Science in the age of sail

An ever-so-slightly hungover Nunatak here, reporting on yesterday's splendid meeting at the Linnean Society in London ("In Linnaeus' Wake: Three hundred years of marine discovery"), followed by an even more splendid reception aboard the Swedish ship Gotheborg (pictured at left, 5:57pm last night in Canary Wharf).

It is always a delight to attend meetings at the "Linsock" as it is affectionately known (pictured below right), where Darwin's and Wallace's papers on natural selection were read aloud to a weirdly bored audience on 1st July 1858.

This particular conference was a very special event for anyone interested in the history of science, not least a museum denizen with a soft spot for famous dead scientists and the square riggers that bore them to fame.

The presentations ranged from biographics on Linnaeus to 18th century microscopy to marine biodiversity to maritime history and back again. To provide a glimpse into the day, here is a little list of some things that I learned:

• in addition to huge booties of tea, nearly 1000 scientific specimens were delivered back to Sweden by every Swedish East India Company (SOIC) voyage
• Linnaeus mistakenly thought that fungal spores could turn into tiny swarming animals and thus misclassified fungi as animals, assigning them to a group he aptly named "Chaos" (in fact fungi form a separate kingdom altogether and the rainwater he used was contaminated by protozoa)
• The Natural History Museum in London holds 70 million specimens
• this century, warm water marine species have moved northward by a whopping 10 degrees latitude (that's right, George, the ocean is getting warmer)
  
• sperm whales' teeth have rings like trees that you can use to track their past migrations
• there are more species of deep sea vent bivalves in the family Lucinidae than there are bird species on the entire planet
• Linnaeus was the first to classify elephant seals
• you can't stop a sailing ship
• RRS Discovery was one of the last sailing vessels ever used for science (just you wait!)
• % of the deep sea explored by man < % of the moon's surface explored by man
• oil companies sometimes do some good
• marine biodiversity increases with depth, peaking at about 2000 metres
• 40/94 members of Cook's Endeavour crew died, and this was considered a success
• the O-ring was patented in 1948
• the third voyage of the Gotheborg ended badly
• the replica of the Gotheborg was built using 18th century craftsmanship, right down to its hemp ropes and linen sails

After absorbing all of those bullet points, it was time to absorb some alcohol. Excited delegates scurried over to Canary Wharf to partake of unlimited champagne spiked with lingonberry liqueur aboard the replica Gotheborg. She's quite simply spectacular, and she helped me to imagine what it might be like to have a real-life oak-creaking, salt-smelling Beagle underfoot.

After the last lingonberry cocktail was drained and I had spread the word about The Beagle Project to as many tipsy bigwigs as is humanly possible, it was time to disembark and head back to our beds, and dreams of hosting similar celebrations aboard another notable square rigger in 2009 when the drink of choice will be gin and tonic.

Happy 300th Birthday, Carl.

Today we celebrate Carl Linnaeus' 300th birthday, and how better than to listen to a truly excellent episode of BBC Radio 4 programme, Frontiers, which this week rightly honours the undisputed father of taxonomy.

The Frontiers programme also does a bang-up job introducing J. Craig Venter's project the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, which is serving as a key model for what we intend to do aboard the Beagle.

More than that, the programme ranges 'round significant Beagle Project haunts including The Natural History Museum, full time employer of yours truly, and where I will be giving a free public talk this Friday on our project to re-survey and "DNA barcode" Darwin's meadow at Down House.

About the meadow, Darwin wrote "If ever you catch quite a beginner, & want to give him a taste for Botany tell him to make perfect list of some little field or wood. Both Miss Thorley & I agree that it gives a really uncommon interest to the work, having a nice little definite world to work on, instead of the awful abyss & immensity of all British Plants."

And so it is for us. Before embarking on our planned project to DNA barcode all British plants, we are starting with Darwin's self same little meadow, just to make sure our methods are up to snuff.

Thanks very much indeed to Richard Carter FCD for bringing the above quote to my attention. A real gem!