150 Years of On The Origin of Species

150 years ago today, on November 24, 1959, the most important book in the history of biology was published.  Charles Darwin’s On The Origin of Species was, and still is, the foundation upon which all of modern biology rests, with its myriad applications in medicine, ecology, philosophy, and beyond.  I’ve sort of let blogging take a back seat now that I’m busy with school in the evenings and working to get my foot in the door of the academic world, so even at the momentous anniversary I will probably be content to just remind everyone how important biological science is, and ask that you consider making a charitable donation to an organization that supports scientific research and/or education.  Perhaps there’s a cancer research foundation whose work saved the life of a loved one, or a college scholarship fund that helps low-income students in your community pursue higher education in biology.  I am personally a fan of the National Center for Science Education, which is constantly waging the legal battles to protect our public school science cirricula from an ongoing, organized assault by creationist groups who seek to replace the discipline of biology with their dishonest and ignorant religious agenda. You can contribute to NCSE here.  Lastly, I’ll mention that the National Science Foundation has put together an excellent resource in celebration of the Origin of Species anniversary, which can be found here.  I highly recommend checking it out!

I’m leaving on a business trip to Dubai on Saturday, which will be my first real adventure outside of the United States (except for the 51st state, aka Canada)*.  I hope to have some cool pictures and stories to share from the UAE next week, so stay tuned.

* Just kidding, ay? I love you, Canucks.

On Obama’s health care reform speech

Last night, President Barack Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress with a boldness and clarity that I think has been lacking since the end of his campaign.  His address laid out his proposals for health care reform in clear, concise language. He clobbered the atrocious lies and distortions that have been spread in the media lately as well as the anti-reform ideologues that started them. He also achieved the important goal of framing health care reform as a moral issue, and as a fundamental economic security issue:

“Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.”
                                            -President Barack Obama

The address was also masterful political theater, clearly crafted to assert the President’s authority before the assembled chambers of Congress on the issue which may define his presidency.  Even reform opponents played their part in the spectacle: at a moment in his speech when Obama clearly asserted that his health care proposals would explicitly exclude coverage for undocumented immigrants, the traditionally quiet decorum of the event was punctuated by South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, who loudly shouted “You lie!” at the president. President Obama could not have illustrated the vapid thoughtlessness of health care reform’s enemies any better than that.

Now, while I certainly found much to commend in the president’s speech, it wasn’t all rainbows and whiskey.  As a progressive who favors a single-payer health care system, I can’t say that I agree with all of President Obama’s proposals.  In particular, I feel that private, for-profit health insurance companies represent a fundamental conflict of interest between investors’ expectation of profit and patients’ need for medical care.  Obama is pushing for new laws that will limit insurance companies’ strategies to maximize their profit, which appears to be a nuanced, measured compromise — but in practice, it will be the federal government that bears the burden of enforcing these laws, and that means it will take time for insurance companies to comply with the new laws. We can nearly rest assured that their compliance will be grudging and constantly in search of loopholes. Put simply, the new laws Obama proposed would not fully resolve that fundamental conflict of interest.  I realize that Obama’s proposals are a political and practical solution rather than an ideal one, and I encourage everyone to support any legislation that accomplishes the goals he set.  My criticism is only meant to serve as a reminder that the fight for equity, fairness, compassion, and justice in the U.S. health system will not end with the passage of health care reform. I think that Bad Astronomer Phil Plait expressed a similar point regarding Obama’s education speech on Tuesday very well, and with all due tribute, I will repost the image here that he used to do so:

Delay of de liftoff

In case you haven’t heard, the STS-128 mission has been postponed three times now – the first was due to weather, and for the last two nights the delay has been due to a faulty liquid hydrogen fill and drain valve on the shuttle’s primary propulsion system.  The launch is now targeted for 11:59 PM tomorrow, Friday, August 28th.  Stay on top of the latest news at NASA’s main space shuttle mission webpage.  I’ll be watching the site tomorrow eagerly, hoping that it doesn’t get delayed again!  The weather forecast tomorrow calls for a 60% chance of favorable launch conditions at midnight, which means clear skies within 11.5 miles of the launch pad, with ENE and NNW winds < 39mph, and SSE and WSW winds < 23 mph… among other things.  Not that I looked it up

On another note, I just dropped almost $300 at the Towson University bookstore today – for just two classes.  Sigh.  School starts Monday, and I’ll be officially back on the academic bandwagon.  Here’s to progress!

Four Centuries of Optical Zoom

Today marks  another landmark scientific anniversary – the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first telescope.  It was on this day in 1609 that Galileo presented his prototype 8x-magnification telescope to the assembled Senate of Venice.  It was not the first telescope—that forgotten honor belongs  to Dutch astronomer Hans Lipperhey who built a simple telescope just one year earlier, in 1608—but it was the one that captured the attention of the Venetian merchants (who were most interested in its practical applications for shipping and navigation) and lit the candle of modern astronomy.  Galileo’s telescope allowed him to make precise observations that confirmed Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis and dispatched the notion of an Earth-centered universe.  Galileo’s published defense of this view in 1632 led directly to a papal trial in 1633, in which he was declared “vehemently suspect of heresy” and, after recanting his scientific views under threat of torture, his imprisonment sentence was commuted to house arrest.  Galileo remained in home near Florence (he was allowed one trip to seek medical advice near the end of his life) and was closely watched by church authorities until his death in 1642.  For a laugh, you can read the Catholic Church’s position on the Galileo controversy.

I, for one, am overwhelmed with humility by the science that Galileo’s telescope revolutionized.  It has brought us the likes of Carl Sagan, Maria Mitchell, Giovanni Cassini, and Stephen Hawking.  It brought us NASA and the space program, which will launch the space shuttle Discovery (STS-128) tomorrow at 1:10 AM EDT on a mission to the International Space Station.  There are no words that can, for the casual observer, capture the immensity of the expanding universe that telescopes have uncovered.  There is, at least, an image that comes close.  I am referring to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which is a composite image of a tiny region of space in the constellation Fornax, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2003-2004.  It looks back over approximately 13 billion years, showing in just a tiny speck of sky that appears dark to the human eye the multitude of galaxies that existed only 400-800 million years after the Big Bang.  Every spot, blur, smudge, and speck on the image is an entire galaxy containing millions or billions of stars.  I will say no more about it, for if you’ve never seen it, this image deserves quiet reflection.  You can click on this small image to view the entire high-resolution version (18.1 MB).  In honor of Galileo, and without further blabbering from this blogger:

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Perseid Party, or Death From The Skies!

IMPORTANT: Even if you can’t go with me tomorrow, please read this article about the Perseid Meteor Shower, and try to find the most promising way to see them near where you are.  And if you happen to read this before 5AM ET/2AM PT this morning (I’m looking at you, California kids!), try to go out and take a look now!

So – who wants to join me to see the best meteor shower of the year – the Perseids?!  It was too cloudy tonight to see very much, and even when some clear spots in the sky opened up, our very brightly lit urban environment overpowered all but the brightest stars.  I’m taking C in my car, so I’ll have room for up to three others.  I’ll drive some place dark, outside the city (suggestions welcome), and lay back to watch the show for at least 1 or 2 hours.  Bringing a folding cot, sleeping bag, hammock, or blanket is recommended for prolonged viewing comfort.  Binoculars, cameras, tripods, and telescopes are also great ideas if you have any of these available to you.  Food and drink never hurt anyone, either (hah)!  I will cancel this mini-trip if the weather doesn’t co-operate…  as it turns out, unfortunately, I can’t see the sky with my naked eyes through total cloud cover.

Hooray for death from the skies!

Back from Canada, soon Back to School

This fall, I’m going back to school.  I’d been weighing options for graduate school and finally determined that my best prospect for getting into a good ethology/zoology PhD program would be to get a B.S. in Biology first.  My first bachelor’s degree was a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Maryland-College Park; I focused on biological anthropology, but I decided I need more experience in research methods and applied math to really hack it as a doctoral candidate.  So, I’m about to embark on what will probably be at least a ten-year-long odyssey of learning and hard work before getting that Piled-higher-and-Deeper piece of paper.  I couldn’t be happier about it, however, because I’ve always dreamed of spending my life in the pursuit of scientific advancement, even if the work is tedious, repetitive, unrecognized, and doesn’t pay well.

On another note, C and I just returned from our vacation to Niagra Falls and Toronto, Ontario.  The falls were even more amazing than I remembered from a short visit around age 8.  And what a great city Toronto is!  It’s too bad I got a nasty virus (influenza or something similar) and spent much of the time suffering through fever, aches, congestion, cough, and fatigue – but we still managed to ascend the CN Tower, ride Segways, and catch a Blue Jays game among other things.  I’d certainly go back there again when I have more time and better health.  I’ll conclude this post with a few pictures from our Canadian excursion.

Niagra Falls, viewed from the American side

Niagra Falls, American Falls, illuminated at night

Toronto city center at night

Celeste & I rode Segways through Toronto's Distillery District

The CN Tower, the tallest free-standing structure in North or South America, illuminated at night.

View of Toronto from Skypod, perched 447 meters up on the CN Tower.

Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!

Unexpected hiatus, it seems – over 2 months without an update! I’m not letting this blog die, though. At the moment I am very busy but I wanted to post quickly to say Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla! Without you, I wouldn’t have my car, my computer, my phone, my job, or Survival Machine.

Here’s one of Tesla’s patent drawings:

Alternating Motor patent diagram by Nikola Tesla

Ouranos ex machina

Dear Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences,

Verily, I beseech ye to establish a Nobel Prize for Magnificence, and award the first one to Steve Eves.

Humbly,
simian

Seriously, wow.

“It is time for us to lead once again”

I regret having just set a personal record for the longest period of time between posts.  But let’s forget about that right now, because today there are a couple BIG events to talk about.

Swine flu: Having very recently mutated to allow human/human transmission, it has already spread around the globe, leading to fears of a global pandemic.  To be fair, I think the mainstream news media have been doing more to fan the flames of fear (while sanctimoniously denying any intent to do so) than the flu itself.  As of this evening early Tuesday morning, only 40 50 cases had been reported inside the United States, and not a single fatality. CDC laboratory tests thus far indicates that the infection responds well to antiviral drugs such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), which are being stockpiled in a number of states.  Maryland has already opened a swine flu command center right in my home city of Baltimore, in anticipation of likely infections occurring in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.  CDC lab tests have also indicated that the other two FDA-approved antiviral drugs for flu, amantadine (Symmetrel) and rimantadine (Flumadine), are ineffective against the swine flu.  Both oseltamivir and zanamivir are neuraminidase inhibitors, which work by blocking the action of the viral neuraminidase protein.  This is the protein on the surface of influenza viruses that allows it to be released from the host cell in the process known as “budding.”  Amantadine and rimantadine are both M2 protein inhibitors, drugs whose mechanism of action involves blocking the ion channel that removes a virion’s coating and releases its genetic content into the cytoplasm of the host cell.  It is worth noting that poultry farmers in China used amantadine to guard againt the H5N1 avian flu in chickens, an ill-advised practice (H. sapiens as an agent of natural selection!) that has led to the abundance of influenza strains resistant to amantadine.

It’s too early yet to tell whether the swine-flu fatalities in Mexico will be seen here in the United States or elsewhere around the world, but we probably won’t have to wait very long to find out.  As the eccentric chaotician Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, “life finds a way” – we had better work hard to ensure that it’s human life that finds a way this time.  If you’re wondering what you can do, look at this guide on the US Department of Health and Human Services’ PandemicFlu.gov website.  And, of course, you can follow the CDC’s swine flu updates on Twitter.

In that vein, I lastly want to commend President Barack Obama, who, speaking today before the National Academy of Sciences, made a remarkable (and badly needed) commitment to the advancement of American science. After describing how the current swine flu emergency should remind us of the necessity of science, and among many breaks for applause, Obama said:

I believe it is not in our character, the American character, to follow.  It’s our character to lead.  And it is time for us to lead once again.  So I’m here today to set this goal:  We will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development.  We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race, through policies that invest in basic and applied research, create new incentives for private innovation, promote breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and improve education in math and science.

That’s why I campaigned for this guy. Let’s all make sure we hold him to this promise.

(No) space shuttle launch tonight

I was just about to post to remind everyone to watch the space shuttle Discovery launch tonight, but I just learned that NASA has scrubbed the launch due to a leak discovered (discovery-d?) in the external liquid hydrogen fuel tank—aka the big red phallus under the shuttle.  The mission was going to take seven crew members on a two-week mission to continue construction on the International Space Station, after which the goliath project would be 81% complete.  The mission’s ISS add-ons include new solar panels and the last piece of the ISS’s girder (the longest part, to which the biggest solar panels are connected).  This was going to be the first shuttle launch of 2009; Endeavour’s November 2008 launch was the last one.

Here’s NASA’s mission page for the mission, dubbed STS-119.  From their clock it looks like they’re going to make the next launch attempt tomorrow night at around 9PM EDT.  So stay tuned!