For those of you who missed Prof. Rosenzweig's talk on Reconciliation Ecology here in Fresno last week, I am working on posting an audio recording on the Darwin's Bulldogs podcast soon. Meanwhile, here is a shorter version of his ideas in the form of an interview podcast from the University of Arizona, with accompanying slides, many of which we saw in the talk last week. Enjoy the interview, and share your thoughts.
This week, the CSU-Fresno Consortium for Evolutionary Studies brings you another public lecture in our Evolutionary Biology Lecture Series. On the evening of Thursday, March 25, 2010, join us at the Satellite Student Union on campus to hear Prof. Trevor Price of the University of Chicago tell us about his work on the origin, distribution, and maintenance of high bird species diversity in the Himalaya. The public talk starts at 7:30 PM, and you can download the flyer for the talk below. On the following afternoon, Dr. Price will give us another talk in the Biology department colloquium series.
A friend texted earlier this evening to alert me that Jane Goodall would be on PBS tonight! Bill Moyers hosts this wide ranging interview with Jane Goodall which first aired on his show last November, and was rebroadcast on PBS tonight. Its amazing how much energy / spirit this lady has, having led such a remarkable life. Here's the entire interview, in two parts, followed by a short piece about her Roots and Shoots program. May she help you out of your depression, induced by the state of conservation or otherwise!
Another wonderful TED talk! Relevant to our discussion of Bacterial diversity and communication in Biol 1B this week.
A lecture accompanied by some astonishing deep sea videos that I showed in intro bio class this week when we were discussing the potential origins of life at hydrothermal vents on the ocean bottom.
I'm still reading Skloot's fascinating account The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I started reading during Black History Month, and will finish soon before Women's History Month ends.
Why yes, we have a Jellyfish mass occurrence... well... occurring on the campus of Fresno State this friday afternoon! Well, ok - I'm not talking about some biblical flood in the valley (its been a wet winter, sure, but not that wet!) or that long anticipated Big One, the earthquake that cleaves coastal California off and converts all our homes here in the valley into beachfront property! No not that - that's not happening this friday (as far as I know). But the jellies will be here in spirit and data form rather than physically present, as we get a seminar from Dr. Michael Dawson of UC Merced just up the road from us. Should be a fun, fascinating talk - here's the relevant info, and you can click on the title below to read the abstract and get further details:
Phylogeny and Ecology of Jellyfish (Scyphozoa) Mass Occurrences
Friday, March 12, 2010
3:00-4:00 PM
Science II, Room 109
CSU-Fresno
And afterwards, you might ask Dr. Dawson what a marine biologist like him is doing in the Central Valley of California... do they know something we don't?
Not the greatest of photos, but not bad for one of my very first pictures of this bird (I think, anyway). I caught this bit of action yesterday at the Sierra Foothill Conservancy's McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve, where they will be hosting an open house this Saturday, March 13th. If you live in the Fresno area, and haven't discovered this beautiful little valley, I urge you to go there on Saturday, enjoy the birds (we saw quite a few apart from this quail, including two Bald Eagles yesterday) and the wildflowers, and consider becoming a member of the Conservancy to help them protect more such habitats in this area.
Life is in peril. A mass extinction threatens to take more than 90% of the world's species. Evolution will not be able to replace these species, neither in kind nor in number. Our religious and ethical responsibilty to protect our world is challenged as never before.
But there is good news: we can prevent this mass extinction with a method called Reconciliation Ecology. Reconciliation Ecology means working out ways for us to have our land and share it too.
Reconciliation Ecology is not a pipe dream. It is widely practiced all over the world. And it is successful. Reconciliation ecology puts nature back into the everyday lives of people, surrounding us with living wonders we usually associate with a vacation in a National Park. It is not expensive and it redesigns our own habitats so that we can keep them, keep living in them, keep using them for our needs, keep earning profits in them... while at the very same time making them havens for wild species of plants and animals.
The new habitats we engineer to satisfy both our desires and the needs of nature will not resemble those of a thousand years ago. This will surely put new evolutionary pressures on the species we harbor. They will change in ways we are only beginning to study. But surely it is better to meet them halfway, better to give them a chance to adapt to us, than to let them vanish utterly and leave our grandchildren with an impoverished world that bears evidence that we did not choose to fulfill our responsibilities.
If you prefer to read the story rather than listen to it aloud, here's the transcript via npr.org.
Courtesy of Lillian Fritz-Laylan
Naegleria gruberi grows a pair of flagella when under stress. But unlike a sperm tail, it puts these appendages out front, and swims by breast stroke. The organism is stained to emphasize its anatomy.
Faculty 2010 Action Item
Colleagues,Many of you are aware that our advocacy efforts by CSU Faculty last fall resulted in Governor Schwarzenegger's proposal to restore $305 million to the CSU budget next year. While that was a significant victory, we must now make sure that our legislators know that supporting that proposal is critical to the CSU, our students, and our state. To that end, I am hoping that you will take a moment to send your legislators an email asking them to support restoring funding to public higher education in this year's budget.The Chairs of the 23 Academic and Faculty Senates of the CSU system are participating in San Francisco State's initiative to get word to our legislators. By following the link below, you can instantly send your representatives a pre-drafted letter or you can write something more tailored to your individual experience.Urgent Message to LegislatorsThe link will work for faculty on and off campus, so feel free to forward it to faculty on other campuses. I am hopeful that this effort will make this week's advocacy activities resonante even more strongly with our elected officials.
Dr. Michael Botwin
Chair, Academic Senate
Professor & Chair, Dept. of Psychology
Tomorrow is the statewide day of action to protest against what is happening to higher education in California these days. I just found this quite good advert from our campus rallying people to join the action tomorrow. Won't you join us?
(and in this instance, I'll overlook the egregious, but all too common in the US, misspelling of GANDHI which made me cringe while watching this clip! Really - what's so hard about that simple name that Americans can't ever seem to get it right??)
Images captured on a Sunday morning hike in the Sierra Foothills Conservancy's McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve.
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