Tomorrow: Beagling off to London

to meet with potential donors. Getting up at 4 am to get there. Bleah.

Little worlds, little worlds...

as Marvin the Paranoid Android* was wont to muse in his introspective moments. The point of this: researching the origin on the magnificently-named Theodosius Dobzhansky's oft-quoted line 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution' I found this throught-provoking para about the degree of specialisation found in nature:

Perhaps the narrowest ecologic niche of all is that of a species of the fungus family Laboulbeniaceae, which grows exclusively on the rear portion of the elytra of the beetle Aphenops cronei, which is found only in some limestone caves in southern France. Larvae of the fly Psilopa petrolei develop in seepages of crude oil in California oilfields; as far as is known they occur nowhere else. This is the only insect able to live and feed in oil, and its adult can walk on the surface of the oil only as long as no body part other than the tarsi are in contact with the oil. Larvae of the fly Drosophila carciniphila develop only in the nephric grooves beneath the flaps of the third maxilliped of the land crab Geocarcinus ruricola, which is restricted to certain islands in the Caribbean.

Maybe the scientists among us get used to this kind of thing, but it made me boggle and marvel for a while. O well, back to fundraising.

* From the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The original BBC Radio 4 version: all else is dross.

They come over here with their ice skaters..

and their mounted police and their mooses and now they buy our scientific heroes. Many thanks to MissPrism for her inspirational fundraising idea and to the humble woodcutter who has offered our Charlie a home in Canada. Many thanks, and how appropriate that a woodcutter has provided another plank for our replica HMS Beagle.

Apologies for the lack of posts (3) & in the media

Ads for my computer claim it doesn't get viruses. Its operator does. However, back now and happy to report that the Beagle Project's fame is spreading with sailing magazines in Australia and Bienvenidoabordo from Argentina arriving at the party. Science Magazine (the American Association for the Advancement of Science's weekly) will be publishing a piece about us soon.

In the Yachting press

British sailing magazine Yachting Monthly has a good article about the rebuild.

Just in case you thought we'd been idle:

the British end of the Beagle Project team have spent the day in the House of Commons drumming up support for the Project, rubbing shoulders with hugely brainy and articulate scientists, MPs and Lords. We had all washed and were wearing suits, so anyone who we met could see that we're not eye-swivelling lunatics. No cash promised, but some highly useful contacts have been made along with promises of introductions, some of which may lead to sponsorship.

The big meeting was about the need for a marine bill which addresses the problems of the degradation of marine ecosystems, corrects the shatterbrained way we regulate the coast and sea and the need for urgent action on climate change. There were some extremely eminent and level-headed senior scientists there, and they were talking in very powerful terms about the need for action to restore marine ecosystems, and in worrying terms about the consequences if we don't.

What am I bid, what merely fifty quid?

Miss Prism, biologist, blogger and artisan has produced this puppet which she is auctioning for our build funds. Bidding stands at £50, a ludicrously low amount especially for Times court and social readers.

The Beagle Project in The Times...

yes, the London Times, the Thunderer itself! Read all about it here.

Writing in the Notebook section, Peter Davies shows a real grasp of the importance of HMS Beagle in the story of Darwin and genesis of the theory of evolution.

"From the all-too-modest service career of HMS Beagle, it could never have been divined that she was destined to become one of the most famous ships ever to sail the seven seas."

Damn right. Most of the other famous ships you could name were a part of history, part of a battle, one of several that made that voyage or disccovery, but the Beagle decisively changed our intellectual landscape forever: no Beagle voyage, Darwin becomes a country clergyman, no Origin of Species.

Darwin Day again...

just discovered this rather lovely post about Lincoln and Darwin. Short, poignant and very worth a moment of your time. From the weblog of Decrepit Old Fool.

Blogging the AAAS

It's the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an event which is usually full of sciency goodness.

AAAS has a newsblog for those of us not lucky enough to be there. Other AAAS bloggers:
Flora Lichtman at Science Friday.
Anyone found any more, dump 'em in comments and I'll list them.

Meanwhile, an important communication has just come in from the group Puppets for Evolution. It concerns this. Stand by your screens, as Dolly 2.0 would sing.

Reasons to build a Beagle (n)

A memo doing the political rounds which calls for:

legislation that would end the teaching of evolution in public schools because it is “a deception that is causing incalculable harm to every student and every truth-loving citizen.”

Now as we have seen, the US courts are good at stamping on the ID and Creationist attempts to sleaze their idea into science lessons under the weasel-worded excuses of 'balance' and 'teaching the controversy'. But each attempt, and trying to give ID scientific credibility is their latest front - gives them more airtime and lets their proponents got on air where they traduce evolutionary theory.

Go read the post: I look forward to the day when the real news sounds DIFFERENT to The Onion.

Just because I got all elegiac

over a lovely pic of sails against a blue sky it doesn't mean I've gone soft. MissPrism is a scientist (which means she's overworked and underpaid) who has found time to make a puppet Charles Darwin to auction for our funds. Gitcher asses over there and bid: telling the story of Darwin in 2009 and enthusing a new generation of scientists needs a Beagle and to do that we the Miss Prisms of this world to help, and you to make some bids. Even if you don't, go and have a read, her post from Charles Darwin is great, funny original writing.

A pic to make you dream.

To anyone sitting ashore who has been to sea and loved their time under sail, this picture will speak to something deep within them. Look at the sea - whitecaps on the swells: she's sailing in a force four or five wind. Just right. The pic's taken from the foremast (the front of the three masts on a three masted ship) looking backwards towards the stern. It looks to me like she's got all plain sail up: the boat will be a pyramid of white sails against the sky, and looking at the sea that was a blue sky, blue water day. The boat would be surging along at nine or ten knots, sails taut and full, water hushing along the side, masts and rigging making that soft, organic creaking: that's a wooden boat talking back to you, telling you all's well. You may step up to a piece of rope that vanishes 50 feet up the mast, into the blue and grasp it, searching for a little more depth in your communion with the masts, rigging and the wind. You may elbow your way to the wheel, pull rank (or plead) and steer for a few moments, feeling the waves, swell and currents humming through the rudder to your hands, all adding to your feel for the boat, the weather, her trim, the crew. Or you may be off watch, with eight hours to look at the ever-shifting sea, sleep the sleep of a sailor who's just sailed from night to morning, you may eat away a fresh-air- wrestling-with-flogging-canvas hunger: fresh caught fish cooked on a barbecue and eaten scalding hot, nothing like it. Or, you see that platform on the mid-left hand side of the pic? Maybe you just want to lie there and read, while shipboard life goes on 50 feet below you, but while the canvas bellies and raps above you, and the seabirds wheel around the boat's stern and swoop into the wake, picking small fish out of the roiled water.

We want to build the replica Beagle that will take international crews of young scientists and sail training cadets around the world and leave them with memories like this, and better. The pic is by Dr Miranda Gomperts of Cambridge University. Help us: donate.

He's back...

198, and looking good. Charles Darwin is up for auction to the highest bidder in aid of Beagle Project funds, the result of bio-blogger MissPrism's idea of a blog and buy sale. MissPrism has set the reserve at £20 (two Darwins) or $40 (two Jacksons). Your bids, ladies and gentlemen please. Or go round to your nearest millionaire or philanthropic organization and suggest that there may be a good bit of PR nautical mileage in the having the million dollar Charles Darwin puppet on your desk.

And if you thought he was clever first time round, he's discovered about DNA fingerprinting, PCR and all that gubbins. Click over to MissPrism's and have a read. You won't regret it.

Welcome, historians.

On a Project like this, it's very easy to go bonkers get hung up on the science, the donations (HINT!). Thanks to historian Kris Tetens and his weblog Victorian Peeper for a bit of refocussing.

Darwin, FitzRoy and the Beagle didn't exist in a vacuum: Britain was in a state of ferment, the industrial revolution was - literally - going full steam, we were grabbing the Empire, science was being torn from the grasp of Anglican clergy and established as an independent profession and there was a whiff of revolution in the air even while the dark, satanic mills worked. Soldiers marched past Darwin's front door in London, on the was to deal with uppity Manchester Chartist protesters who wanted unreasonable things like the right to vote. The USA was growing in size and confidence, South America was, as Darwin relates, in The Voyage of the Beagle, in post-colonial turmoil: they once sailed into a near coup d'etat.

Living, inspiring history: another reason that a replica Beagle should be built.

Kansas gives creationism the bum's rush.

Kansas (Reuters) - The Kansas Board of Education on Tuesday threw out science standards deemed hostile to evolution, undoing the work of Christian conservatives in the ongoing battle over what to teach U.S. public school students about the origins of life.

The board in the central U.S. state voted 6-4 to replace them with teaching standards that mirror the mainstream in science education and eliminate criticisms of evolutionary theory.

"I'm glad we've taken this step. If we are going to have a well-educated populace, this is important," said board member Sue Gamble.

Full article here. One day late, but a nice birthday present for Charles Darwin. H/t Beagle Girl.

Darwin Day linkfest:

Coturnix at a Blog around the clock rounds up Darwin Day on the web.

Darwin Day links

Pharyngula has a simple, solemn portrait of the genius as an old man.

Friends of Charles Darwin gives the day the big red letters you'd expect. FOCD now has 879 members. It would be a good thing to mark Darwin Day by getting membership to 1000. If you're not, sign up and ginger up your mates to do the same.

The University Oslo had a packed and thought provoking series of lectures.

Science writer Alan Boyle at Cosmiclog wishes all a happy Darwin Day, and talks to Bob Stephens, the brains behind the Darwinday website and to Butler University's Michael Zimmerman whose Clergy Project Letter became Evolution Sunday, during which ministers who believe faith and evolution are not incompatible say so from the pulpit. A spirited debate - which includes the word smorgasbord - ensues in the comments.

Darwin Day at the University of Knoxville, Tennessee highlights their whole week of events. They have an ace logo, too.

Happy Darwin Day 2007

In 2005, the Genomic Dub Collective released the Origin of Species in Dub. New for Darwin Day 2007: Origin in Dub videos and they want you to watch them and rate them AND to celebrate the outcome of the Dover, Pennsylvania trial (where attempts to sleaze Intelligent Design into the school curriculum were shown the door) they have released Dub fi Dover. Now that is what I call activism.

As they say, 'big it up for the NCSE. It (ID and creationism) violate the constitution and the American Revolution.' Go and give the Genomic Dub Collective some Darwin Day respect. Fellas, you've got a gig when we launch the Beagle in 2009.

Oh, and if you're in London, take a long lunch hour and listen to the Natural History Museum Darwin Day 07 lecture.

The first annual Darwin Day essay competition

has been launched in the USA. Thanks to blogger Neurotopia for the heads up.

There's gold in them thar rocks.

Congrats to Cambridge University for landing a £500,000 grant to exhibit Charles Darwin's geological exhibits. Darwin's geological work on the Beagle is often overshadowed by famous finches, iguanas and the small matter of natural selection, but his geological research and writing was significant:
• The structure and distribution of coral reefs
• Geological observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, together with some brief notices of the geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope. Being the second part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836.
• Geological observations on South America. Being the third part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832 to 1836 (No link to the document.)
• Geological observations on the volcanic islands and parts of South America visited during the voyage of H.M.S. 'Beagle'. 2d edition. 1876.

The exhibition will be in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge in 2009. For a better outline of Darwin's geological work on the Beagle, read the Voyage of the Beagle. It's not just worthy, it's a superb read.

It would be wrong not to crow: Knitters for Beagle...

Corvustristis is supporting bio-blogger MissPrism in her innovative blog and buy sale in aid of our funds.

Darwin Day 07: Natural History Museum talk.

Hooooorah for the Natural History Museum London. If you live or work nearby, check out this. They're celebrating Darwin's 198th anniversary with public talks on Sunday 11th and Monday 12th at 1400: "Darwin Day 2007: the legacy of Charles Darwin". If your boss is a Scrooge and won't give you the time off for such a great event, you can follow it online from 1430.

Image of Darwin teaching a monkey to play table tennis borrowed from NHM page, but only to promote their talk. ©Them.

Cambridge University: Darwin2009

Charles Darwin, having decided the life of a Hanoverian/Victorian doctor was not for him, went to Christ's College Cambridge in 1828. His intention (with his father's determined foot behind him) was to become an Anglican clergyman. While there he seems to have spent as much time collecting beetles as getting his head around the theology, philosophy, mathematics and physics that made up his BA degree. By his own admission the work made him miserable.

Cambridge is proud of Darwin, has done a wonderful job putting his papers online and in July 2009 they're holding a big conference to celebrate his achievements, with some big scientific names already signed up. Website here. I nicked the logo above from it because it's so classy, all rights acknowledged, hope they don't mind in exchange for the conference write up and link.

Don 'the engineer' Simmons

says donate. And you don't-a messa around with the Don.

The Darwin Online website

is a truly fantastic resource: Darwin's papers, notebooks, letters and manuscripts online. Free and searchable. Treat yourself to a browse here. The field notebooks are Charles Darwin's on-the-spot records of what he saw, recorded and collected. From these we know that the first specimen collected by Darwin when Beagle made landfall was:

Eel dark reddish purplish brown with pale or whitish brown spots. Eyes Bluish. Darwin had caught a Jewel Moray Eel.

Then:
Saturday left our anchorage & stood out to outside of Island, did not anchor
(Sunday) Continued to beat to windward...

Brief, but vivid and straight from the mind of the great man. From the Galapagos, Otahaite, Lima notebook (1835) Beagle field notebook EH1.17, page 17b.

Update

21st of Feb the Beagle Project is trolling off to London to meet with Government ministers and potential funders. People are starting wake up to the idea that building a replica Beagle and sailing her in Darwin's wake will be an incredibly exciting contribution to celebrating Darwin's life and inspiring a new generation of youngsters.

For want of a prong, the genus was lost.

Thanks to the Hairy Museum of Natural History for the great plug. Having a wander through the site (it's about dinosaur fossils,after all) I stumbled across the story of how a fossil Seismosaurus was discovered, excavated, wrongly interpreted and reconstructed with an estimated length of 170 feet - 52 metres! Then some rethinking and vertebral shuffling shrank the creature to a feeble 110 feet. Then the experts had another look at some distinguishing features, moved a misplaced bone prong and with that, this particular Seismosaurus lost its unique (and very cool) and was relabelled as a large species of Diplodocus.

I'm not saying what follows because they've mentioned us. It's a great story, which illustrates how scientific method works and (more importantly) is written in a way which anyone would understand and find engaging. A model of what good science writing for the rest of us should be.

Donate, or the palaeo puns get worse.

One syllable short of a haiku.

Donate, or the poetry gets worse.

Bloggery:

Thanks for the mention Amygdala. Under the bit about 'zombie nutritionist recommends all brain diet'. Obviously.

Donation thanks: Matt from the brilliant Hairy Museum of Natural History, Jim Moore, Donald Simmons, Martin Hafner. Every time a donation comes in I get more convinced than ever that there is a huge appetite to see a replica Beagle afloat and become ever more encouraged that we're going to do it. As Stephen Jay Gould said, science at its best is international and collaborative. The donations have come in from the UK, France, Germany, the USA, the Galapagos, Brazil. The public are increasingly stepping up to help us: they want to see a replica Beagle launched in 2009.

Links to us...

Coturnix at a blog around the clock snaps in a stern one liner.
And Zalambdalestids weighs in.

Livejournal syndication of the Beagle Project

is here. Thanks, whoever created that. Feedburner syndication is the orange widget below the 'donate' button, which lots of people are telling needs to a bit more brash.

More Beagle bloggery

Richard Carter writes a blog epitaph to Charles Musters who set sail with Beagle aged 12 and was dead of malaria before his teens.
Turinas: I'm glad he's on our side as he's designed a fundraising widget for us at his blog Messing about in sailboats, which also features a slightly scurrilous sailing anecdote from yr. humble svt. Every word true.
And thanks to PropterDoc for his post telling all right-thinking people to get on over to MissPrism's and pitch in to the blog and buy sale.

To which I would say:
1. Always do what the Doctor tells you (in this case, support MissPrism and donate)
2. PZ Myers at Pharyngula thinks MissPrism's is a Brilliant idea and given that he's winner of the best science blog category in the Weblog Awards 2006 he needs to be listened to.

And finally, whoever you are and wherever you are, thankyouthankyouthankyou fkellis and susandavis for your donations.

Sanguiney hell!

We've had several would-be stowaways, but blogger Sanguinity is contemplating piracy to get aboard. Forgivable, because through her site I learned about the stormglass:

"This mysterious weather predictor has been used since 1750. Admiral Fitzroy, the famous sailor and meteorologist, used the Stormglass throughout his life, but most notably aboard the HMS Beagle during his historic voyage with Charles Darwin in the 1830s.

After 250 years the way the Stormglass works is still a mystery, but it is believed that it has to do with the electromagnetic changes caused by weather and sun storms. The appearance inside the glass indicates changes in the weather. If the liquid is clear, the weather will be fair and dry. If the liquid is cloudy, the weather will be cloudy and possibly rainy. If there are small fernlike crystals building up, the weather will be cold and stormy. When the fernlike crystals start to disappear, the weather will be warmer. Falling crystals indicate frost."

Made by the wonderfully named 'Weems and Plath', currently on sale for just $99. Less bother than breaking an arm and boring on to people you can predict bad weather because it 'feels funny' the day before.

Coturnix

warns that he has bloghorrea: he has, and has posted our latest newsletter, for which many thanks. Anyone who donates over the next ten days is entered into a draw to win a copy of his book Open Laboratory, a compedium of the best science blog writing. And from a Ph.D. student who clearly ain't flush with cash that's a big, generous gesture.

Blogging the Beagle...

thanks to
Abstract Nonsense.
Pennsylvania Citizens for Science
Brummelblog
The Filter (scroll past the fossilized fairy.)
Heraclitean Fire
Zayzayem

Tags: hms beagle replica, hms beagle

Another scienceblogger rallies to the cause:

Coturnix at blog around the clock gives us a great write up ('majestic,' no less) and muses on blogging from the Beagle. We will have sat comms, and crew will be able blog their voyage as it happens. We can't get every young scientist who wants to sail aboard, but anyone with an internet connection will be able to take part. Coturnix plugs the other great fundraising ideas, admits he can't knit to support MissPrism's bring and blog (what do they teach Ph.Ds these days? Watson and Crick made several bedspreads while discovering the structure of DNA). Coturnix has offered a copy of his book The Open Laboratory, a compendium of the best writing on science blogs 2006 to a randomly selected donor. Thanks, for the blog entry and the book.

Coturnix' enthusiastic broadsides has been picked up by Turinas of Messing about in sailboats who has also suggested an ebay auction of unwanted stuff for the Beagle. I still have a dream of a Beagle built entirely through the goodwill, originality and vitality of the science community.

Tags: hms beagle replica, the beagle project, charles darwin, evolution, fundraising

Blogs more support.

Thanks to Richard Carter (Founder, Friends of Charles Darwin) for this, to Coturnix at Blog around the clock for the link. If you've blogged about us or linked here please let us know so it can added to the Everest of jobs to do, people to thank. A newsletter highlighting the last two days frenzied blog activity is in preparation and will posted as a PDF shortly.

Tags: hms beagle replica, the beagle project, charles darwin, evolution

Damn it...

was just heading to bed after an entire day dealing with the results of being written up in science blog Pharyngula (not that I'm complaining). One of them, and a good one was number 2 in the post below: biologist and blogger MissPrism dreamed up the idea of a blog and buy sale for us and said she'd start knitting a Darwin puppet which would go for sale on 12 February, Darwin's birthday, proceeds to go to building the Beagle replica.

Had a last check on Pharyngula to find PZ thinks MissPrism has a brilliant idea.

Too right she does. How nice if on Charles Darwin's 198th anniversary a Darwin puppet knitted by scientist (and who better?) with a great, nay brilliant, idea sold for £1 million and helped build a replica Beagle. Your bids, please. Buy the puppet for that and I guarantee you'll be standing on the end of the Beagle's bowsprit, holding onto a forestay when she sails into the Galapagos in 2009. PZ has offered his help with a blog and buy effort, too.

hms beagle replica, the beagle project, pharyngula, fundraising