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A Darwin Festival

I’ve been listening to a feast of radio programs about Charles Darwin tonight.

The first was on Life Matters and dealt more with his home life and books he wrote other than the Origin of Species.
Richard Aedy interviewed Stephen Jones, Professor of Genetics at University College, London. He has written a book on Darwin called, Darwin’s Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England.

Here is the link if you wish to listen or download the program –

Steve Jones on Charles Darwin

I then listened to Late Night Live where Phillip Adams talked with Iain McCalman, author of Darwin’s Armada: How four voyages to Australasia won the battle for evolution and changed the world and Alison Bashford about Darwin and his fellow scientists – Hooker, Huxley and Wallace.

I enjoyed the comment that Captain Fitzroy chose Darwin to accompany him on the Beagle because he needed someone to talk to, as he felt he would run melancholy mad if he was alone for the projected five years of the voyage. Reminds me of another Royal Navy Captain. *g*

Both Joseph Hooker and Thomas Huxley were both assistant surgeons on board Royal Navy ships – Hooker, a botanist on the HMS Erebus  with Capt. James Clark Ross and Huxley, a marine biologist on the HMS Rattlesnake.

There was an amusing story about Huxley sulking, broken-hearted (a woman had refused him in Sydney) in his cabin and counting cockroaches when sailing through the tropical waters to the north of Australia. There were so many cockroaches on his ship they had to run the Rattlesnake aground and its consort  was equally badly affected so that they had to sink the consort ship, the Bramble for two days  to try to rid it unsuccessfully of cockroaches.  They then sunk it for a week and when they brought the ship up there were a 1000 gallons of dead cockroaches. Jack would be thoroughly appalled if his ship was so overrun but Stephen would seek to find the cause of the explosion of cockroach numbers.

The lady who declined Huxley’s attentions eventually married him and reported on her honeymoon –

 “Huxley spent much of his time dissecting fish while dictating descriptions of his work to his bride”

Reminds me of a certain physician who keeps dead babies in cupboards and carries teratomas in his holster. *g*

If you want to listen to the show click on this link –

Darwin & Co: The Anniversary of a Revolution

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An animal post

Time for some more animal pics –

Animals at play

And more on those eager fathers of the penguin world –

Gay penguins celebrate fatherhood and a wedding

Here is a pic of the ceremony. *g* –

 

And a not so happy article –

Creationists tell Attenborough to ‘burn in hell’

Trust these strange people to do the hateful thing rather than the Christian thing.

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2373

I enjoyed a piece written by Paul Krugman, originally printed in the New York Times and reprinted in a local paper this morning –

Memo Republicans: Obama won, so get over it

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2372

I was just listening to an excellent interview conducted by Florence Spurling of Radio National’s Encounter program with Dame Gillian Beer, Emeritus Professor at Cambridge University. She has edited and introduced Darwin’s The Origin of Species and written about his relationship with the science, literature and culture of his time.

It was originally held back in 2003 but replayed this year. It was quite interesting in how Ms Beer talked about the complete lack of fundamentalist style thinking in Darwin and his intense dislike of the vengeful element in the the Christianity of his day and that "he was so outraged by what he saw as a sort of angry, expulsive element" in Christianity which seems to perfectly describe some modern fundamentalists who froth at the mouth at the mention of Darwin’s name.

Here is the link to the transcript page –

An Entangled Bank

If you prefer to listen to the interview there are links on this page to listen to or download the program.

On the same webpage, below the transcript of the featured interview there is also a transcript of another quite interesting interview with Charles Darwin’s great, great grandson, Randal Keynes who wrote the book, Annie’s Box – Charles Darwin, his Daughter and Human Evolution.

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2371

An interesting collection of thoughts  from young people who have migrated to Australia about their adopted country, on Australia Day –

Children talk about their move to Australia

Perhaps the young German girl should go home, she doesn’t seem to like it very much here.

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2370

This was a nice little piece I read on The Age’s website today –

A night-walk lit by galaxies of sandy stars

Nice imagery the magnificence and vastness of the universe reflected in the light of the tiniest of living creatures.

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A true cat burglar

Mosman undies thief not a purr-vert

I could imagine most victims of this little thief won’t be contacting him for their undies to be returned. *g*

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Time for a cuteness post

And one of the cuter creatures on the planet are lemurs. There was a small photo gallery on one of the news sites today –

Lemurs snuggle up

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2367

Some interesting comparisons between the two men, I think Les Carlyon is a little too sympathetic about the Shrub but it is quite a good opinion piece –

From today Barack Obama, deeds matter more than words

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