Tonight, I am a sad bastard. My dear friends from the Secret Science Club are hosting the seventh "Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest" and I am stuck at work (though, to be sure, I have always preferred the live fuzzy things to the dead ones- as yesterday's post implied). Still, I have always enjoyed the "Carnivorous Nights" event, and even presented pieces on behalf of artist, table tennis champion, and gentleman Peter Cua. I am there in spirit with all of the attendees... my friend Chris A. is texting me updates from the event- a mandolin fashioned from an armadillo shell is the highlight so far.
On a more important note, the taxidermy show was started as a promotional event for the wonderful book Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by my friends Margaret Mittelbach & Michael Crewdson. The book is a fantastic read, and I am not saying that because they are my friends- it is an informative book which manages to be funny even though it is suffused with the melancholy appropriate to the disappearance of a remarkable animal from the face of the planet just as conservation efforts were being proposed by, of all people, Errol Flynn's father- for a taste of the book, here's a Washington Post article written by Margaret and Michael on the subject.
Just so everybody can be even sadder than the Bastard, here's a video of the last known Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus), a marsupial masquerading as a rather handsome dog with a huge head and an impossible gape of the jaws, which died in a zoo in 1936:
Seriously, folks, get your hands on a copy of Carnivorous Nights, you'll alternate between laughing and crying, and will heave a huge, sad sigh once you're done, lamenting yet another example of humankind's thoughtlessness.
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Sunday, April 6, 2014
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Most Carnivorous Night of the Year
On Friday night, I went to the annual Carnivorous Nights party at the beautiful Bell House in Brooklyn's Gowanus section. Because I had to work a Midnight to Eight shift afterwards, I eschewed my traditional pre-party spleen sandwich, and ended up napping when I should have been munching on some delicious spleen.
For the second year running, I represented the brilliant Peter Cua of Singapore, who crafts beautiful, lifelike miniature animal sculptures. This year, Peter submitted a gorgeous sculpture of a whitetail buck:
Once again, I was in awe at the painstaking attention to detail that Peter puts into his work:
It was an honor to present such a lovely sculpture, a dainty deer with a pelt of goat skin. My medium is quite a different barnyard product, so I sculpted a cock-and-bullbuck story from the substance of my choice:
Ladies and gentlemen, once it again it gives me great pleasure to present another work by the brilliant Dr Peter Cua of Singapore. If you attended last year's Carnivorous Nights event, you will recall that Dr Cua is the master of mammal miniaturization- his specialty being even-toed hoofed mammals. He puts the "art" in artiodactyl.
A couple of years ago, Dr Cua was approached by members of the International Venison Board, who wished to boost worldwide sales of venison. The obstacle preventing home cookery of deer is the size of the animal- an adult deer is simply too big to fit into the kitchen of the average household, and the sale of juvenile deer for consumption is impractical because of the Bambi barrier. The solution to this dilemma was to develop a tiny deer which could fit in a typical roasting pan, a Cornish game deer, if you will. One of the board members recalled seeing an ad in the classifieds section of Split Hoof Quarterly: Dr Cua's got know-how, to shrink an antelope or cow! Why not a deer? Why not, indeed?
Dr Cua decided to undertake the Kitchen Deer project- through a process of selective breeding, undertaken at his diminutive ranch on the outskirts of Singapore, Dr Cua's deer became smaller and smaller with each generation.
The specimen presented tonight is the prize breeding buck of Dr Cua's herd... the penultimate pygmy of the deer world. This tiny buck met its untimely end last spring. It had slipped under the perimeter fence of the Cua Compound and was wandering down the access road, when it was hit by the miniature car of a Shriner from the Indonesian island of Flores. The driver of the car escaped a serious brain injury due to his enormous brow ridge. The deer, however, did not fare so well... tough luck, buck!
Heartbroken, Dr Cua brought the deer to his laboratory and attempted lifesaving surgery to no avail. The miniature organs of the deer were simply too small, too delicate to operate on effectively. Unable to save its life, Dr Cua decided to immortalize it through the taxidermist's art. The deer is mounted, and displayed in front of one the signs which now mark the perimeter Dr Cua's ranch, warning drivers that they on private property.
I invite all interested audience members to inspect the deer at close range, because most of you will be unable to travel to Dr Cua's facility.
Once again, it was a fun night, though I had to skip out before the end of the show to get my ass to work. There were a couple of interesting trends- the show featured two monkey-riding-canine pieces, and three of the attendees had bright magenta hair. While I heartily support both of these trends, I think I prefer the magenta hair trend, even though I won't be adopting it any time soon.
Oh, and while I am on the subject, if you are looking for an entertaining, informative book to read, I recommend Carnivorous Nights, though I am hardly a disinterested party, because the authors are friends of mine.
For the second year running, I represented the brilliant Peter Cua of Singapore, who crafts beautiful, lifelike miniature animal sculptures. This year, Peter submitted a gorgeous sculpture of a whitetail buck:
Once again, I was in awe at the painstaking attention to detail that Peter puts into his work:
It was an honor to present such a lovely sculpture, a dainty deer with a pelt of goat skin. My medium is quite a different barnyard product, so I sculpted a cock-and-
Ladies and gentlemen, once it again it gives me great pleasure to present another work by the brilliant Dr Peter Cua of Singapore. If you attended last year's Carnivorous Nights event, you will recall that Dr Cua is the master of mammal miniaturization- his specialty being even-toed hoofed mammals. He puts the "art" in artiodactyl.
A couple of years ago, Dr Cua was approached by members of the International Venison Board, who wished to boost worldwide sales of venison. The obstacle preventing home cookery of deer is the size of the animal- an adult deer is simply too big to fit into the kitchen of the average household, and the sale of juvenile deer for consumption is impractical because of the Bambi barrier. The solution to this dilemma was to develop a tiny deer which could fit in a typical roasting pan, a Cornish game deer, if you will. One of the board members recalled seeing an ad in the classifieds section of Split Hoof Quarterly: Dr Cua's got know-how, to shrink an antelope or cow! Why not a deer? Why not, indeed?
Dr Cua decided to undertake the Kitchen Deer project- through a process of selective breeding, undertaken at his diminutive ranch on the outskirts of Singapore, Dr Cua's deer became smaller and smaller with each generation.
The specimen presented tonight is the prize breeding buck of Dr Cua's herd... the penultimate pygmy of the deer world. This tiny buck met its untimely end last spring. It had slipped under the perimeter fence of the Cua Compound and was wandering down the access road, when it was hit by the miniature car of a Shriner from the Indonesian island of Flores. The driver of the car escaped a serious brain injury due to his enormous brow ridge. The deer, however, did not fare so well... tough luck, buck!
Heartbroken, Dr Cua brought the deer to his laboratory and attempted lifesaving surgery to no avail. The miniature organs of the deer were simply too small, too delicate to operate on effectively. Unable to save its life, Dr Cua decided to immortalize it through the taxidermist's art. The deer is mounted, and displayed in front of one the signs which now mark the perimeter Dr Cua's ranch, warning drivers that they on private property.
I invite all interested audience members to inspect the deer at close range, because most of you will be unable to travel to Dr Cua's facility.
Once again, it was a fun night, though I had to skip out before the end of the show to get my ass to work. There were a couple of interesting trends- the show featured two monkey-riding-canine pieces, and three of the attendees had bright magenta hair. While I heartily support both of these trends, I think I prefer the magenta hair trend, even though I won't be adopting it any time soon.
Oh, and while I am on the subject, if you are looking for an entertaining, informative book to read, I recommend Carnivorous Nights, though I am hardly a disinterested party, because the authors are friends of mine.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Most Carnivorous Night EVER!!!
Last night was the fifth annual Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest. Originally conceived as a one-off event, inspired by the unsettling "Rump Ape" (a simian simulacrum crafted from the rump of a white-tailed deer) and promoting the engaging Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by Friends of the Bastard Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson. Five years later, the continuing event sold out a 300 seat venue. Holy catfish, who knew it would take off like it did? The event is a very tongue-in-cheek celebration of "Rogue Taxidermy". Being co-sponsored by the Secret Science Club (SSC goddess Dorian Devins was a judge, SSC goddess Margaret Mittelbach was MC), I attend the event out of solidarity with my people. Last night, I actually presented one of the exhibits, sent by Peter Cua, a genius of an artist from Singapore, who was unable to attend. After my traditional "Carnivorous Night" meal of a spleen sandwich, I headed down to the Bell House for the event. I had my prepared "Shaggy Dog Story" statement (approved by Peter himself), which I read after fortifying myself with two (and no more!) pints of brew:
I feel somewhat unworthy to present these specimens, which were made by Dr Peter Cua of the island nation of Singapore. Dr Cua was unable to attend this event, so you got me... a smartass presenting the work of a genius.
Dr Cua's dream to perfect the miniaturization of taxidermy specimens began with the demise of his beloved pet impala- he had wanted to mount and display it in his home, but his apartment was too small to accommodate such a large specimen, as well as his other belongings... a plight that residents of Brooklyn will no doubt understand.
Dr Cua drew inspiration from the indigenous Jivaro people of South America, and traveled to the Amazon basin to learn their methods for shrinking preserved heads for ritual purposes. While effective, the traditional methods were time consuming, and often messy. During a hiatus in his studies, he recalled a time when he mounted a prize marlin caught by a retired American astronaut living in Singapore… while he met with this client, he was served a sample of freeze-dried space ice cream. Inspiration hit- he would combine traditional Jivaro techniques and cutting-edge NASA technology to form a new field- shrinkadermy through freeze-drying.
As luck would have it , Dr Cua’s initial efforts in this new field coincided with the rise of a multi-nation space program- Dr Cua was approached by a high-ranking official in the International Space Agency, who told him that Russian cosmonauts had been prone to depression brought on by the sterile décor of the MIR space station. In an effort not to repeat this morale problem in the International Space Station, the agency wanted the interior of one of the station’s modules to resemble a rustic cabin, or hunting lodge. Of course, mounted trophies weighed too much for the launch vehicles, and would have taken up too much room in the space station. Through his genius and hard work, Dr Cua was able to shrink bear and moose heads to mount on the bulkheads of the International Space Station, thereby ushering in a new era of rustic charm in outer space. Having planned a manned space flight in 2011, the Chinese Space Agency has consulted with Dr Cua, who is currently preparing some mounted shrinkadermy specimens, so the Chinese space capsule will look like a charming Sichuan farm village, thus giving the astronauts a feeling of nostalgic warmth as they hurtle through the void, because (as Roberto Montalban so memorably said) "It is very cold in space".
Dr Cua has also expressed his desire to show gratitude to the Jivaro people for their tutelage, and is planning on building an extensive freeze-drying facility in the Amazon Basin. Because of his commitment to sustainable development and green technology, he is planning to power this facility with an array of electric eels, which are indigenous to the region.
When asked to reflect on his career, Dr Cua has only two regrets. The first is that the non-avian dinosaurs died off due to the K-T extinction event. Shrinking and mounting one of the awe-inspiring sauropods would have been the crowning achievement of the shrinkadermist’s art. His second regret is that he could not be here tonight with you.
Thank you, and without further preamble, here are the beautiful creations of Dr Cua’s art:
Yeah, just picture the big galumphing galoot in the masthead photo sharing a stage with such delicate, enchanting pieces- wow, I felt "ogreish", and had this dread that I'd somehow drop the display (I am not a clumsy person at all, but I always have this weird "Bull in a china shop" feeling around fragile objects).
Peter's sculptures took the "Most Intriguing" prize in the contest.
I feel somewhat unworthy to present these specimens, which were made by Dr Peter Cua of the island nation of Singapore. Dr Cua was unable to attend this event, so you got me... a smartass presenting the work of a genius.
Dr Cua's dream to perfect the miniaturization of taxidermy specimens began with the demise of his beloved pet impala- he had wanted to mount and display it in his home, but his apartment was too small to accommodate such a large specimen, as well as his other belongings... a plight that residents of Brooklyn will no doubt understand.
Dr Cua drew inspiration from the indigenous Jivaro people of South America, and traveled to the Amazon basin to learn their methods for shrinking preserved heads for ritual purposes. While effective, the traditional methods were time consuming, and often messy. During a hiatus in his studies, he recalled a time when he mounted a prize marlin caught by a retired American astronaut living in Singapore… while he met with this client, he was served a sample of freeze-dried space ice cream. Inspiration hit- he would combine traditional Jivaro techniques and cutting-edge NASA technology to form a new field- shrinkadermy through freeze-drying.
As luck would have it , Dr Cua’s initial efforts in this new field coincided with the rise of a multi-nation space program- Dr Cua was approached by a high-ranking official in the International Space Agency, who told him that Russian cosmonauts had been prone to depression brought on by the sterile décor of the MIR space station. In an effort not to repeat this morale problem in the International Space Station, the agency wanted the interior of one of the station’s modules to resemble a rustic cabin, or hunting lodge. Of course, mounted trophies weighed too much for the launch vehicles, and would have taken up too much room in the space station. Through his genius and hard work, Dr Cua was able to shrink bear and moose heads to mount on the bulkheads of the International Space Station, thereby ushering in a new era of rustic charm in outer space. Having planned a manned space flight in 2011, the Chinese Space Agency has consulted with Dr Cua, who is currently preparing some mounted shrinkadermy specimens, so the Chinese space capsule will look like a charming Sichuan farm village, thus giving the astronauts a feeling of nostalgic warmth as they hurtle through the void, because (as Roberto Montalban so memorably said) "It is very cold in space".
Dr Cua has also expressed his desire to show gratitude to the Jivaro people for their tutelage, and is planning on building an extensive freeze-drying facility in the Amazon Basin. Because of his commitment to sustainable development and green technology, he is planning to power this facility with an array of electric eels, which are indigenous to the region.
When asked to reflect on his career, Dr Cua has only two regrets. The first is that the non-avian dinosaurs died off due to the K-T extinction event. Shrinking and mounting one of the awe-inspiring sauropods would have been the crowning achievement of the shrinkadermist’s art. His second regret is that he could not be here tonight with you.
Thank you, and without further preamble, here are the beautiful creations of Dr Cua’s art:
Yeah, just picture the big galumphing galoot in the masthead photo sharing a stage with such delicate, enchanting pieces- wow, I felt "ogreish", and had this dread that I'd somehow drop the display (I am not a clumsy person at all, but I always have this weird "Bull in a china shop" feeling around fragile objects).
Peter's sculptures took the "Most Intriguing" prize in the contest.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Belated Secret Science Club After Action Report
This month's Secret Science Club was a lecture by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory molecular biologist Gregory Hannon on the role of micoRNA on gene regulation, with a specific focus on the possible role of microRNA in various cancers. Dr. Hannon's lecture was accompanied by some gorgeous animations of RNA working its mojo on the old double helix. The topic then narrowed to the role of miRNA in Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Disease, and referenced the research of Dr. Elizabeth Murchison, formerly of CSH Lab. In the course of the lecture, Dr. Hannon noted a genetic similarity among Tasmanian devils which indicates that the species had passed through a population "bottleneck", a situation that characterizes cheetahs as well.
My question in the Q&A (inspired by mention of the myelin sheath) regarding the possible role of microRNAs in auto-immune diseases such as (you guessed it) multiple sclerosis, lupus, and Type 1 diabetes. This is a possible avenue of inquiry, but the research at this stage mainly deals with cancers.
Besides the lecture, there was an opening act, researcher/rapper Zach Charlop-Powers (originally of the northern Bronx, not far from my usual stomping grounds) performed his Polymerase Chain Reaction rap:
I had met Zach and his wife at the Imagine Science Film Festival, and was pleased to see them both. Additionally, "Sadly, No!" regular and Brooklyn resident N__B was there with the lovely and brilliant Mrs. __B. N__B, being approximately five feet, sixteen inches in height, hilariously characterized most of the attendees as "hobbits". Besides the usual booze, there were delicious cupcakes available in the performance/lecture space. After a typical night of booze and brilliance, I was able to get home just as the snow started falling- a nice coda to another great Tuesday.
Now, because Tasmanian devils were featured in the lecture, I am going to plug the book Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger, written by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson, two of the SSC founders. It's a hell of a read, alternately funny, informative, and melancholy (considering how the thylacine's saga ended), and the illustrations by Alexis Rockman are beautiful (and, when one considers his media, pretty mind-blowing.
My question in the Q&A (inspired by mention of the myelin sheath) regarding the possible role of microRNAs in auto-immune diseases such as (you guessed it) multiple sclerosis, lupus, and Type 1 diabetes. This is a possible avenue of inquiry, but the research at this stage mainly deals with cancers.
Besides the lecture, there was an opening act, researcher/rapper Zach Charlop-Powers (originally of the northern Bronx, not far from my usual stomping grounds) performed his Polymerase Chain Reaction rap:
I had met Zach and his wife at the Imagine Science Film Festival, and was pleased to see them both. Additionally, "Sadly, No!" regular and Brooklyn resident N__B was there with the lovely and brilliant Mrs. __B. N__B, being approximately five feet, sixteen inches in height, hilariously characterized most of the attendees as "hobbits". Besides the usual booze, there were delicious cupcakes available in the performance/lecture space. After a typical night of booze and brilliance, I was able to get home just as the snow started falling- a nice coda to another great Tuesday.
Now, because Tasmanian devils were featured in the lecture, I am going to plug the book Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger, written by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson, two of the SSC founders. It's a hell of a read, alternately funny, informative, and melancholy (considering how the thylacine's saga ended), and the illustrations by Alexis Rockman are beautiful (and, when one considers his media, pretty mind-blowing.
Monday, September 1, 2014
A Mute Witness to Human Horribleness
One century ago, the last passenger pigeon on Earth died in captivity. When Europeans reached these shores, flocks of the birds darkened the skies- sixty years before the last of the birds expired, an individual described the vast numbers of birds as they migrated:
`There would be days and days when the air was alive with them, hardly a break occurring in the flocks for half a day at a time. Flocks stretched as far as a person could see, one tier above another.'
Sixty years later, the last one died quietly in a zoo. Despite the vast numbers of birds, each female laid one egg a year, making population replenishment virtually impossible once the wholesale slaughter began.
As with the extinct thylacine (by the way, everybody should buy and read Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by my friends Margaret and Michael), there are efforts underway to clone passenger pigeons in a "de-extinction" effort. I'm on the record as saying that "de-extinction" wouldn't bring these animals back, but would bring into being simulacra... and such simulacra would probably be housed in captivity, rather than being viable species with sustainable wild populations. We need to try to keep what we have, rather than to bring back what we've killed off. A guilty conscience is not the best arbiter of policy. Besides, why would we bring "back" a species into a rapidly changing world in which it may very well go extinct again? The loss of the passenger pigeon is one of Homo sapiens big screwups, but it doesn't hold a candle to the extermination of numerous indigenous societies that accompanied the kill-off of the birds. Sometimes, it's better just to admit that our forebears did some monstrous things and to work to prevent further monstrosities.
Since this is Labor Day and I need to get a little bit of politics into the mix, I'd have to note that the unions are in danger of going the way of the passenger pigeon, and we'd better start fighting back against the anti-union forces. Lately, the local "all-news-except-when-the-Yankees-are-playing" station has been running anti-teachers' union ads from the Center for Union Facts (if that name doesn't raise a huge red flag, you're not paying attention). They have a lot of nerve running these ads around Labor Day, but these sort of mendacious shitbags are shameless.
Hope I didn't bring anyone down on their day off, but if I did, then I just have to say that you should have gone to the beach in the first place.
`There would be days and days when the air was alive with them, hardly a break occurring in the flocks for half a day at a time. Flocks stretched as far as a person could see, one tier above another.'
Sixty years later, the last one died quietly in a zoo. Despite the vast numbers of birds, each female laid one egg a year, making population replenishment virtually impossible once the wholesale slaughter began.
As with the extinct thylacine (by the way, everybody should buy and read Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger by my friends Margaret and Michael), there are efforts underway to clone passenger pigeons in a "de-extinction" effort. I'm on the record as saying that "de-extinction" wouldn't bring these animals back, but would bring into being simulacra... and such simulacra would probably be housed in captivity, rather than being viable species with sustainable wild populations. We need to try to keep what we have, rather than to bring back what we've killed off. A guilty conscience is not the best arbiter of policy. Besides, why would we bring "back" a species into a rapidly changing world in which it may very well go extinct again? The loss of the passenger pigeon is one of Homo sapiens big screwups, but it doesn't hold a candle to the extermination of numerous indigenous societies that accompanied the kill-off of the birds. Sometimes, it's better just to admit that our forebears did some monstrous things and to work to prevent further monstrosities.
Since this is Labor Day and I need to get a little bit of politics into the mix, I'd have to note that the unions are in danger of going the way of the passenger pigeon, and we'd better start fighting back against the anti-union forces. Lately, the local "all-news-except-when-the-Yankees-are-playing" station has been running anti-teachers' union ads from the Center for Union Facts (if that name doesn't raise a huge red flag, you're not paying attention). They have a lot of nerve running these ads around Labor Day, but these sort of mendacious shitbags are shameless.
Hope I didn't bring anyone down on their day off, but if I did, then I just have to say that you should have gone to the beach in the first place.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
What We Missed on Sunday
My great and good friends at Secret Science Central have posted the results of the "Carnivorous Nights" taxidermy contest, and linked to a Village Voice slideshow covering the event. The grand winner of the night was Coney Island stalwart and eccentric genius Takeshi Yamada, who is a genuinely nice guy.
Here's a nice video introduction to Mr Yamada and his gallery of whimsical horrors and fancies:
He was also featured in an AMC show about rogue taxidermists. Here's the finale of the show so ****SPOILERS AHEAD****:
It was too bad I missed the event, what with being stuck at work and all. I imagine what confronting that multi-headed beast after drinking seven or eight beers would have been like...
Here's a nice video introduction to Mr Yamada and his gallery of whimsical horrors and fancies:
He was also featured in an AMC show about rogue taxidermists. Here's the finale of the show so ****SPOILERS AHEAD****:
It was too bad I missed the event, what with being stuck at work and all. I imagine what confronting that multi-headed beast after drinking seven or eight beers would have been like...
Sunday, July 21, 2013
De-Extinction, on the Radio and in the Blogosphere
Today, NPR's Studio 360 featured a story on de-extinction, the "resurrection" of extinct animals using cloning or, in attempts to "revive" the recently extinct wild forebears of domesticated animals, back breeding.
Last month, "Just Alison" wrote an excellent article about the ethics of de-extinction on her indispensible Biodiversity Revolution blog. She concentrates on the "de-extinction" of the wooly mammoth, which has been proposed (mammoth DNA would be implanted in the ova of extant elephants). In their wonderful book Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger my friends Margaret and Michael (I swear, I'm not being biased, the book is great) touched on efforts to revive the thylacine by implanting DNA into the ova of Tasmanian devils.
I am somewhat torn on the issue of de-extinction. While it would be cool to have passenger pigeons or Carolina parakeets back, any "resurrected" species would be mere simulacra of the extinct species whose DNA (probably "repaired" in the lab due to degradation of the DNA in preserved specimens) their somatic cells bear (never mind the fact that they would have mitochondrial DNA from the ova of another species. More importantly, the factors that led to the extinction of these species (loss of habitat, competition from invasive species, harmful human activity) have not been rectified. Any "resurrected" species would probably be limited to a few "hothouse flowers" (and not the good kind) languishing in zoos or the private reserves of the wealthy (I could well imagine Dick Cheney paying some serious cash just so he could shoot a wooly mammoth). As Alison, and many others, have noted, efforts at de-extinction would consume resources better spent on conservation, on preventing the extinction of species that we are in danger of losing.
As nice as it would be to have some of the "charismatic fauna", mega or otherwise, be brought back from oblivion, you don't just get to call a mulligan on extinction. Atrocities and screw-ups happened, we have to own up to that fact and decide to become better stewards of the planet. Our own survival may very well hinge on it.
Last month, "Just Alison" wrote an excellent article about the ethics of de-extinction on her indispensible Biodiversity Revolution blog. She concentrates on the "de-extinction" of the wooly mammoth, which has been proposed (mammoth DNA would be implanted in the ova of extant elephants). In their wonderful book Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger my friends Margaret and Michael (I swear, I'm not being biased, the book is great) touched on efforts to revive the thylacine by implanting DNA into the ova of Tasmanian devils.
I am somewhat torn on the issue of de-extinction. While it would be cool to have passenger pigeons or Carolina parakeets back, any "resurrected" species would be mere simulacra of the extinct species whose DNA (probably "repaired" in the lab due to degradation of the DNA in preserved specimens) their somatic cells bear (never mind the fact that they would have mitochondrial DNA from the ova of another species. More importantly, the factors that led to the extinction of these species (loss of habitat, competition from invasive species, harmful human activity) have not been rectified. Any "resurrected" species would probably be limited to a few "hothouse flowers" (and not the good kind) languishing in zoos or the private reserves of the wealthy (I could well imagine Dick Cheney paying some serious cash just so he could shoot a wooly mammoth). As Alison, and many others, have noted, efforts at de-extinction would consume resources better spent on conservation, on preventing the extinction of species that we are in danger of losing.
As nice as it would be to have some of the "charismatic fauna", mega or otherwise, be brought back from oblivion, you don't just get to call a mulligan on extinction. Atrocities and screw-ups happened, we have to own up to that fact and decide to become better stewards of the planet. Our own survival may very well hinge on it.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Post Lecture Recap
Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn for June's Secret Science Club lecture with Comparative Anatomist Dr Joy Reidenberg of Mt Sinai School of Medicine and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Dr Reidenberg is also the dissection specialist for the show Inside Nature's Giants. The theme of her lecture tonight was "Why Whales are Weird".
Dr Reidenberg gave us an overview of whales, beginning with the distinction between the Mysticeti or baleen whales and the Odontoceti or toothed whales. As an added bonus, she passed out samples of baleen, which is made of keratin which grows from the whales' palates. The baleen whales feed by filtering small organisms out of the water- the baleen acts as a strainer which retains these organisms in the whale's mouth as the whale expels the water with its tongue. The baleen whales can be broadly divided into "skimmers" and "gulpers", and the various baleen whales have wildly divergent baleen morphologies. The Odontoceti, or toothed whales, range in size from relatively small creatures like the harbor porpoise to the sperm whale. Both baleen and toothed whales have the ability to produce various sounds- high frequency sounds (which do not have a great underwater range) are used for echolocation while low frequency sounds (which travel for long distances underwater) are typically used for communication- male sperm whales can produce a 200 decibel "clang" which Dr Reidenberg likened to a cetacean equivalent of "Hey, ladies!"
After the overview of the whales, Dr Reidenberg present the sperm whale dissection episode of Inside Nature's Giants. This is a must-see for those who aren't too squeamish (lotta guts, folks... lotta guts)- besides being informative, Dr Reidenberg is an extremely engaging presenter, her enthusiasm, even in the face of the sort of off-putting occurrences which can happen when one is dealing with tons of dead meat, is infectious.
Dr Reidenberg also gave some great autobiographical information- she related how her kindergarten teacher tried to dissuade her from playing with trucks because she was a girl, and how her current job involves using heavy machinery to deal with the huge carcasses that she works on. She also related how she transported the head of the ill-fated Sludgie the Whale in a body bag, which she left in her backyard, necessitating a desperate call to her neighbor (she left home early to give a lecture) to let him know that there wasn't a human corpse in the bag.
The brilliant, hilarious Dr Reidenberg was interviewed on NPR as well- for those who are squicked out by tons of dead whale meat, the interview is a lot less gory.
The lecture was great, and Dr Reidenberg gave a good, long Q&A session afterwards. Some bastard in the audience asked her about the olfactory lobes of whales (reasoning that smell would not be too useful in animals which have to hold their breath a good deal of the time). She indicated that toothed whales have negligible olfactory bulbs while baleen whales tend to have small ones and that, during one of her dissections, she located a couple of "pits" in the lip of a baleen whale that were possibly involved in taste.
Once again, the Secret Science Club lecture was top-notch. In other S.S.C. news, prodigal Michael Crewdson, co-author of Carnivorous Nights, was visiting his ancestral homeland in the 718 area code. Who needs a fatted calf when one can have a beached whale?
Dr Reidenberg gave us an overview of whales, beginning with the distinction between the Mysticeti or baleen whales and the Odontoceti or toothed whales. As an added bonus, she passed out samples of baleen, which is made of keratin which grows from the whales' palates. The baleen whales feed by filtering small organisms out of the water- the baleen acts as a strainer which retains these organisms in the whale's mouth as the whale expels the water with its tongue. The baleen whales can be broadly divided into "skimmers" and "gulpers", and the various baleen whales have wildly divergent baleen morphologies. The Odontoceti, or toothed whales, range in size from relatively small creatures like the harbor porpoise to the sperm whale. Both baleen and toothed whales have the ability to produce various sounds- high frequency sounds (which do not have a great underwater range) are used for echolocation while low frequency sounds (which travel for long distances underwater) are typically used for communication- male sperm whales can produce a 200 decibel "clang" which Dr Reidenberg likened to a cetacean equivalent of "Hey, ladies!"
After the overview of the whales, Dr Reidenberg present the sperm whale dissection episode of Inside Nature's Giants. This is a must-see for those who aren't too squeamish (lotta guts, folks... lotta guts)- besides being informative, Dr Reidenberg is an extremely engaging presenter, her enthusiasm, even in the face of the sort of off-putting occurrences which can happen when one is dealing with tons of dead meat, is infectious.
Dr Reidenberg also gave some great autobiographical information- she related how her kindergarten teacher tried to dissuade her from playing with trucks because she was a girl, and how her current job involves using heavy machinery to deal with the huge carcasses that she works on. She also related how she transported the head of the ill-fated Sludgie the Whale in a body bag, which she left in her backyard, necessitating a desperate call to her neighbor (she left home early to give a lecture) to let him know that there wasn't a human corpse in the bag.
The brilliant, hilarious Dr Reidenberg was interviewed on NPR as well- for those who are squicked out by tons of dead whale meat, the interview is a lot less gory.
The lecture was great, and Dr Reidenberg gave a good, long Q&A session afterwards. Some bastard in the audience asked her about the olfactory lobes of whales (reasoning that smell would not be too useful in animals which have to hold their breath a good deal of the time). She indicated that toothed whales have negligible olfactory bulbs while baleen whales tend to have small ones and that, during one of her dissections, she located a couple of "pits" in the lip of a baleen whale that were possibly involved in taste.
Once again, the Secret Science Club lecture was top-notch. In other S.S.C. news, prodigal Michael Crewdson, co-author of Carnivorous Nights, was visiting his ancestral homeland in the 718 area code. Who needs a fatted calf when one can have a beached whale?
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Secret Science Club Post-Lecture Recap: Vampire Hell Ants of the Cretaceous
Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for this month's Secret Science Club lecture featuring paleontologist and entomologist Dr Phillip Barden of the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the American Museum of Natural History. Dr Barden specializes in the study of fossils of social insects such as termites and ants.
Dr Barden began his lecture with a short definition of paleontology. Paleontologists ask two main questions: What is the history of life on Earth? How does evolution work? Paleontologists study finite events, such as the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Life on Earth is 3.7 billion years old, with humans occupying a miniscule span of time. Most life is extinct, almost everything that has ever lived is now dead. Dr Barden asked the audience to picture a fossil, immediately following this up with the admonition that not every fossil is dinosaur remains. Some of the most famous non-dinosaur fossils are trilobite and ammonite fossils. There are also environmental remains of organisms, such as footprints. His concentration is the study of fossil insects.
Eighty percent of animal species are insects, While dinosaurs, being charismatic megafauna, attract most of the public's attention, there are spectacular insect fossils, such as that of Meganeura, a dragonfly-esque creature with a wingspan attaining over two feet which hunted in the Carboniferous skies, which had a higher oxygen content than our modern atmosphere- insects breath through treachea, so the surface area of these tubes limit body size. Dr Barden also displayed a fossil of a Jurassic Era lacewing which resembled a butterfly.
The best-preserved insect fossils are encased in amber, fossilized tree resin (NOT SAP!). Resin is secreted when a tree is injured, forming 'scabs' in which organisms can be trapped. When subjected to heat and pressure through geological processes, it becomes polymerized- Dr Barden joked that amber is 'OG Plastic'. Amber, known to the ancient Greeks as 'elektros', produces electric sparks when rubbed. Insects trapped in amber are preserved in three dimensions. Dr Barden accompanied this portion of the lecture with gorgeous photographs of amber-trapped insects, such as two ants trapped in amber while fighting (evidence of a social structure).
Amber is distributed worldwide, with particularly nice Cretaceous amber being found in New Jersey. Dr Barden showed us photos of various amber sources, such as an amber deposit in a Gujarati lignite mine (the remains of a forest compacted and rendered into coal), excavated amber mines in the Dominican Republic, and Baltic amber which is typically found on beaches or 'fished' from the sea. Amber is often fashioned into jewelry, sometimes including fossilized animal remains.
Dr Barden then showed us the 'Mr DNA' clip (though not the Mr DNA you were thinking of) from Jurassic Park, noting that the stand-in for the giant prehistoric mosquito in the amber walkingstick ornament is actually a crane fly and chiding anyone who killed a harmless crane fly as a 'giant mosquito'):
Dr Barden noted that the book Jurassic Park was released in 1990, and that in 1992, it was reported that DNA was extracted from an Oligo-Miocene termite, but that this study posed a problem of reproducibility. DNA from bones has a half-life of 521 years and that new techniques for DNA extraction are constantly sought.
Dr Barden continued to display images of amber encased animal remains, such as a thumb-sized, feathered dinosaur tail found in Myanmar, a tick attached to a dinosaur feather, and an ant queen (the wings identify it as such) transporting a symbiotic mealybug in her mandibles- mealybugs excrete honeydew, which ants consume. Another fossil was that of a lacewing larva with spines for collecting camouflaging detritus. Dr Barden noted that there are about as many ant fossils as there are dinosaur fossils, but that only he and a French paleontologists are studying them- he joked that his job prospects are good. Among these fossil ants was one the size of a hummingbird.
Dr Barden stated that the oldest ants were not like was expected- early ants were thought to be wasplike, having similar body plans. The oldest ants discovered were more like basal Hymenoptera than wasps, with the similarities in body resulting from adaptive radiation.
Dr Barden conducted 3D imaging of ant fossils at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, fluorescing specimens while rotating them to provide the three-dimensional images. He joked that he was the guy putting bugs in the machine. As a comedic aside, he displayed a stupid tweet by a Kardashian: Do ants have dicks? He then displayed a photo of a drone ant fossilized in amber, then zoomed in, showing us a dick pic of a 20 million year old ant.
The topic of the lecture then shifted to the vampire hell ants of the post title. Haidomyrmex scimitarus was a Cretaceous Era ant found in an amber deposit in Myanmar. A detailed reconstruction using animations based off CT scans of this ant suggested that it used its mandibles to impale other insects, and grooves in the mouthparts hint that these ants consumed the hemolymph of the impaled. Dibs on "Hemolymph of the Impaled" for the name of my Doom Metal band. The queen ant was found outside of the nest, and lacked fat storage, indicating that the queen had to forage like a common worker. The generic name Haidomyrmex is a combination of 'Hades' and the Greek term for 'ant', so Dr Barden decided to make 'Hell Ant' the popular term for these insects- he asked the audience members to 'hashtag' #hellant. Another similar 'hell ant', Ceratomyrmex had a horn as well as the impaling jaws. Then, a scan of an ant dubbed Linguamyrmex vladi revealed that the horn was so dense as to suggest that the horn contained sequestered metal, leading to such lurid headlines as: 'Meet the vampire ant from hell with huge jaws and a metal horn.' Dr Braden then displayed a succession of increasingly lurid and 'clickbaity' headlines about this ant. The good doctor then displayed an articulated model of this ant's head, about the size of an American football.
The hell ants thrived for about twenty-million years, during the Cretaceous Era. It is not known what happened to this diverse clade of ants. The earliest ants were social, there is evidence of different specialized castes among early ants. About fifty million years ago, ants became more abundant, ants now currently compose 50-80% of insects in tropical tree communities. The hell ants don't seem to have been all that ecologically impactful. There are many Cretaceous ant fossils. There is a gap in the fossil record until the Eocene, a sort of 'black box' from which only modern ants emerge, while having diverse behaviors, extant ants have similar body forms. Divergent forms, such as the hell ants, disappeared. Dr Braden likened this emergence from a 'black box' to the K-T extinction event, from which one lineage of dinosaurs, the birds, emerged.
Dr Barden posed a question: Does extinction mean failure? He displayed a picture of the thylacine, a wolf-shaped marsupial that was killed off by humans (as an aside, I am obliged to plug SSC goddess Margaret Mittelbach's Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger, co-written with SSC alum Michael Crewdson- it's a great book by good friends, a funny, sad, and informative read). Dr Barden offered his three measures of evolutionary success: Diversity of species (beetles, with over 350,000 species, are very successful), Ecological Impact (South African harvester ant foraging territories can be seen in satellite images, such is their ability to reshape their environment), and Longevity (Neandertals were around for 430,000 years while modern Homo sapiens has been around for about 300,000 years). Certain taxons were extremely successful- about twenty thousand trilobite species are known, which indicates that there were probably many more. The impact of the dinosaurs on other evolutionary lineages is difficult to understate. The hell ants were around for about twenty-one million years, great apes a mere eight million. We only see about .01, much of the evolutionary legacy is hidden.
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session, as always. The first question regarded the phenotype of the hell ants- the 'archtecture' of the hell ant lineage has been lost, no traces last into modern ant lineages. The next question was, why did the hell ants go extinct? While this is unknown, it could be that their social structure was outcompeted by the social structure of modern ants which supplanted them. Perhaps the hell ants were 'painted into a corner' evolutionarily. Another question regarded evidence of the large structures which ants and termites build- fossil remains of these structures have been found, and Dr Barden likened this evidence to an 'extended phenotype' which provides clues to the behavior of the insects themselves. Regarding the gaps in the fossil record, new amber deposits have been found in Alaska and compression fossils have been found in Alberta- gradually, the 'black box' is being filled in. Regarding the half life of DNA, while DNA sequences degrade, partial genomes provide information valuable to researchers. Some Bastard in the audience asked about molecular evidence from insects trapped in amber- can inferences be made about pigmentation or the composition of venoms? Dr Barden noted that coloration is often preserved in amber, and stingers are often present in fossil insects, but no molecular structures for pigments or poisons have been found. Regarding prey items of hell ants, they have been found in association with a larva of an insect and a cockroach like insect. The musculature of an insect, useful in computer modelling, can be inferred from bulges in the interior of the exoskeleton, to which muscles, inside the skeleton, are attached. Regarding the caste system of social insects, insects from the same species have the same genome but different gene expression- while a worker has a lifespan of 1-3 years, a queen may live as long as twenty years- transcriptomes play a role in this sort of development. The earliest known modern style ant dates back to the Cretaceous, about ninety-two million years ago, and was found in New Jersey- the lineage probably split off from other ant lineages about 120 million years ago. Finally, asked about his application of the species concept, Dr Barden indicated that, due to the nature of his work, he applied the paleontological species concept, largely working off whether specimens look similar or different.
Once again, the Secret Science Club delivered a fantastic lecture. I make no bones about loving the life sciences the most, so this lecture was right up my alley, or allele... Dr Barden hit what I call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot'- the lecture was specific, extremely informative about recent discoveries, accompanied by gorgeous images of fossils, and leavened with humor. I call it a grand slam. Kudos to Dr Barden, the staff of the Beautiful Bell House, and Margaret and Dorian for another great monthly event. It was also great to see both the NJIT 'swarm lab' crowd with Dr Garnier and the AMNH crowd, represented by Dr Hekkala and her husband, in attendance. High fives to everyone!
Poking around the t00bz, I found a fun video of Dr Barden giving a tour of the AMNH insect collections to a budding young entomologist:
I only have one quibble, and that's because bugs suck. The video, however, is great. Pour yourself a nice beverage, and watch two cool young dudes talk about SCIENCE!
Dr Barden began his lecture with a short definition of paleontology. Paleontologists ask two main questions: What is the history of life on Earth? How does evolution work? Paleontologists study finite events, such as the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Life on Earth is 3.7 billion years old, with humans occupying a miniscule span of time. Most life is extinct, almost everything that has ever lived is now dead. Dr Barden asked the audience to picture a fossil, immediately following this up with the admonition that not every fossil is dinosaur remains. Some of the most famous non-dinosaur fossils are trilobite and ammonite fossils. There are also environmental remains of organisms, such as footprints. His concentration is the study of fossil insects.
Eighty percent of animal species are insects, While dinosaurs, being charismatic megafauna, attract most of the public's attention, there are spectacular insect fossils, such as that of Meganeura, a dragonfly-esque creature with a wingspan attaining over two feet which hunted in the Carboniferous skies, which had a higher oxygen content than our modern atmosphere- insects breath through treachea, so the surface area of these tubes limit body size. Dr Barden also displayed a fossil of a Jurassic Era lacewing which resembled a butterfly.
The best-preserved insect fossils are encased in amber, fossilized tree resin (NOT SAP!). Resin is secreted when a tree is injured, forming 'scabs' in which organisms can be trapped. When subjected to heat and pressure through geological processes, it becomes polymerized- Dr Barden joked that amber is 'OG Plastic'. Amber, known to the ancient Greeks as 'elektros', produces electric sparks when rubbed. Insects trapped in amber are preserved in three dimensions. Dr Barden accompanied this portion of the lecture with gorgeous photographs of amber-trapped insects, such as two ants trapped in amber while fighting (evidence of a social structure).
Amber is distributed worldwide, with particularly nice Cretaceous amber being found in New Jersey. Dr Barden showed us photos of various amber sources, such as an amber deposit in a Gujarati lignite mine (the remains of a forest compacted and rendered into coal), excavated amber mines in the Dominican Republic, and Baltic amber which is typically found on beaches or 'fished' from the sea. Amber is often fashioned into jewelry, sometimes including fossilized animal remains.
Dr Barden then showed us the 'Mr DNA' clip (though not the Mr DNA you were thinking of) from Jurassic Park, noting that the stand-in for the giant prehistoric mosquito in the amber walkingstick ornament is actually a crane fly and chiding anyone who killed a harmless crane fly as a 'giant mosquito'):
Dr Barden noted that the book Jurassic Park was released in 1990, and that in 1992, it was reported that DNA was extracted from an Oligo-Miocene termite, but that this study posed a problem of reproducibility. DNA from bones has a half-life of 521 years and that new techniques for DNA extraction are constantly sought.
Dr Barden continued to display images of amber encased animal remains, such as a thumb-sized, feathered dinosaur tail found in Myanmar, a tick attached to a dinosaur feather, and an ant queen (the wings identify it as such) transporting a symbiotic mealybug in her mandibles- mealybugs excrete honeydew, which ants consume. Another fossil was that of a lacewing larva with spines for collecting camouflaging detritus. Dr Barden noted that there are about as many ant fossils as there are dinosaur fossils, but that only he and a French paleontologists are studying them- he joked that his job prospects are good. Among these fossil ants was one the size of a hummingbird.
Dr Barden stated that the oldest ants were not like was expected- early ants were thought to be wasplike, having similar body plans. The oldest ants discovered were more like basal Hymenoptera than wasps, with the similarities in body resulting from adaptive radiation.
Dr Barden conducted 3D imaging of ant fossils at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, fluorescing specimens while rotating them to provide the three-dimensional images. He joked that he was the guy putting bugs in the machine. As a comedic aside, he displayed a stupid tweet by a Kardashian: Do ants have dicks? He then displayed a photo of a drone ant fossilized in amber, then zoomed in, showing us a dick pic of a 20 million year old ant.
The topic of the lecture then shifted to the vampire hell ants of the post title. Haidomyrmex scimitarus was a Cretaceous Era ant found in an amber deposit in Myanmar. A detailed reconstruction using animations based off CT scans of this ant suggested that it used its mandibles to impale other insects, and grooves in the mouthparts hint that these ants consumed the hemolymph of the impaled. Dibs on "Hemolymph of the Impaled" for the name of my Doom Metal band. The queen ant was found outside of the nest, and lacked fat storage, indicating that the queen had to forage like a common worker. The generic name Haidomyrmex is a combination of 'Hades' and the Greek term for 'ant', so Dr Barden decided to make 'Hell Ant' the popular term for these insects- he asked the audience members to 'hashtag' #hellant. Another similar 'hell ant', Ceratomyrmex had a horn as well as the impaling jaws. Then, a scan of an ant dubbed Linguamyrmex vladi revealed that the horn was so dense as to suggest that the horn contained sequestered metal, leading to such lurid headlines as: 'Meet the vampire ant from hell with huge jaws and a metal horn.' Dr Braden then displayed a succession of increasingly lurid and 'clickbaity' headlines about this ant. The good doctor then displayed an articulated model of this ant's head, about the size of an American football.
The hell ants thrived for about twenty-million years, during the Cretaceous Era. It is not known what happened to this diverse clade of ants. The earliest ants were social, there is evidence of different specialized castes among early ants. About fifty million years ago, ants became more abundant, ants now currently compose 50-80% of insects in tropical tree communities. The hell ants don't seem to have been all that ecologically impactful. There are many Cretaceous ant fossils. There is a gap in the fossil record until the Eocene, a sort of 'black box' from which only modern ants emerge, while having diverse behaviors, extant ants have similar body forms. Divergent forms, such as the hell ants, disappeared. Dr Braden likened this emergence from a 'black box' to the K-T extinction event, from which one lineage of dinosaurs, the birds, emerged.
Dr Barden posed a question: Does extinction mean failure? He displayed a picture of the thylacine, a wolf-shaped marsupial that was killed off by humans (as an aside, I am obliged to plug SSC goddess Margaret Mittelbach's Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger, co-written with SSC alum Michael Crewdson- it's a great book by good friends, a funny, sad, and informative read). Dr Barden offered his three measures of evolutionary success: Diversity of species (beetles, with over 350,000 species, are very successful), Ecological Impact (South African harvester ant foraging territories can be seen in satellite images, such is their ability to reshape their environment), and Longevity (Neandertals were around for 430,000 years while modern Homo sapiens has been around for about 300,000 years). Certain taxons were extremely successful- about twenty thousand trilobite species are known, which indicates that there were probably many more. The impact of the dinosaurs on other evolutionary lineages is difficult to understate. The hell ants were around for about twenty-one million years, great apes a mere eight million. We only see about .01, much of the evolutionary legacy is hidden.
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session, as always. The first question regarded the phenotype of the hell ants- the 'archtecture' of the hell ant lineage has been lost, no traces last into modern ant lineages. The next question was, why did the hell ants go extinct? While this is unknown, it could be that their social structure was outcompeted by the social structure of modern ants which supplanted them. Perhaps the hell ants were 'painted into a corner' evolutionarily. Another question regarded evidence of the large structures which ants and termites build- fossil remains of these structures have been found, and Dr Barden likened this evidence to an 'extended phenotype' which provides clues to the behavior of the insects themselves. Regarding the gaps in the fossil record, new amber deposits have been found in Alaska and compression fossils have been found in Alberta- gradually, the 'black box' is being filled in. Regarding the half life of DNA, while DNA sequences degrade, partial genomes provide information valuable to researchers. Some Bastard in the audience asked about molecular evidence from insects trapped in amber- can inferences be made about pigmentation or the composition of venoms? Dr Barden noted that coloration is often preserved in amber, and stingers are often present in fossil insects, but no molecular structures for pigments or poisons have been found. Regarding prey items of hell ants, they have been found in association with a larva of an insect and a cockroach like insect. The musculature of an insect, useful in computer modelling, can be inferred from bulges in the interior of the exoskeleton, to which muscles, inside the skeleton, are attached. Regarding the caste system of social insects, insects from the same species have the same genome but different gene expression- while a worker has a lifespan of 1-3 years, a queen may live as long as twenty years- transcriptomes play a role in this sort of development. The earliest known modern style ant dates back to the Cretaceous, about ninety-two million years ago, and was found in New Jersey- the lineage probably split off from other ant lineages about 120 million years ago. Finally, asked about his application of the species concept, Dr Barden indicated that, due to the nature of his work, he applied the paleontological species concept, largely working off whether specimens look similar or different.
Once again, the Secret Science Club delivered a fantastic lecture. I make no bones about loving the life sciences the most, so this lecture was right up my alley, or allele... Dr Barden hit what I call the 'Secret Science Sweet Spot'- the lecture was specific, extremely informative about recent discoveries, accompanied by gorgeous images of fossils, and leavened with humor. I call it a grand slam. Kudos to Dr Barden, the staff of the Beautiful Bell House, and Margaret and Dorian for another great monthly event. It was also great to see both the NJIT 'swarm lab' crowd with Dr Garnier and the AMNH crowd, represented by Dr Hekkala and her husband, in attendance. High fives to everyone!
Poking around the t00bz, I found a fun video of Dr Barden giving a tour of the AMNH insect collections to a budding young entomologist:
I only have one quibble, and that's because bugs suck. The video, however, is great. Pour yourself a nice beverage, and watch two cool young dudes talk about SCIENCE!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Post Lecture Recap: Biorobot (R)evolution
Last night, I traveled down to the beautiful Bell House, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, for the latest lecture sponsored by the Secret Science Club. This month's lecture featured Dr John Long of Vassar College. Dr Long is a professor of biology and the head of the Interdisciplinary Robotics Research Laboratory. His work involves biorobotics, efforts to "evolve" robots in order to learn about life.
Robots are useful for performing dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs, the sort of jobs humans should not have to perform. Mercedes and Lexus have created integrated driving systems that employ radar and ultrasound to increase safety by correcting for driver errors. The innovations of the integrated safety systems were developed as part of a project to develop driverless cars. The Google car is a prime example of a prototypical driverless car. Dr Long also mentioned the use of drones as robotic warriors, and touched on a publicity stunt in the UK in which an octocopter delivered pizzas for Dominos.
Dr Long made especial mention of the Roomba, which transitioned to a discussion of the "android fallacy"- most robots do not look like humans. He contrasted a 1960's image of a house cleaning robot with the 21st century reality of a house-cleaning robot.
The next topic of discussion was about what a robot is. A robot exhibits constructive action and "mental" and physical agency that does not result from a biological source. Robot behavior, actions, and movements are sensor guided decisions. A computer produces the communication between the robot's sensors and its mechanisms, and can also communicate with other computers. Roboticist Rodney Brooks, a proponent of the "actionist" school of robotics, famously opined that we should stop making humanoid robots, and should emulate "simpler" organisms, such as insects. The Roomba, mimics an insect-level intelligence and behaves like a bug. One motto used by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works was "start simple first", an expression akin to the design principle K.I.S.S.
Dr Long's lab is concerned with using robotic models in order to understand vertebrate evolution. He gave a brief overview of the milieu in which the vertebrates first evolved. One of the most famous fossil beds from the time prior to the evolution of the vertebrates is the Burgess Shale, which preserves remains of such famous organisms as Hallucigenia and Opabinia (Dr Long showed a slide featuring a painting of a "school" of Opabinia that he was especially pleased with, but I can't find the image online- suffice it to say, I thought it looked like "Opabinia Jesus" addressing his disciples). One of the earliest vertebrate fossils is the genus Haikouichthys, the remains of which were discovered in China. Haikouichthys was approximately 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in length. The fossils are especially good because soft tissues were preserved in the fine-grained sediments. Dr Long gave a very terse, hilarious take on the difference between invertebrates and vertebrates: invertebrates are "CRUNCH, SQUISH" organisms while vertebrates are "SQUISH, CRUNCH" organisms. For a better take on vertebrates, vertebrates have an internal support structured called a notochord and paired sense organs (note- with certain exceptions). One sensory organ characteristic of vertebrates is the lateral line, which senses movements and changes in pressure around an organism. The closest analog that humans have to the lateral line is the inner ear, which plays a role in balance.
Dr Long then proceded to discuss his use of robots to model vertebrate evolution. To model something in order to understand it, one has to model simple things first. To study vertebrate evolution, a biorobot, a model of an animal, needed to be built. The model had a series of assumptions built into it, it had to represent a biological target. For his studies, Dr Long decided to model Drepanaspis, a skillet-shaped 400 million year old jawless fish. The target was "simplified", but the functional needs of the model were similar to those of a living organism, and the basic structures were similar. The resultant skillet-shaped swimming robot was dubbed "Tadro, a portmanteau word composed of "tadpole" and "robot". The autonomous "tadro" had light sensors on the front to model feeding behavior (since the base of the marine food chain is phytoplankton, the "feeding" behavior involved heading toward a light source) and "predator" detecting sensors on the side to mimic the lateral line. Swimming was accomplished by a flexible "tail" filled with a hydrogel which Dr Long drolly noted was not edible. The notochord is an ancestral condition, while the vertebrate spine evolved in order to provide increased stiffness. The stiffness of the tail could be adjusted by adding ring-shaped stiffeners, which function as biomimetic "vertebrae".
A simple definition of evolution is a change in the genetics of a population from one generation to the next- certain organisms have more descendants which survive. It is important to note that populations evolve, not individuals.
In order to model evolution, the tadros shared the tank with a "predatory" robot dubbed a "tadiator" (a portmanteau of "tadro" and "gladiator"). Animals can detect predators and override their feeding behavior in order to escape them (Dr Long contrasted this ability to override feeding behavior with the behavior of Augustus Gloop). The tadros, like fish, were able to stop "eating" and start fleeing, the artificial intelligence was able to switch behavior. When fish need to evade a predator, they use a maneuver known as a fast start, in which the spine forms a "C" shape before bursting into a rapid acceleration. In the lab the "tadiator" acted as an agent of "natural" selection for improved feeding and fleeing in order to determine if "evolving" vertebrae would improve these behaviors. In essence, the robots would transition from having notochords to having vertebral columns.
In the lab, six tadros would share the tank with one tadiator. The tadiator, unlike the tadros, would not "evolve", it only serves to hunt the prey robots. Variation among the robots included size of the tail fin, rigidity of the "notochord" (number of "vertebrae") and sensitivity of the "lateral line". Out of the six tadros, the top three (rated by their ability to stay near the light and to avoid tadiator) were allowed to "breed", their variations would be incorporated into the next generation of robots. The best performing tadro would produce six sets of "genes", while the second would produce four, and the third would produce two. The "genes" would be randomly combined to simulate mating, and the next generation of robots would be altered to conform to the "breeding".
Over the course of several generations, the number of vertebrae "evolved" would stabilize after some fluctuation over the course of the first couple of generations.
Here's a good interview with Dr Long, who recently released a book titled Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology (for the record, I did not buy a copy of the book, having spent my money on beer, but I plan on buying a copy when it comes out in paperback). Here is a video of Dr Long in action, which is a good approximation of Tuesday's lecture (be sure to drink a lot of beer while you watch it. Opabina Jesus makes an appearance at 2:56:
In the course of the Q&A, some bastard in the audience asked Dr Long if he had modeled the exoskeletons of such swimming invertebrates as crustaceans, and if similar genetic factors were involved in the evolution of rigid exoskeletons and rigid endoskeletons (hox genes are involved in the development of both). After the lecture, when said bastard went up to Dr Long to thank him for his excellent lecture, he was pleased to be dubbed "crustacean guy" by Dr Long.
In short, Dr John Long of Vassar College is a hell of a good guy, his lecture was excellent, and you should definitely buy his book provided you haven't spent all of your cash on beer. The presentation was yet another excellent effort on the part of the excellent Secret Science Club. As an added bonus, the third deity in the Secret Science Club pantheon, Michael Crewdson, who co-authored the amazing Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger and the indispensable Wild New York with Margaret Mittelbach, returned to his native Brooklyn from his current Australian home. It's been a while since he's been back, but his return was most triumphant. All told, it was an excellent night, even with the "fast track" construction on the "R Train", which resulted in the bastard not getting home until after 3AM (which partially explains why this post is tardy).
Robots are useful for performing dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs, the sort of jobs humans should not have to perform. Mercedes and Lexus have created integrated driving systems that employ radar and ultrasound to increase safety by correcting for driver errors. The innovations of the integrated safety systems were developed as part of a project to develop driverless cars. The Google car is a prime example of a prototypical driverless car. Dr Long also mentioned the use of drones as robotic warriors, and touched on a publicity stunt in the UK in which an octocopter delivered pizzas for Dominos.
Dr Long made especial mention of the Roomba, which transitioned to a discussion of the "android fallacy"- most robots do not look like humans. He contrasted a 1960's image of a house cleaning robot with the 21st century reality of a house-cleaning robot.
The next topic of discussion was about what a robot is. A robot exhibits constructive action and "mental" and physical agency that does not result from a biological source. Robot behavior, actions, and movements are sensor guided decisions. A computer produces the communication between the robot's sensors and its mechanisms, and can also communicate with other computers. Roboticist Rodney Brooks, a proponent of the "actionist" school of robotics, famously opined that we should stop making humanoid robots, and should emulate "simpler" organisms, such as insects. The Roomba, mimics an insect-level intelligence and behaves like a bug. One motto used by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works was "start simple first", an expression akin to the design principle K.I.S.S.
Dr Long's lab is concerned with using robotic models in order to understand vertebrate evolution. He gave a brief overview of the milieu in which the vertebrates first evolved. One of the most famous fossil beds from the time prior to the evolution of the vertebrates is the Burgess Shale, which preserves remains of such famous organisms as Hallucigenia and Opabinia (Dr Long showed a slide featuring a painting of a "school" of Opabinia that he was especially pleased with, but I can't find the image online- suffice it to say, I thought it looked like "Opabinia Jesus" addressing his disciples). One of the earliest vertebrate fossils is the genus Haikouichthys, the remains of which were discovered in China. Haikouichthys was approximately 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in length. The fossils are especially good because soft tissues were preserved in the fine-grained sediments. Dr Long gave a very terse, hilarious take on the difference between invertebrates and vertebrates: invertebrates are "CRUNCH, SQUISH" organisms while vertebrates are "SQUISH, CRUNCH" organisms. For a better take on vertebrates, vertebrates have an internal support structured called a notochord and paired sense organs (note- with certain exceptions). One sensory organ characteristic of vertebrates is the lateral line, which senses movements and changes in pressure around an organism. The closest analog that humans have to the lateral line is the inner ear, which plays a role in balance.
Dr Long then proceded to discuss his use of robots to model vertebrate evolution. To model something in order to understand it, one has to model simple things first. To study vertebrate evolution, a biorobot, a model of an animal, needed to be built. The model had a series of assumptions built into it, it had to represent a biological target. For his studies, Dr Long decided to model Drepanaspis, a skillet-shaped 400 million year old jawless fish. The target was "simplified", but the functional needs of the model were similar to those of a living organism, and the basic structures were similar. The resultant skillet-shaped swimming robot was dubbed "Tadro, a portmanteau word composed of "tadpole" and "robot". The autonomous "tadro" had light sensors on the front to model feeding behavior (since the base of the marine food chain is phytoplankton, the "feeding" behavior involved heading toward a light source) and "predator" detecting sensors on the side to mimic the lateral line. Swimming was accomplished by a flexible "tail" filled with a hydrogel which Dr Long drolly noted was not edible. The notochord is an ancestral condition, while the vertebrate spine evolved in order to provide increased stiffness. The stiffness of the tail could be adjusted by adding ring-shaped stiffeners, which function as biomimetic "vertebrae".
A simple definition of evolution is a change in the genetics of a population from one generation to the next- certain organisms have more descendants which survive. It is important to note that populations evolve, not individuals.
In order to model evolution, the tadros shared the tank with a "predatory" robot dubbed a "tadiator" (a portmanteau of "tadro" and "gladiator"). Animals can detect predators and override their feeding behavior in order to escape them (Dr Long contrasted this ability to override feeding behavior with the behavior of Augustus Gloop). The tadros, like fish, were able to stop "eating" and start fleeing, the artificial intelligence was able to switch behavior. When fish need to evade a predator, they use a maneuver known as a fast start, in which the spine forms a "C" shape before bursting into a rapid acceleration. In the lab the "tadiator" acted as an agent of "natural" selection for improved feeding and fleeing in order to determine if "evolving" vertebrae would improve these behaviors. In essence, the robots would transition from having notochords to having vertebral columns.
In the lab, six tadros would share the tank with one tadiator. The tadiator, unlike the tadros, would not "evolve", it only serves to hunt the prey robots. Variation among the robots included size of the tail fin, rigidity of the "notochord" (number of "vertebrae") and sensitivity of the "lateral line". Out of the six tadros, the top three (rated by their ability to stay near the light and to avoid tadiator) were allowed to "breed", their variations would be incorporated into the next generation of robots. The best performing tadro would produce six sets of "genes", while the second would produce four, and the third would produce two. The "genes" would be randomly combined to simulate mating, and the next generation of robots would be altered to conform to the "breeding".
Over the course of several generations, the number of vertebrae "evolved" would stabilize after some fluctuation over the course of the first couple of generations.
Here's a good interview with Dr Long, who recently released a book titled Darwin’s Devices: What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology (for the record, I did not buy a copy of the book, having spent my money on beer, but I plan on buying a copy when it comes out in paperback). Here is a video of Dr Long in action, which is a good approximation of Tuesday's lecture (be sure to drink a lot of beer while you watch it. Opabina Jesus makes an appearance at 2:56:
In the course of the Q&A, some bastard in the audience asked Dr Long if he had modeled the exoskeletons of such swimming invertebrates as crustaceans, and if similar genetic factors were involved in the evolution of rigid exoskeletons and rigid endoskeletons (hox genes are involved in the development of both). After the lecture, when said bastard went up to Dr Long to thank him for his excellent lecture, he was pleased to be dubbed "crustacean guy" by Dr Long.
In short, Dr John Long of Vassar College is a hell of a good guy, his lecture was excellent, and you should definitely buy his book provided you haven't spent all of your cash on beer. The presentation was yet another excellent effort on the part of the excellent Secret Science Club. As an added bonus, the third deity in the Secret Science Club pantheon, Michael Crewdson, who co-authored the amazing Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger and the indispensable Wild New York with Margaret Mittelbach, returned to his native Brooklyn from his current Australian home. It's been a while since he's been back, but his return was most triumphant. All told, it was an excellent night, even with the "fast track" construction on the "R Train", which resulted in the bastard not getting home until after 3AM (which partially explains why this post is tardy).
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