Please sponsor me Running for Premature Babies in the SMH Half Marathon - only 5 days to go!

You may have noticed a slight lack of posts recently. This is in part (or a lot!) due to a major lifestyle change that took place in the beginning of March, when we became first-time parents. One of the things advertised in the hospital was the “Running for Premature Babies” in the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon. This seemed like a good motivator to get back(‽) in shape, and raise some much-needed cash for the Royal Women’s Hospital Foundation at the same time.

The good news is that they have raised the $108k for a new X-ray machine and everything raised from now will go on research, which obviously appeals to me as a researcher. Anyhoo… if you can spare a few bucks, it would be much appreciated - and if you are in Sydney on Sunday, do cheer on the folks in pink! (Not the best photo, I know! I'd just run 18km for the first time in my life!)

Oceans of Plastic - Beat the Microbeads (and more)

Tomorrow (Thursday, 20 August 2015 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (AEST)) there is a Taronga Zoo Science Week event at the zoo: Oceans of Plastic.

I’ll be helping set up through the Sydney Society for Conservation Biology and the event continues the theme of this month’s Conservation Cafe with Prof Emma Johnston, which was on human impacts of marine ecosystems. It was a really interesting morning, and I am looking forwards to learning more.

One thing that struck me that morning was how little I actually knew about the products I used and their impact on the environment. I was shamefully unaware of plastic microbeads in cosmetics like facewash, for example, which are a massive issue.

I’m even more ashamed to say that my (ex-)facewash is on the “Beat the Bead red list” as containing polyethylene (PE) microbeads. I meant to check after the Conservation cafe but completely forgot. This in turn reminded of something else I pondered that day, not just regarding plastic pollution: isn’t it time that we put more pressure on supermarkets to have environmentally aware labelling of products. We already have it for a few things, like tuna (and, sadly, the unhelpful blanket labelling of GM products), but there are so many different considerations - water, energy, waste etc. - that I feel like something more comprehensive is required.

They have asked for questions for tomorrow’s panel, so mine is this:

Could/should we have “environmental impact” traffic lights on goods in supermarkets, akin to the nutritional value traffic lights on food?

I’m not sure if it will get asked but I’ll be interested to hear the panel’s thoughts if it is.

In the meantime, Beat the Microbead have a Warning: Plastics Inside! App. The idea is that you scan or look up your products before you buy. (I tried it on my face scrub and the scan failed but it was in the lookup list.) Alternatively, just go old school and look at the ingredients! (The main ones are: polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA).)

Anyway… if you are in Sydney and looking for a fun and informative (and cheap!) evening, you can get tickets for Oceans of Plastic on Eventbrite.

May's SCB Conservation Cafe is all about Herpetofauna

The Sydney Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) have Michael McFadden, the Unit Supervisor of the Herpetofauna division at Taronga Zoo, for 2^nd May’s Conservation Cafe. That’s reptiles and amphibians to the rest of us:

This May, Sydney-SCB welcomes Michael McFadden, the Unit Supervisor of the Herpetofauna division at Taronga Zoo. Michael began working at Taronga Zoo in January 2003 and now oversees the maintenance and husbandry of the Zoo’s collection of reptiles and amphibians. He works closely with the Zoo’s conservation projects which include captive breeding and release programs for the highly endangered Southern and Northern Corroboree Frogs. The current focus of Michael’s work is developing techniques to improve captive breeding and rearing success in threatened Australian frogs and reintroduction biology.

As before, it’s free: RSVP on Eventbrite.

Sydney SCB Conservation Cafe, this Saturday at Centennial Park

This Saturday (11^th April) will see the second Conservation Cafe organised by the Sydney Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)). The speaker this month is Samantha Crosby, the Education Coordinator at the Learning Centre in Centennial Park, which is also the venue. RSVP via Eventbrite (if you can). It’s free!

Happy New Year!

Sculpture by the sea is back

We moved to Sydney just over a year ago and one of the first things we discovered was Sculpture by the sea 2013, an annual free public arts event in which one hundred or so artists create sculptures on the eastern coast from Bondi Beach to Tamarama Beach.

Even without the sculptures, the Coogee to Bondi coastal walk is an impressive piece of coastline and we are lucky to have it on our doorstep. The sculptures really add another dimension, especially the ones that make use of the terrain as part of the art. I’ve not yet seen all of the 2014 offerings, but some of my favourites have this element, including a small army of giant ants and some strange tentacled beasts, draped over the rocks.

Another thing I really like is the use of materials by some of the sculptures. The giant tentacular monster, for example, is made from thousands of bottle tops (left). There may well have been an environmental statement here too, about the amount of plastic (and plastic bottles specifically) that wash up on beaches. There were also some fantastic wooden birds made from old bits of furniture etc.

Another material that always seems popular is super shiny metal, which reflects the viewer, landscape and/or bits of the art itself in interesting ways. Last year, for example, there were some invisible dogs on the beach. This year, the sculptures included some shiny metal cylinders that mirrored flat discs into surprisingly three dimensional images.

It was a glorious weekend for the most part and so the coastal walk sections were predictably crammed with people. If you have the opportunity (as we did last year) to go off-peak, it is highly recommended. I’m already looking forward to going back and seeing what I missed the first time around. More photos on Google+.

May the 4th be with you at the Hayden Orpheum (the right kind of Hayden)

Last Sunday (May the 4th), we went to see the original Star Wars trilogy on the big screen at the Hayden Orhpeum in Cremorne, North Sydney.

It was a lot of fun, as the Orpheum is quite an old cinema and really embraced the whole Star Wars Day thing. The show started with Darth Vader playing music from the Star Wars soundtrack on a Wurlitzer organ and was followed by a competition for the best Star Wars fancy dress before the films themselves.

(The winner was a very cute miniature Boba Fett.)

I must say, it was great watching the old films on the big screen again. They definitely show their age a bit but it was fun watching with an appreciative audience. The good thing about Star Wars fans is that they are perfectly aware that the films are full of cheesy (if charming) moments, and so there was a lot of applause and occasional laughter at some of the hokier lines and innuendo.

Sitting in a classic cinema watching some classic films did make me realise a couple of things, though.

Firstly, modern cinemas are better. They should be, given how much more expensive they are, but seven hours sitting in an old-style cinema seat really made me appreciate modern “stadium style” seating. (Though I’ve never understood why they call it that, given how uncomfortable stadium seats are!)

Secondly, don’t mess with a classic. The most unfortunate thing of the day is that they did not actually screen the original films - instead we got the “Special Edition” versions.

The last time I saw all three films at the cinema was when the Special Editions were released. At that time, the novelty value masked how terrible the changes actually were. This time, it had been quite a few years since I’d last seen the films and the changes - and how bad they were - really stuck out.

At best they were pointless, such as the extra Tatooine CGI sandtroopers on Dewbacks. However, most of the additions actively made the films worse. Slapstick CGI animals and droids in Mos Eisley, during what should have been a tense scene? Bad. CGI addition of “wonderful human being” Jabba the Hutt in Episode IV? Bad. Making Greedo shoot before (or possibly concurrent with) Han Solo? Bad. Bad. Replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen at the end of Return of the Jedi? Bad. Bad. Bad.

In a way, it was actually slightly ironic that we saw the films in the Hayden Orpheum - the Hayden Christensen replacement got the only audience boo of the night. Why, George, why‽‽

The Special Edition nonsense was not a major distraction, though, and I would still recommend the triple bill on a future Star Wars Day. (Although I think I have my fix for a few years!) The final thing it made me realise is that Star Wars is such a cultural phenomenon, enriched by many of the spin-offs (especially those that take the piss), it really is deserving of a day of celebration.

May the Fourth be with you, always.

The Royal Easter Show

Last week, we went to the Royal Easter Show at Olympic Park in Sydney. I’ve never been to a county fair or such like before and, I must say, it was a lot of fun.

It’s a really well organised affair and despite the large numbers of people, it never really felt over-crowded. Public transport to and from the venue was included in the ticket, which was a nice touch. Extra shuttles were laid on from central station and exiting the train at Olympic Park with the crowd, I felt like I got a glimpse of the excitement and atmosphere that must have been present when arriving for the Olympics itself.

We didn’t really know what to expect, so we didn’t plan our day as such and mostly just mooched about. There were some events in the main arena as well as a couple of other venues within the Olympic Park. We did not see much but did catch some of the wood chopping, which was interesting and rather crazy. These guys have some very shiny axes and sure can chop wood!

Just before lunch we saw part of the “300mm underhand” competition, in which the competitors stand atop the block to be chopped and then hack down into it. A few well-aimed hefty blows chops out one side before the competitors turn around and chop out the other side to split the log. It’s all over in a few seconds.

Good as the wood chopping was, one of the main motivations for attending the Show was the Arts & Crafts section. My wife knits and knew several people with entries in different knit-craft competition categories, including some winners. Not being so into fashion, my favourites were probably the knitted toys and creative knitting, including a Dr Who and Tardis and South Park nativity scene.

The creativity was not limited to knitted items, of course. Lots of other handicrafts were on display. I particularly enjoyed the cake decorating competition entries, which were simply sublime and incredibly imaginative. These alone were probably worth the entry money.

Something else that really impressed me was the breadth and depth of the agricultural displays geared towards children, which were engaging, entertaining and educational in equal measure. These included cow milking, sheep shearing and a small animal barn in which goats and chickens etc. were roaming free and could be fed with hay that was on sale by the cup.

After checking these out, and some of the “best of breed” animal competitions, we visited the Woolworths fresh food dome. Unfortunately, we has already had lunch at this point - if we go again next year then we will definitely look to eat here instead of the many fast food options available.

The Food Dome was also the home of the impressive agricultural district displays:

Climbing up the walls of the Woolworths Fresh Food Dome, the District Exhibits are one of the Show’s iconic displays, featuring creative and artistic installations assembled from outstanding quality grain, wool, fruit and vegetables. Each display consists of more than 10,000 pieces of the best quality fresh produce from five agricultural districts throughout NSW and South East Queensland.

Following the bad bush fires this year, there were a couple of poignant displays, including one that featured an aerial firefighting helicopter and several fire engines. The size of some of the produce was also extremely impressive!

All in all, it was a really fun day and highly recommended, whether you have kids or not. Well worth the $38.50. It’s on until Wednesday, so if you live in/near Sydney, there’s still time!

Happy New Year, World!

Photo © my lovely wife.

Some Darwin quotes for Darwin Day

Today is Darwin Day, so why not visit DarwinDay.org and see if there are any activities in your area? Alternatively, you can follow Darwin's adventures on HMS Beagle in blog or tweet form. I've been reading the blog of his diary but I think he was too seasick to mention his birthday in the entry for 12th Feb 1832:

There has been a little swell on the sea to day, and I have been very uncomfortable: this has tried and quite overcome the small stock of patience that the early parts of the voyage left me. Here I have spent three days in painful indolence, whilst animals are staring me in the face, without labels and scientific epitaphs.

Of course, another great Darwin Day activity is to read/browse On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life? As well as the PDF linked there, you can also get it free on the Kindle. I've not read it for some time but whenever I dip into it I am struck by how much he seemed to understand the process of Natural Selection despite no one having a clue at that stage about the biology underlying heredity.

The term "Natural Selection" comes in for some criticism because, it is argued, there is no real selection taking place. Nature is not actively picking and choosing - it is a passive selection process. Such criticisms are, I think, ill-founded and usually just a semantic ploy born out of desperation when faced with the inescapable reality that Natural Selection is very real. When you read the Origin, it seems clear to me why Darwin chose the term "Natural Selection":

"From these considerations, I shall devote the first chapter of this Abstract to Variation under Domestication. We shall thus see that a large amount of hereditary modification is at least possible, and, what is equally or more important, we shall see how great is the power of man in accumulating by his Selection successive slight variations. I will then pass on to the variability of species in a state of nature ... As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form." [Introduction]

This is still a good summary of the general principle and process of Natural Selection even in 2013. Darwin recognised that Artificial Selection and Natural Selection are essentially the same thing. We have filled in a lot of the details but Darwin really did get the basics largely right, which is one of the reasons he is still honored by evolutionary biologists. It is re-stated more clearly in Chapter XIV, Recapitulation and Conclusion, in a way that I like because it really lays out the challenge that stands before Creationists to this day - how could Natural Selection not happen?:

"If then we have under nature variability and a powerful agent always ready to act and select, why should we doubt that variations in any way useful to beings, under their excessively complex relations of life, would be preserved, accumulated, and inherited? Why, if man can by patience select variations most useful to himself, should nature fail in selecting variations useful, under changing conditions of life, to her living products? What limit can be put to this power, acting during long ages and rigidly scrutinising the whole constitution, structure, and habits of each creature,--favouring the good and rejecting the bad? I can see no limit to this power, in slowly and beautifully adapting each form to the most complex relations of life. The theory of natural selection, even if we looked no further than this, seems to me to be in itself probable."

And similarly in Chapter IV, Natural Selection:

"Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature? I think we shall see that it can act most effectually. Let it be borne in mind in what an endless number of strange peculiarities our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, those under nature, vary; and how strong the hereditary tendency is. ... Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic."

The other great thing about this paragraph is the last line. Another unfair criticism leveled at "Darwinists" is the idea that we think that Natural Selection explains everything. It never has and never will. Right from the outset, Darwin alluded to what we now know as Random Genetic Drift - the "fluctuating" evolution of neutral variants in traits that are "neither useful nor injurious".

Another thing that stands out is how little Creationist arguments against Natural Selection have progressed in the last 150 years. Like the good scientist that he was, Darwin outlined a number of potential difficulties to his theory. In the final chapter, however, he summarises the objections thus (my emphasis):

"Such is the sum of the several chief objections and difficulties which may justly be urged against my theory; and I have now briefly recapitulated the answers and explanations which can be given to them. I have felt these difficulties far too heavily during many years to doubt their weight. But it deserves especial notice that the more important objections relate to questions on which we are confessedly ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are. We do not know all the possible transitional gradations between the simplest and the most perfect organs; it cannot be pretended that we know all the varied means of Distribution during the long lapse of years, or that we know how imperfect the Geological Record is. Grave as these several difficulties are, in my judgment they do not overthrow the theory of descent with modification."

Creationists and Intelligent Design Creationists still go after these zones of ignorance. The big difference is that we often now have a very good idea of "how ignorant we are" and can say with great confidence that the remaining objections "do not overthrow the theory of descent with modification" and are, indeed, wholly consistent with it.

AHS Southern Conference 2012, this Saturday at The University of Southampton

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) have their Southern Conference 2012 this Saturday, Dec 1st. It's on Highfield Campus at The University of Southampton, hosted by the Student's Union Atheist Society. One of the speakers is The Tippling Philosopher, whose blog I frequent when time allows (and who also reposted one of my posts on ID Creationism). Nice to see that they're heading to The Crown - my favourite pub near the Uni - afterwards for a pint or two and dinner. (Mmmm... Crown Burger!)

Although I am a member of The Rationalist Association, I've never actually attended an atheist or Humanist event since moving to Southampton, so I will try and get along if I can. If you're in the area, why not check it out?