family I never thought I wouldn’t get rid of my slurred speech, it didn’t enter my head.
"The first time I read the news on BBC radio my parents were listening at home. My father disappeared from the room and my mother found him sobbing in their bedroom. He said ‘the wee bugger has done it’. He was proud and I’m proud of what I’ve overcome and achieved."
Specialists are quick to point out there is a wide array of speech impediments and communication disabilities, and like any spectrum some are more severe than others.
The causes are also varied and complex. Some people are born with them, while others acquire them because of anything from a stroke to acute shyness. In some cases specialists simply don’t understand why they happen.
‘Comfort zones’
But everyday, millions of people in the UK are coping with speech impediments which impact on every area of their lives.
"It’s inevitable because speaking is the way we conduct relationships and a way we get across our emotions and feelings," says Melanie Derbyshire, chief executive of the charity Speakability. "Relationships are involved in nearly everything we do."
For some people accepting their impediment is a large part of coping with it. From there techniques and exercises can help them manage it or lessen it.
Jaik Campbell has always had a stammer and it was actually speech therapy that made him take up stand-up comedy. It’s something he says he may never have done if things had been different.
"I had speech therapy to tackle my severe stammer and it encourages you to push your comfort zones and speak as much as you can," he says. "We’d go out with our teacher and have to ask strangers for directions, things like that. I just took it to the extreme."
He explains his stutter to the audience as part of his act, but it’s not central to it. While it hasn’t hindered his career, he says some venues are wary of booking him because they are unsure what to expect. In his opinion stuttering has made him a better comedian.
"Some venues are worried I will stutter so badly I won’t be able to get much out of my mouth," he says.
"But I have coping strategies, like learning my material word for word. I think that makes me better at what I do because I know my act inside out. I’ve seen comedians without a speech impediment try to wing it and completely bomb."
‘Exhausting’
But he feels he has also experienced discrimination. He’s been turned down for lots of jobs and was even asked if he was cold and needed the heating turned up in one interview because of his stammering.
He says talking about speech impediments is important, as once people understand a lot of the pressure is off the person who has it and who they are talking to.
However, for many people their speech impediment is always on their mind and influences nearly everything they do.
Gail Thretton suffers from cluttering, when syllables or phrases are repeated multiple times literally leaving a person’s speech cluttered with words
"The reality is my speech problems are on my mind all the time and I adapt my behaviour constantly and avoid situations," she says.
"I try to explain my problem to people, but it’s just exhausting doing that all of the time. If I’m not having a good day I just don’t go out so I don’t have to mix with strangers.
"I can laugh at my problem and see the funny side of it, but sometimes I just don’t want to. It’s not such a giggle if you live with it day and night."
Maybe in the case of Eubank, who on occasion has played along with the media’s jokes about his lisp, he’s had enough of people laughing at him and not with him.
Add your comments on this story, using the form below.
<p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Scientists go on show in vast cocoon
July 16th, 2009 |
No Comments
Researchers at London’s Natural History Museum will work in the public eye alongside 20m specimens
One of the most startling additions to any British museum, the £78m Cocoon at the Natural History Museum at South Kensington in London, an enigmatic, blobby form eight storeys high and 65m long in a giant glass box, will open to the public on September 15.
The structure has been created to shelter over 20m specimens of plants and animals, as well as laboratories for 220 scientists. This will be the first time that the museum’s scientists as well as its specimens will be on display.
Booking is now open for free tickets for 2,500 places on public tours every day.
Among the 17m insect and 3m plant specimens, there will be many items collected in recent years by staff on plant safaris, and others brought back over 150 years ago by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, the 19th century scientist whose parallel work on natural selection finally shocked Darwin into publication.
A collection of plants gathered by Sir Hans Sloane, whose work formed the basis of both the British and the natural history museums, will be on show, as well as a specimen of the famous “vegetable lamb of Tartary” – a type of fern whose cottony growth sparked the cherished legend of a plant that bore real living lambs as fruit.
Phone bookings are now being accepted for the tours, on 020-7942 5725, and online booking will open from mid-August.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Bettany & Connelly’s Darwin Movie To Open Toronto Film Festival
July 14th, 2009 |
No Comments
TORONTO — Real-life couple Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany will kick off the Toronto International Film Festival with the life story of Charles Darwin.
Bettany stars as the theory-of-evolution pioneer and Connelly plays his wife in “…