This video was created by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto.
Kind of terrifying? Kind of eerily beautiful? A time lapse of every nuclear explosion from 1945-1998. It starts fairly slowly, but picks up at a truly alarming rate.
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
60 years ago today, Nature published an article by Francis Crick and James Watson. It was titled, “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid”. Finally, someone had figured out the structure of DNA. That alone was a worthy achievement, after the years of work put into it. But far more importantly, the structure suggested that DNA could be the genetic material of organisms… it could be how genetic information is passed from one cell to its daughter cells, from one organism to its offspring.
After describing how the base pairs link up in a predictable way (adenine with thymine, guanine with cytosine), the authors wrote what would become the highlight of one of the most famous academic papers of all time, and possibly one of the best examples of arrogant false modesty:
“It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”.
The rest is history. The genetic code. The Human Genome Project. Blatant sexism in science. You’ll probably be reading a lot about these as we hit the 60th anniversary of the paper. It’s a story worth revisiting, or enjoying for the first time. The work by Watson and Crick is a fantastic story because it involves scientists standing on the shoulders of giants, taking the results of other scientists’ experiments and piecing them together, and answering a huge scientific question with a simple explanation. At the same time, the story of this discovery demonstrates that scientists are people, for better or worse.
This is a big pet peeve. Let’s get straight to business: the terms “homeobox” and “Hox” are not interchangeable. They do mean different things. I’m correct in saying that Amphioxus (Branchiostoma lanceolatum) has 15 Hox genes. I’m also correct in pointing out that it has over 130 homeobox genes.
Gene names can be very confusing and difficult to remember, so there are many abbreviations in biology. For example, the gene insulin-like growth factor 1 is abbreviated to Igf1. Does that make it easier to remember? Who knows. But I believe the use of abbreviations is partly responsible for the incredible confusion over homeobox and Hox genes. And I do mean incredible. It’s very obviously a confusing topic for students, or anyone new to evo-devo, developmental genetics, or gene regulation… but it’s so much worse than that. Professional publications make the mistake, academics make the mistake, and they do it often. I think the reason it keeps happening is that the word “Hox” appears to be a shortened “Homeobox”. All over the internet you will see the terms used interchangeably, and sometimes with the apparently shortened version in brackets. “Homeobox (Hox)”. This otherwise decent glossary for Epigenesys manages to dump the terms homeotic, homeobox, and Hox into one single paragraph and glossary entry, which is of little help to a confused student seeking clarity. So let’s clear this up, and I’ll keep it quick. Continue reading
Many visitors to this blog arrive looking for information about the terrible conservation tragedy that occurred on Grand Cayman a few years ago, in which several rare blue iguanas were murdered It’s a sad entry, but also reminds us of the amazing work being done to breed the Blue Iguana in captivity and then release them into nature reserves.
Here’s a video of the happy part. This footage is from last year, when eight blue iguanas were released into the Salina Reserve. You can see they are left in little wooden structures. These provide shelter and security for the animal as it makes the transition from captivity to life in the Salina Reserve.
The Earth can be truly stunning at times.
Update: My animal won! The night was a sell-out and fantastic fun, thanks to all who came along! It was great to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in a while and to make some new ones. The other acts were hilarious (and hideous), and Simon was a fantastic compere! My animal was Promachoteuthis sulcus, which isn’t very well known so doesn’t even have a common name. At the event, I proposed the “human-gobbed squid” or “gob-faced squid” to a large crowd. It was agreed at this event and at the Festival of the Spoken Nerd event on Friday that the animal should be known as the gob-faced squid. With several hundred people from these events now referring to it as the gob-faced squid, it’s the most common name it has as a relatively unknown creature! I’m happy and strangely proud that my animal won the evening. Here is the new mascot for the Scottish branch of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society:
This is a message for all the amazing people who have come to the brilliant Edinburgh International Science Festival. If you’re up for some shenanigans, and don’t have a weak stomach, come along to see us at the Ugly Animal Preservation Society! If comedy and nasty ugly are your things, you’ll be in a disgusting heaven!
As well as myself, you’ll see performers including Helen Arney (Uncaged Monkeys, Festival of the Spoken Nerd), Simon Watt (Inside Nature’s Giants), Steve Cross (Science Showoff), the guys from Punk Science, and more! It will be funny, interesting, and horrific in equal measure.
It’s on Wednesday night, 9pm-11pm. You can get all the details here!
Sir Julian S Huxley (1887-1975) led quite an academic life. As you can tell from his title, he was knighted in 1958. He won the 1953 Kalinga Prize for popularisation of science, the 1956 Darwin Medal of the Royal Society, and the 1958 Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society. He even directed a wildlife film that won an Oscar for Best Documentary. Quite a legendary man. But looking back through the years, our appreciation and respect falters when we judge his views on eugenics. Huxley served as both Vice President and then President of the British Eugenics Society before and after World War II. He also coined the term “transhumanism”, which is still used today to describe bettering humans through science and technology, though he included eugenics as a tool for achieving transhumanism.
With such success as a scientist and science-communicator, and with such controversial views, he seems a prime target for memorable quotes. It would be quite easy to find a great creationism-bashing quote from Huxley, or a controversial view on race. But the whole point of this series of posts is to go over weirder quotes, the types that might not appear in a quick biography of a person. I’ve chosen to avoid the controversy altogether. The following quote is taken directly from a scientific paper, yet would seem quite out of place in modern papers. While others were slaving away in labs with mice pressing levers, Huxley was contributing to behavioural biology while having what seems to be a rather pleasant time outdoors.
“A good glass, a notebook, some patience, and a spare fortnight in the spring – with these I not only managed to discover many unknown facts about the crested grebe, but also had one of the pleasantest of holidays. Go thou and do likewise.”
- Julian S Huxley (1914). The Courtship habits of the Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus); with an addition to the Theory of Sexual Selection. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 84(3), pp. 491–562.
I love this guy’s enthusiasm and light-heartedness. There are mistakes though. Please be cautious with “homeobox genes” and “Hox genes”. The problem here is that all Hox genes are homeobox genes, but not all homeobox genes are Hox genes. This guy makes the extremely common mistake of treating “Hox” as a shortened version of the word “homeobox”. Be cautious if you ever see “Hox” in brackets after “homeobox”.
Libbie Hymaan (1888-1969) was an American zoologist. Her family disapproved of her desire to pursue an academic career, but we all know if there’s one thing to inspire you to do something, it’s having your parents say not to do it.
“I never received any encouragement from my family to continue my academic career; in fact my determination to attend the University met with derision. At home, scolding and fault-finding were my daily portion”
Hyman wrote an incredibly successful textbook, A Laboratory Manual for Elementary Zoology (1919), which generated enough income that it allowed her to become an unpaid research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History. There, with no assistance, she accomplished a truly epic piece of work that has been of great use to zoologists since. She wrote and illustrated her six-volume treatise on The Invertebrates, a comprehensive work expertly analysing invertebrate animals. Unfortunately she never covered the entire topic due to ill health, but the first six volumes were an incredible accomplishment for an individual. As well as being the go-to source for invertebrates, Hyman also developed several important theories that had big impacts on modern biology (e.g. she argued, correctly, that echinoderms were more closely related to us chordates than the annelids etc they had often been grouped with).
Despite the incredible impact her work had, I don’t see her name that often. I’d like to give her a mention here on the blog as I’ve always found her workload, her accomplishments, and her background very interesting. I have a couple of quotes that hopefully get across her character, or what I believe her character to be, from everything I’ve read.
“I was brought up in a home devoid of affection and consideration. My father, an ageing man constantly worried about his declining fortunes, took practically no notice of his four children. My mother regarded children as property to be ordered about as she liked and to be used for her benefit. She seemed incapable of feelings of affection. She was also thoroughly infiltrated with the European worship of the male sex. My three brothers were brought up in idleness and irresponsibility, with the result that two of them never earned more than a bare living, whereas I, as a mere child, was required to participate in the endless work of the big ten-room house. For this reason I have violently hated housework all my life.”
“By about 1930 I perceived that I could live on the royalties of my books. About this time, also, Professor Child came to the retiring age. Therefore I resigned my position as research assistant in the zoology department and have had no paid position since. I am amply supported by the royalties of my books, and so was left free to write a treatise on the invertebrates.”
- Libbie Hyman, Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Science.
I was recently reminded of this gem of a video. Filmed in Japan, all the info is in English captions (though I laughed at the use of Japanese “press space bar to continue” for the chimps).
In my own experience with other people, this video has changed opinions on the intelligence of non-human animals more than any other. It also highlights the fact that “intelligence” is clearly an ambiguous term. We’re more intelligent than chimps if we consider our use of language. But this video demonstrates that if we were to measure intelligence differently, say with working memory, then chimps beat us. And with spatial memory, plenty of other animals beat us. And so on.
This is one of my favourite videos on the internet. Enjoy!
