Passing the baton in the human race

Over four million years ago our ancestral "Ardi" walked (yes, walked) around in what is now Ethiopia.

Over three million years ago "Lucy" died a short distance further south.

About 20,000 years ago, further down the Rift, on the western side in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, the "Ishango bone" was being used and marked by early hominids, teasing their decendents trying to interpret this early maths.

In the late 1980s, Greg Laden was tackling postgraduate research in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology in the Semiliki region of Eastern DRC. At the same time a 5 year old was running wild in this same region, where his family were working with chimps and gorillas.

The early gasps of the 21st Century took Hans Herren, President of the Millennium Institute as a guest lecturer to Cambridge University, scanning the horizon for our changing planet. One of his recommendations was that we needed more under 25s in positions of decision-making as the rest of us were managing to ignore the impending crises of climate, agriculture, energy, food security and population.

Today a group of under 25s gathered in the leafy surrounds of Imperial College's Silwood Park as Masters candidates, about to commit themselves to Biodiversity & Conservation Science, Evolutionary Biology, Population and Community Ecology, Environmental Technology and more. How many of them can be persuaded out of the forests and labs, into the corridors of power? At the very least, can they be sure to communicate and inform, not only by peer-reviewed science, but also by translating it to the voting public?

One of the new postgraduates was that wild child in eastern Zaire. He and top science blogger Greg Laden are now linked by the twittering blogosphere that is spreading general knowledge on evolutionary science in all its infinite variety. I have a sense of baton passing, and renewed hope that the current crop of conservation biologists will run that extra mile. Frustration though that the last crop did not manage to stop the finishing line being brought forward and the track being made into an obstacle course.

Taking the Cake - a Test Match Special

If neither a fan of cricket nor social networking, skip this one (please return later for a post on land use, flowers and sacrifice).

Ah - still with me then? Enjoy the sound of leather on willow (world except China, Americas and continental Europe) or the chorus of twittering tweets (U.S. and Australia) or both (U.K and Australia)?

What a delight to listen to Stephen Fry talking with Jonathan Agnew at tea on Test Match Special today and presenting this cake to the commentary team. The picture on the left was taken at Fauna & Flora International, for whom Stephen Fry has taken on an ambassadorial role. The picture on the right was taken by Stephen with his i-phone and posted on twitter - within minutes upwards of 10,000 people had seen and commented on it and for some of these FFI's work will stay on their radar. Stephen described twitter as a fascinating communication medium - one that doesn't gum up like other channels. Falling leaves in a forest .... occasionally one catches your eye and you pick it out of the ether, examine it and comment.

My excuse for posting this on Future Earth is a muse about how long cricket will last in centuries to come. The first international tour was supposed to be in France in 1789 but was cancelled due to the French Revolution. Will the last one be in this Century - cancelled by lack of fuel to fly or water to moisten the pitch? Meanwhile, today's competition (prize a slice of fry's fruit cake delight):


* For cricketers - "what does 5-50-20/20 make"?

* For social networkers - "what is the rationale for the 2 numbers under the batsmen's names on the cake above?"

Condoms for footballers - yes, they can!

Football has become a common language as well as a tradeable currency. In Banda Aceh recently I was astonished to see a huge billboard with Stephen Gerrard's face writ large - a role model for high standard Premiership football, now sadly tarnished as brawling Gerrard's face sprawls across the tabloids instead. Then amidst acres of Miombo woodland in remote northern Mozambique we came across a villager peddling an ancient bicycle and a team shirt that provided common ground for a long conversation.

It also provided inspiration for a project* that resulted in 100 "Alive & Kicking" locally-made leather footballs being delivered to the enthusiastic Peles-in-the-making in villages around Niassa Reserve. These young guys were bundling up plastic bags and tying them with local twine into ball shapes. If they had had access to condoms, they could have improved on this model themselves. African ingenuity is using blown-up condoms as the basis for bounceable balls - covering them in plastic and old clothing for strength. I suppose by preventing their use for the purpose intended (and setting aside serious considerations of poverty, aids, climate etc for a moment), they are also ensuring a continuing supply of African football talent in years to come!













* A collaboration between Martin Aveling, Alive & Kicking, Sociedade de Gestão e Desenvolvimento da Reserva do Niassa (SRN), Keith and Colleen Begg, Fauna & Flora International & Fauna & Flora International Inc.

Biodiversity - what's in a name?

It seems so obvious to me. Diversity is good - healthier, stronger, allowing for rapid adaptation to new environments in an endlessly changing world. And the word 'diversity' is well understood, right? Certainly understood in relation to diversity amongst people - different cultures, genders, orientations and nationalities. It even has its own school of "diversity management" aimed at encouraging business and educational structures to retain a healthy diversity of skills and talents. Google the word and you will find it is the name of the dance troupe winning "Britain's Got Talent" this year, so the word has even percolated into the clubs and pubs of every corner of this small island. Britain gets Diversity.












So what happens when you add a descriptor - genetic diversity, cultural diversity - still understood. So what is the problem with biological diversity, or its shortened form of biodiversity? Nothing, according to the local team working to protect Aceh's forest biodiversity - even though it is a little bit difficult to translate (Keanekaragaman hayati or biodiversitas?). Nothing, according to groups like Local Action for Biodiversity, or the children celebrating International Biodiversity Day this year. It even has its own Convention. But apparently the word has a low recognition factor in the UK and we are being encouraged to use "Nature" instead. Naturally, if this will help reverse the dramatic decline in global biodiversity - which, according to a recent letter to the journal Nature *, we are not doing too well - this blog will change its nature and lexicon.


*(Published online 8 July 2009 | Nature 460, 163 (2009) | doi:10.1038/460163c)Governments fail to reduce global biodiversity decline)

Bacon chocolate (yes, read on)

What the world has been waiting for - delicious bacon and delicious chocolate in one easy bite. Well, half the world, anyway. And guess what - made in America. Vosges stress their green credentials but make no mention of palm oil, so I await their clarification before making a recommendation.

Meanwhile, how do they fare on the good taste test? On the taste buds themselves, not quite "nul points" as the chocolate is good. But even our beagle, who refutes that chocolate is poisonous to dogs (and as customs officials know, any beagle can sniff out a micron of food in a 747 at several paces) turned her nose up at this one. Fails the metaphorical "good taste" test too - does the world need to add fatty, calorific, methane-producing pork to ethically-produced chocolate? Food insecurity at its most dire?

But then, how deep is my green? Perhaps more research is needed and I suspect it will entail my tasting all the Vosges products to develop a more informed opinion.

Lyre, Lyre

Only click through to this youtube snippet if you have watched and marvelled at "Life of Birds". It is a reminder that someone, somewhere, can always improve on the original - even when the original is the amazing Australian lyre bird echoing its own demise, and the delightful Sir David Attenborough.

Now lets see if we can apply as much creativity to saving the Australian lyre bird as the clever digital manipulators have applied to this clip.

Douglas, Darwin and Doubt.

What did Charles Darwin and Douglas Adams share, apart from bushy eyebrows and endless foreheads? Doubt. Questing, relentless minds, restless, voyaging natures, and legacies for humankind from their struggles for meaningful existence.

Today, May 25th, is "Towel Day" in annual memory of Douglas Adams (a towel was his recommended 'must have' for a Hitchhiker travelling the Galaxy). Douglas hit something in the global psyche with his Hitchhiker's guide, but it is for his travels closer to home that I remember him. When writing "Last Chance to See" with Mark Carwardine, Monsieur Adams bumped in to Zaire (as was) on a plane full of missionaries, whose niceness made him "want to bite them", and who were discussing their rhino horn or ivory trophies. Douglas was affected by his time with Mountain Gorillas and continued to support their conservation:

"I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes, and wondered about this business of trying to teach apes language. Our language. Why? there are many members of our own species who live in and with the forest and know it and understand it. We don't listen to them. What is there to suggest we would listen to anything an ape could tell us?"

It was indeed Adams' Last Chance to See, but Mark Carwardine teamed up with Adams' friend Stephen Fry to give the rest of us (and celluloid posterity) a second chance (where they could find it) later this year - stay tuned and hitch up that towel for Mr. Adams today.

Ruth Padel

Ruth Padel has been elected as Oxford University's Professor of Poetry (emerging as the fittest candidate in a trial of life typical of Oxbridge intrigues, perfected over 800 years of Don-dom). Darwin's great great grandaughter has also recently published "Darwin - a life in poems" to critical acclaim by the Guardian, from whom it can be purchased. Professor Padel has pledged to bring poetry and science closer together and use her profile to help protect the environment.

Here's an example of her work - from "The Soho Leopard", published by Chatto & Windus, London, 2004:

The Forest, The Corrupt Official and a Bowl of Penis Soup

How can I paint Winter Landscape with Temples
and Travellers, or Five-Colour Parakeet

on Blossoming Apricot Tree?
The oracle boxes are empty

and the Minister with a Brief for Charming Explanation
has signed a licence (to the army) for the forest to be cut,

ordered satin linings to his red kimono
and is drinking with the General

in what he says is the best restaurant in town,
attended by two fifteen-year old girls:

handpicked, translucent brown jade.
Black tree stumps cool on the mountain,

sawmills slide out planks a hundred an hour
and white ash blooms over the river

while the courtier treats the General
to tiger-penis soup, five hundred linu a bowl.

I'll paint the bare burnt mamillated plain,
Flame of the Forest in its white and scarlet,

jack fruits and jacaranda, the stag in the sky
and the naming of stars, the three definitions of twilight

in Yunnan province where white-handed gibbons
used to sing their love duets.

I'll paint the truth of illusion, a glossary
of atmospheric optics,

and Guanyin, Guardian of Compassion;
I'll pay particular attention to her smile.

Update 25 May - Padel resigns (shame).

Voyage in a Beagle

As light (night) relief to a serious post, thanks to Dan Stewart for this less-than-seaworthy beagle from Idaho (but Dan, its not just a dog, it's a Beagle).

Hotel run by Messrs Darwin and Fitzroy?

Travesty

Spot the dogs, spot the bitches. Too much time, too little sense? Is this creativity or cruelty?

Travis - ty

"Police said they had no idea why Travis attacked the woman as she got out of her car to visit Ms Herold".

Didn't they? Didn't they? A beating heart, a big brain and 15 years of frustration is why. All boiling up within a body battered by the years of munchies and medications administered by his American owner. It says something for his tolerance that he waited so long. As Franz de Waal, author of "Chimpanzee Politics" explains, this is normal behaviour expressed in an abnormal situation. Chimps, even overweight ones, also have twice the muscle density of humans - which means they are not bouyant enough to swim, but will always beat a human in unarmed combat, even muscle-bound wrestlers.

Fortunately, out of this sad, sad tale might come some sense. Legislators are marshalling their arguments to prevent people keeping "dangerous exotic pets" in U.S. States. All aimed at protecting humans - will it also protect voice-less sentient beings like the Great Apes from stupid, dangerous humans too?

R.I.P Travis.

Haiku for Darwin

a wrinkled forehead
crystal clear criteria
unentangled thought

Howl from the heart ...

Wolves, bears, humans ..... be scared, be very, very scared.

Web World

Future Earth is the sum of its web presence? (World map of 1001 weblogs)

Sense, sensibility and symbolism

Charity begins at home as a released baloon, and ends up overseas in the belly of a turtle. A welsh charity for the homeless has finally settled on the release of biodegradable chinese lanterns as part of a fundraising drive after a proposed baloon release was criticised by the Marine Conservation Society. A replacement release of pigeons and doves was then stopped after being criticised on ethical grounds. What do readers of "Future Earth" think of the lantern release? A deal of unecessary energy expenditure in an energy-constrained world (bah, humbug) or beautiful symbolism of global connectivity (peace and love)? Either way, we can expect more of it as the tiger economies roar across the globe - this is a big thing across Asia and, sadly for the turtles, the biodegradeable lanterns are being replaced by more durable materials.

(And anyone who wants to help save our seas from uneccesary plastic can support the Marine Conservation Society's Coastal challenge - via the two intrepid canoeists navigating Raasay to Rhona).

Gruesome Gray and Black Mass

Beset by eternal optimism? See if John Gray can make any inroads on your state of mind as he explores the human condition. If you are too busy saving the world to read John Gray, taste the summary provided by the excellent review of 'Straw Dogs' and 'Black Mass' on Entertainment News.

Suitably morbid? Recover with Arjay's calming view of evening across the Java sea.....

More Mugabe Madness

"(UK Prime Minister) Brown is a little tiny dot on this World" (Robert Mugabe, April 12th 2008).

Yes (ex Zimbabwe Executive President) Mugabe - but the dot is a Full Stop.

For a beloved country crying, it is the Full Stop underlying a global exclamation mark.

Albatross Anthem

IT IS a baby Albatross,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long great beak and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

He holds him with his trusting stare,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
‘It spewed out all this plastic stuff
Into the azure sea.

And now the storm-blast came, and it
Were tyrannous and strong:
The plastic lay above the beach
Where nesting birds belong.

The stuff was here, the stuff was there,
The stuff was all around:
We thought it looked like little fish
And scoffed all that we found.

We ate the food we ne'er had eat,
And round and round did spew.
We started dying one by one
Not many made it through’.

‘But I have come to help you out -
A conservation trooper.
We are averred, to save the bird
from such a major blooper.
Ah wretch! We say, the plastic day,
Has gone – is that not super?’

We looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew our eyes away
We looked upon the plastic beach,
And vowed it would not stay.
We’d bury it for 50 years
No albatross would feast
Of plastic fare, we’d save the life,
Of man and bird and beast. .

We went like those that hath been stunned,
And worked through dusk and dawn:
Both sadder and yet wiser men,
We rose the morrow morn.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7312777.stm

Cowzat!

Thanks to biomes blog for this one (http://biomesblog.typepad.com/the_biomes_blog/2008/02/entry-1531-maps.html)

Proof that Australia is down udder?