Darwin's Bulldogs

A group blog from the Consortium for Evolutionary Studies at Caifornia State University, Fresno

Genie Scott on Science Friday: Defending climate change education

Our friend Dr. Eugenie Scott and her colleagues over at the National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncse.com/) are taking on climate change denial as well now, in addition to their ongoing fight to defend the teaching of evolution in America's classrooms. Today, you can listen to Genie talk about these new initiatives on Science Friday on NPR:

From: Robert Luhn <luhn@ncse.com>
Date: January 19, 2012 7:45:04 PM EST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Genie Scott on Science Friday: Defending climate change education

A little news flash: Our very own Genie Scott (NCSE's executive director) will be on NPR's "Science Friday" show tomorrow. Genie will be talking about our new initiative--defending climate change education--the rise of climate change denial, the links to the ongoing battle in classrooms over evolution vs. creationism, and more.

 

When? Friday the 20th at 11 a.m. Pacific Time/2 p.m. Eastern.

 

Listen live here:

 

http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/listen/

 

Yrs.,

 

Robert Luhn

NCSE

She keeps on playing the never ending game of whack-a-creationist-mole...

Eugenie Scott has been playing whack-a-mole with the creationists for several decades now, and she still has to keep on going! Such a shame that someone as brilliant a scientist and communicator as her has to keep spending time on what should be non-issues in a properly educated world. Alas, we don't live in such a properly educated world - indeed here in the US we are regressing alarmingly when it comes to science literacy. So I'm glad we have someone like Genie at the front lines, fighting the good fight and keeping the candle of enlightenment lit against the politically motivated forces of dark ignorance. Here's Genie again, on why we have to keep taking the nonsense of creationism seriously:

 
via youtube.com

 

A Carl Zimmer Double Feature in Fresno this week! What an end-of-the-year treat!

Click here to download:
ZimmerVirusesTalk.pdf (683 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
ZimmerScienceMediaTalk-13May2011.pdf (446 KB)
(download)

From Silent Spring to Silent Night: A Tale of Toads and Men

As the semester winds down here at Fresno State, the Tri Beta Biology Club has a couple more special treats for us. For this week's Biology Colloquium, we bring you a real role model in Dr. Tyrone Hayes, an African American field biologist (yes, they exist, despite the stereotype) who became one of the youngest Full Professors at the University of California Berkeley. He will share his groundbreaking (and corporation-shaking) research on the effects of the herbicide Atrazine on amphibians, a taxon that has been in global decline for some time now, with pesticides hammering some of the nails in their collective coffin. Here's an excerpt about Dr. Hayes' work from the PBS documentary Frogs: The Thin Green Line:

And if that isn't enough to grab your interest, this might:

Here are details of the colloquium:

Tri Beta Biology Club presents:
FROM SILENT SPRING TO SILENT NIGHT: A TALE OF TOADS AND MEN
Dr. Tyrone Hayes

Professor of Integrative Biology
University of Californa, Berkeley
on Friday, May 6, 2011
at 3:00 PM in AG 109 (download maps here)
The herbicide, atrazine, is a potent endocrine disruptor. My laboratory’s studies in amphibians have shown that atrazine both demasculinizes and feminizes exposed males at levels as low as 0.1 ppb. Our previous worked examined morphological effects, including the loss of androgen-dependent sexually dimorphic features, and the development of estrogen-dependent features in exposed males. These findings are consistent with an induction of aromatase, resulting in decreased androgen secretion and inappropriate estrogen synthesis and secretion. Our ongoing studies focus on behavioral effects in male frogs exposed throughout life and demonstrate both the loss of male reproductive behavior and the induction of female-typical behavior in exposed males. These data on amphibians and the proposed mechanism are consistent with findings across vertebrate classes, including humans, and raise concern about the role of this common environmental contaminant in reproductive hormone-dependent cancers and declining fertility in humans. 

Call the Biology department (559•278•2001) for more information. You can also download the flyer here.

 

A talk about Aliens in Fresno!

But no... not my kind of aliens, them other kind... y'know, extraterrestrial! But... how would you know?

Department of Biology and
Tri Beta Biology Honors Club present

Would alien life resemble us, and how could we possibly know? Astrobiology, evolution and the amino acids

A public lecture by
Dr. Stephen Freeland
NASA Astrobiology Institute
University of Hawaii

Thursday, April 28, 2011, 6:15 PM
Peters Auditorium, UBC 191
Free and open to the public with free parking in UBC lot

Abstract: A fundamental challenge for astrobiology is to establish the relative contributions of chance versus predictability in the origin and evolution of life on our own planet. Thus, for example, all Earth-life creates metabolism from an interacting network of protein molecules that catalyze various biochemical reactions. Furthermore, early during evolution it had arrived at a standard set of 20 amino acid building-blocks with which to build each of these proteins. We now have good reason to think that many of these amino acids are formed in significant quantities throughout the galaxy - but so are many others - so would alien life be like us, and how could we possibly know?

For more information, please visit www.csufresno.edu/biology or call 559-278-2460

Download the poster below the fold:

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Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
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