jlynch | December 1, 2007
Births
1525 - Tadeáš Hájek, Czech physician and astronomer
1580 - Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, French astronomer
1743 - Martin Heinrich Klaproth, German chemist
1925 - Martin Rodbell, American scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1729 - Giacomo F. Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer
1750 - Johan Gabriel Doppelmayr, German mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer
1964 - J. B. S. Haldane, Scottish geneticist
jlynch | December 1, 2007In his discussion of West’s recent talk in Minnesota, PZ notes:
I am extremely impressed with the fact that the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota has a historian and philosopher of science on their faculty -- more biology departments ought to make those kinds of strategic alliances to broaden and deepen their discipline.
I wholeheartedly agree. Here at Arizona State, the School of Life Sciences is the home for not only the Center for Biology & Society, but also the History and Philosophy of Science Program. We also have recently started a…
jlynch | November 30, 2007Mark Borrello is a good mate of mine and an historian of biology. Greg Laden has an account of Mark publicly handing John West his ass regarding his expectorations re Darwin and eugenics.
PZ was there as well. Apparently West called him "America's Richard Dawkins"!
Nice job, Mark! It will be interesting tedious to see how the DI will spin this.
Update (12/1): And here comes the spin.
Update (12/2): And PZ responds.
jlynch | November 30, 2007Bora reminds us that Open Lab 2007 is now in the judging phase - 329 entries now have to be whittled down to 50. Some unknown reader (thanks!) nominated my Pithecophobes of the World, Unite! Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV series for inclusion.
jlynch | November 30, 2007
Wet Evening in April The birds sang in the wet treesAnd I listened to them it was a hundred years from nowAnd I was dead and someone else was listening to them.But I was glad I had recorded for himThe melancholy.
Patrick Kavanagh
I’ve posted poems by Kavanagh before ("Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away" and "Epic"). He died today in 1967.
[picture source]
jlynch | November 30, 2007Events
1974 - Lucy is discovered by Donald Johanson, Maurice Taieb, Yves Coppens and Tim White in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression.
Births
1756 - Ernst Chladni, German physicist
1768 - JÄdrzej Åniadecki, Polish writer, physician, chemist and biologist
1858 - Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist
1869 - Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1889 - Edgar Douglas Adrian, British physiologist
1915 - Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
jlynch | November 28, 2007
Births
1627 - John Ray, English naturalist
1762 - Pierre André Latreille, French zoologist
1803 - Christian Doppler, Austrian physicist
1825 - Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist
1849 - John Ambrose Fleming, British physicist
1857 - Theodor Escherich, German pediatrician
1874 - Egas Moniz, Portuguese physician, neurologist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1694 - Marcello Malpighi, Italian physician
jlynch | November 28, 2007Events
1660 - At Gresham College, 12 men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Sir Robert Moray decide to found what is later known as the Royal Society of London.
1964 - Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars.
2004 - A male Po’o-uli dies of avian malaria in Maui Bird Conservation Center before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.
Births
1700 - Nathaniel Bliss, Astronomer Royal
1772 - Luke Howard, British meteorologist
1805 - John Stephens, American archeologist
1908 - Claude Lévi-Strauss, French anthropologist
1950 -…
jlynch | November 27, 2007Events
2001 - A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
2005 - The first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.
Births
1701 - Anders Celsius, Swedish inventor and astronomer
1754 - Georg Forster, German scientist
1857 - Charles Scott Sherrington, British physiologist and Nobel Prize laureate
1903 - Lars Onsager, Norwegian chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1955 - Bill Nye (The science guy), American engineer and broadcaster
Deaths
1811 - Andrew Meikle,…
jlynch | November 26, 2007Births
1678 - Jean Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist
1832 - Karl Rudolf König, German physicist
1898 - Karl Ziegler, German chemist and Nobel Prize laureate
1904 - Armand Frappier, French-Canadian physician and microbiologist
1907 - Ruth Patrick, American botanist
1938 - Rodney Jory, Australian physicist
Deaths
1876 - Karl Ernst von Baer, German biologist
1885 - Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist
1896 - Emil du Bois-Reymond, German physician
jlynch | November 25, 2007The qualifying draw from World Cup 2010 in South Africa was made today. Europe’s Group 8 looks like a challenge for the Irish (current rankings in brackets):
Italy (3)
Bulgaria (18)
Republic of Ireland (35)
Cyprus (65)
Georgia (77)
Montenegro (172)
jlynch | November 25, 2007The Sun Devils (9-2) dropped to thirteenth in the BCS after their loss to USC Thursday night. No surprises there. Had the second half been closer a higher ranking would have been possible. But no point dwelling in the past as a number of possible scenarios are possible for the future:
A trip to the Rose Bowl is still possible if we beat U of A and UCLA surprises everyone by defeating USC.
A Fiesta Bowl appearance is possible if we win and Missouri beats Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game.
If we win and Oklahoma wins, we’re looking at the Holiday Bowl.
Worst case scenario appears to be the…
jlynch | November 25, 2007Births
1703 - Jean-François Séguier, French astronomer and botanist
1814 - Julius Robert von Mayer, German physician and physicist
1887 - Nikolai Vavilov, Russian geneticist
1913 - Lewis Thomas, American physician and essayist
Deaths
1686 - Nicolas Steno, Danish geologist
1694 - Ismael Bullialdus, French astronomer
1884 - Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, German chemist
1972 - Henri CoandÄ, Romanian aerodynamics pioneer
jlynch | November 24, 2007Events
1639 - Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree separately observe the first recorded transit of Venus
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.
Births
1774 - Thomas Dick, Scottish scientific teacher and writer
1888 - Fredrick Willius, American cardiologist
1925 - Simon van der Meer, Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
2006 - ZdenÄk Veselovský, Czech zoologist
jlynch | November 23, 2007
10,000
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,this is the best season of your life.
Wu Men
[Picture: "Autumn Moon," Ansel Adams, 1948]
jlynch | November 22, 2007Births
1553 - Prospero Alpini, Italian physician and botanist
1715 - Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer
1837 - Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1887 - Henry Moseley, English physicist
1907 - Lars Leksell, Swedish physician
1924 - Colin Macmillan Turnbull, British-born anthropologist
Deaths
1902 - Walter Reed, American bacteriologist
1937 - Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist
1937 - George Albert Boulenger, Belgian naturalist
jlynch | November 22, 2007ASU dropped to 9-2/6-2 with a 44-24 home loss to an admittedly superior USC team. Disappointing overall, particularly because the running game was non-existent, and this means USC has bested us eight years in a row. A 17 point burst by the Trojans in the third quarter put the game away and an overall inability to tackle and run (and for that matter, punt) hurt us a lot.
ASU will no doubt drop in the rankings and will probably be heading to either the Holiday or Sun Bowl depending on how we handle Arizona next week. While the run for the Rose Bowl is over, the season has turned out better…
jlynch | November 22, 2007Peter Irons has made it known that Frank Beckwith (Baylor) resigned as a fellow of the Discovery Institute in July.The event went without notice from either Beckwith or the DI. Beckwith’s has in the past stated that he "has never been much of fan [of] design arguments, ever. My interest in the debate focuses on the jurisprudential questions involving the First Amendment and what could be permissibly taught in public schools under that amendment."
Obviously one can speculate as to Beckwith’s reasons - was it related to his recent conversion to Catholicism, or perhaps to the asinine activities…
jlynch | November 21, 2007First of all, I want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers. To everyone else, have a happy Thursday. I’ll be laying low for the next four days (a combination of Thanksgiving and grading) and am not likely to post other than a brief comment to tonight’s ASU vs USC football game. Your Today in Science follows ...
Births
1635 - Francis Willughby, English biologist
1897 - Paul Oswald Ahnert, German astronomer
1904 - Louis Eugène Félix Néel, French physicist and Nobel Prize laureate
1917 - Andrew Fielding Huxley, British scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
1939 - Tom West,…