The Beagle Project Blog

Charles Darwin and the... Shrewsbury sermons?

2012-01-27T16:37:00.003Z

American polymath Benjamin Franklin, 10th and youngest son of a working-class family, had to leave school at age 10. Sir Ernest Shackleton was invalided out during his first Antarctic trek; he was later marked for heroism in saving the crew of Endurance. Marie Curie (a.k.a. Maria Sklodowska) was refused entry by Krakow University because she was female, and went on to win Nobel Prizes in two disciplines.

The history of discovery is littered with hard-fought battles just to get on the bus, so to speak. Charles Darwin's story was no exception - his father was dead set against him him traipsing around the world, listing eight objections which included: "Disreputable to [his] character as a Clergyman hereafter... a wild scheme... a useless undertaking."

Those points and influential uncle Josiah Wedgwood's counter-arguments are documented in Cyril Aydon's biography and other easily available sources, and make for engaging reading.

Project advisor Anna Faherty gets up close

This month, however, we got a more intimate look at Darwin's travails, thanks to the Kew Archive, which offered a behind-the-scenes peek at its plant-hunters collection. Darwin's letters ranged from pleading his case and fighting his hammock to cultural observations and storms at sea.

The content is engaging, and the archivists' work is a story in itself. They've collected materials such as correspondence seals - two of which appear to show HMS Beagle - original letters, plant specimens and even an invitation to be a pall-bearer at his Westminster Abbey funeral.

Conservators have also struggled to preserve the artefacts, bathing documents in chemicals to stop the ferrous inks eating through the the paper, and creating folios such as this, with hand-marbled end-papers.

An 1833 letter written aboard HMS Beagle to mentor Rev John Henslow. Note the maximum use of paper.

The archivists who led Kew's tour were great hosts, and it's clear that classic British plant-hunters have a special place in their hearts - these men (and the odd woman) roamed the planet for the better part of three centuries, and included the likes of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, physician, botanist, Antarctic explorer and Kew's second director.

Many of the collectors illustrated their travels beautifully with drawings and photos, and all of them - like Darwin - multi-tasked to secure their places, working as naval surgeons, surveyors, and even spies. Though Darwin's 'day-job' as Captain Robert FitzRoy's companion could be tense and complicated, he would have had more time than many of his peers for naturalist pursuits.

Another common trait was plant-hunters' influence on matters far beyond botany: Darwin's writings on natural selection, ethics and slavery sparked debate that continues today; William Colenso championed Maori rights in New Zealand; and Hooker helped upset international trade by shifting rubber-tree cultivation from Brazil to Southeast Asia.

Not all the plant-hunters - pioneering botanist Carl Linnaeus among them - struggled to be taken seriously, and it must have been tempting for the 22-year-old Darwin to give up - especially when his father said rather unkindly that many others had surely been asked first but refused because of some problem with the ship or journey.

Good thing he persisted. Being a clergyman would have been an honourable enough choice, but we'd definitely be the poorer for it.

The archives at the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew are open to the public, and you can ask to see (or hear) nearly anything in their collection. It's well worth a visit.

The HMS Beagle Project will also be working on a plant-hunters's series of exhibits and talks later this year with new science outreach partner the Garden Museum (this will involve some excellent cakes from their in-house baker ;>). For information, register for updates on our home page.

Sir Joseph Hooker's invitation to Darwin's funeral

Repost: The new Beagle, a flagship for science in a new age of sail

2012-01-26T03:23:00.000Z

What with new ships being in the news, I thought I'd repost my 2009 Letter to the Editor of Zoologica Scripta* from 2009.

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SIR – Your Special Issue, ‘In Linnaeus' Wake: 300 Years of Marine Discovery’ (Zoologica Scripta 38: Suppl. 1, February 2009) encompassed both the history of maritime scientific exploration and its enduring legacies. Impressive marine and terrestrial specimen hauls from three centuries of scientific voyaging, largely under sail, underpinned major scientific advances not least Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

‘Science in the age of sail’ came to a gradual end between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, as sails were first combined with and ultimately replaced by coal-fired steam and then diesel engines—an irony considering that the historic specimens collected on such voyages would ultimately be seen as useful to establish pre-industrial baselines for climate change research.

While a changing source of energy for maritime transport signaled the end of the 'sail' in 'science under sail', the 'science' also suffered setbacks. After a brief but intensive period of specimen collecting on diesel powered expeditions (such as the Discovery expeditions), ocean voyages for scientific discovery under all modes of propulsion declined as research funding was diverted to post-war explorations of both outer space and also the inner space of the cell.

Contrary to public perception, expedition-based science did not decline because the task of species discovery was completed: though 1.8 million species have been discovered and named this figure is estimated to represent only 1-10% of the true total. Moreover, marine organisms are under-represented; the diversity of marine life is still largely unknown to science, especially in the deep sea, of which a smaller percentage has been explored than of the surface of the moon. Exacerbating this dearth of marine knowledge are the increasing threats of climate change and habitat loss, coupled with a decline of taxonomic expertise and resources called the ‘taxonomic impediment’.

The need for a new age of discovery science

There is international recognition that the time is ripe for a reinvigoration of expeditionary science, with a particular emphasis on marine environments. The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans, (POGO) was created in 1999 “by directors and leaders of major oceanographic institutions around the world to promote global oceanography, particularly the implementation of an international and integrated global ocean observing system” (www.ocean-partners.org). POGO makes a case for extensive and sustained oceanic observation, research and modeling – a case which is echoed in a themed issue of Nature (450; 2007) on “Earth Monitoring” and the accompanying online special, “Earth Observation” (http://tinyurl.com/mvp9bg), which calls for the ‘patching together' of a complete worldview that unites Earth observations from space with ground- and ocean-based exploration and monitoring.

Today, wine; tomorrow, science

Since the aim of a new era of discovery and monitoring is to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and habitat loss on biodiversity and other complex Earth systems, there is both a real and a symbolic benefit to conducting these explorations a way that minimises environmental damage.

Sail-power is already making a comeback in the cargo industry. After nearly a hundred years of fossil fuel-driven shipping, the first transatlantic voyage to be (once again) augmented by high-tech sail power has just been successfully completed; the so-called SkySail delivered an average fuel savings of 20% on the journey. The use of traditional sailing ships for the movement of goods is also being revived, as marked by the first shipment of Bordeaux wine to Dublin aboard the 170-foot brig Belem in February of this year.

That's very well for wine, but what of science? Though a few private sailing vessels have already been used for modern scientific exploration, such as J. Craig Venter’s Sorcerer II and the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita, a symbolic sailing ship to mark the beginning of science in a new age of sail has not yet materialised.

The new Beagle

The HMS Beagle Project (www.thebeagleproject.com) is raising funds to rebuild HMS Beagle to serve as a charismatic flagship for science in a new age of sail. After she is built, the new Beagle will circle the world in Darwin's wake, making similar landfalls. She is not intended to be a museum ship; she will be equipped with modern laboratories and equipment to support a series of researcher-led marine and terrestrial projects as well as continuous collections of samples for DNA barcoding (www.barcoding.si.edu) and metagenomics (Nature Reviews Genetics 6, 805; 2005).

As formally established in a signed International Space Act Agreement with NASA, scientists aboard the new Beagle will collaborate with astronauts aboard the International Space Station on biodiversity and climate change research. Ocean surface water samples for biological assessment will be time-stamped for correlation with images taken from space. These images will enable the visible characteristics of plankton blooms and other biotic phenomena as seen from space to be ground-truthed by real measurements from the ship.

Charles Darwin improvised the first plankton collecting apparatus aboard HMS Beagle in 1832 which he wrote “is a bag four feet deep, made of bunting, & attached to semicircular bow this by lines is kept upright, & dragged behind the vessel. — this evening it brought up a mass of small animals, & tomorrow I look forward to a greater harvest” and, the next day, “I am quite tired having worked all day at the produce of my net. — The number of animals that the net collects is very great & fully explains the manner so many animals of a large size live so far from land. — Many of these creatures so low in the scale of nature are most exquisite in their forms & rich colours. — It creates a feeling of wonder that so much beauty should be apparently created for such little purpose.”

Today, the source of Darwin's wonder is under threat by anthropogenic change. An essential part of diminishing this threat is increasing public awareness and inspiring mitigating action from personal to global scales. Thus the new Beagle’s public engagement and formal learning capacities are equally if not more important than her science capacity.

The attraction of a famous tall ship – even a replica of one – is exemplified by the fact that 300,000 people visited the replica of the Swedish Ship Götheborg (right, towering above yours truly) during her voyage to China, and 2 million visited the exhibition site, with a total media coverage value of €300 million.

The original Götheborg was one of many ships that bore Carl Linnaeus' so-called 'disciples' around the world on their seminal voyages of discovery, and the physicality of climbing aboard the replica Götheborg brings those journeys to life in a way that no written history can.

Just as Linnaeus and his apostles had a double mission to spread the ‘gospel’ of the new botanical principles and collect empirical data so the new Beagle will have a double mission of multi-disciplinary science and inspiring public engagement with – and action to protect – global biodiversity and climate stability.

*Note: This is a longer version of a Letter to the Editor published in Zoologica Scripta in 2009 (doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2009.00403.x). As long as I tell you that the 'definitive version' is available here, I am entitled by Wiley-Blackwell 'to use all or part of the article, without revision or modification, in personal compilations or other publications of [my] own work', as I've done here. -KJ

A jubilee ship for the Queen? Why not a Beagle?

2012-01-17T13:51:00.002Z

Much fluttering in the media dovecotes this week when Education Secretary Michael Gove suggested to Media and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt that maybe a grateful nation should buy Her Majesty a new royal yacht to mark her golden jubilee.

The letter was leaked to the Guardian newspaper, leading the Prime Minister to initially hole the suggestion below the waterline. All sailors will know that leaks are bad for ships. Then, following an approach which outlines plans for a 600 foot, four masted multipurpose sailing ship (sail training, scientific research and with state rooms for her Majesty and retinue at the stern), David Cameron has today supported the plans. As long as it doesn't cost the taxpayer.

Might we suggest that we already have a set of plans, funds coming in (another £500 today, thank you), a builder in the blocks ready to start and a ship with a pedigree and some experience in honouring Royalty.

In July 1820 the newly launched HMS Beagle had the honour of being the first ship to sail under the new London Bridge leading a fleet review to mark the coronation of King George IV. Perhaps Her Majesty might find Beagle's stern cabin somewhat cramped, and it would be remiss of us to expect Royalty to indulge in the gymnastics required of the young Charles Darwin in wriggling his way into his hammock for the first time (oh for a time machine to have seen that moment). As Darwin wrote in his diary:

I intend sleeping in my hammock.- I did so last night & experienced the most ludicrous difficulty in getting into it. My fault of jockeyship was in trying to put my legs in first. The hammock being suspended I thus only succeeded in pushing it away without making any progress in inserting my own body.- The correct method is to sit accurately in centre of bed, then give yourself a dexterous twist & your head & feet come into their respective places.

But for a ship to take the nation's youth sail training, to take its scientists over the horizon, whose building would add excitement to the Olympic year and that of the Queen's Golden Jubilee?

It could only be our very own Beagle. She changed the world. Nothing less would add lustre to 2012.

To find out more, contact us or follow the discussion on Facebook. To donate to the new Beagle or to talk to us about sponsorship, please click here.

"Sorely tried" on the first leg of the voyage

2012-01-13T01:00:00.003Z

Guest post by Beagle archivist, writer and editor Dr Gordon Chancellor

The voyage around the world of HMS Beagle was finally under way, this time 180 years ago in January 1832. She was sailing briskly in as southerly a course as possible, heading for Madeira where Captain FitzRoy intended to check the longitude. On board the little 235-ton survey ship were 74 men, plus three Fuegian Indians, the young naturalist Charles Darwin and a few personal servants and all their provisions for crossing the Atlantic to Brazil.

By 13 January they had already crossed the Bay of Biscay where Darwin had suffered terribly from sea sickness. He had been forced to lie down much of the time but this gave him a chance to re-read Alexander Humboldt’s Personal Narrative. That book had fired Darwin’s imagination as a student the year before with its classic descriptions of the Canaries and had convinced him that he needed to explore the tropics himself. He had even starting to plan his own expedition, but this was of course completely ‘knocked on the head’ by the offer of the place on the Beagle.

Around 4 January the voyage had reached Madeira but the swell prevented their landing and FitzRoy decided to press on for Tenerife in the Canaries, which they made on 6 January. Here Darwin suffered what FitzRoy called ‘a real calamity’; a quarantine meant a wait of 12 days before landing. FitzRoy not being a man to twiddle his thumbs, once more gave the order to press on. Darwin was bereft, having longed to see nature as Humboldt had so beautifully described it.

On that day Darwin did, however, do something which in many ways now seems more important for the history of science: he opened his ‘zoological diary’ (published by his great-grandson Richard Keynes in 2000). Apart from his geological training in Wales and near his Shropshire home, this was Darwin’s first ever chance to make new discoveries. His first short entry that day described the way the sea water gave off ‘sparks’ at night.

The Beagle crossed the Tropic of Cancer on 10 January and the weather was beautiful. Darwin constructed a net to catch marine life and started to describe and draw anything unusual. He also started to collect ‘specimens in spirits of wine’, each with its own unique number stamped onto a tin tag and his notes rapidly became more professional-looking.

I have chosen 13 January for this blog post because exactly one year later in 1833 the voyage of the Beagle was very nearly aborted forever by a terrible storm. That was the moment off Tierra del Fuego immortalised by FitzRoy’s account of how the Beagle was ‘sorely tried’ by a giant wave. This tore away one of the precious ship’s boats and nearly sent the Beagle and all who sailed in her to the bottom. My father John Chancellor painted the scene in 1982, not long before his untimely death, as I described in the special Darwin issue of ‘The Linnean’ in 2009. It is sobering to reflect that if the little ship had sunk that day the wonderful Beagle Project would not be happening and every one of us would be the poorer.

New Beagle Project podcast

2011-12-28T21:27:00.003Z

After something of a hiatus (ahem!), we have just published a new HMS Beagle Project podcast on the Beagle Channel.

David Lort-Phillips, co-founder and Executive Committee member of the HMS Beagle Project, talks about his relative, Admiral John Lort-Stokes, the last captain of HMS Beagle. The interview with BBC Radio Wales's Jamie Owen was recorded on 01-Aug-2011.

David-Lort-Phillips-Interview-2011-08-01.mp3 (9.9 kB).

Finally!

2011-12-27T08:00:00.001Z

In his final "Setting sail" post, maritime historian and HMS Beagle expert Dr Gordon Chancellor marks the day in 1831 when FitzRoy and Darwin left England behind...

In our last post we left the HMS Beagle on Christmas Day, stuck in Plymouth by south-westerly gales. 26 December in contrast was ‘a beautiful day,’ and Captain FitzRoy’s Narrative indicates that there was ‘a dead calm’ with every prospect that soon there would be a breeze from the east. The whole day was wasted, however, because so many of the crew were in irons for getting plastered the day before!

FitzRoy’s easterly duly arrived 180 years ago, on 27 December 1831, and he resolved to strike south for Madeira. Darwin ‘took a farewell luncheon’ of mutton and champagne ashore with Sullivan. The two friends boarded at about 2pm ‘and immediately with every sail filled by a light breeze, we scudded away’ from England.

So, after months of preparations and false starts, one of the most important voyages of all time was under way. As FitzRoy so truly said, the voyage ‘though likely to be long, promised much that would interest, and excite, and perhaps reward....’

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T11:54:00.004Z

This festive take on Darwin's sketch - the Phylogenetic [Christmas] Tree - and other interesting musings about the natural world, astronomy and ideas generally can be found atAllison Banks's blog, look up - we encourage you to visit her, and hope she'll bring her creative view of science to bear on future HMS Beagle Project endeavours.

In the meantime, best of the holiday to you and yours, and here's to getting the new Beagle's keel laid in 2012!

An unpromising first Christmas aboard

2011-12-24T08:00:00.005Z

Our third guest post from Dr Gordon Chancellor gives a snapshot of Darwin's first Christmas aboard HMS Beagle - anxious to get under way, suffering foul weather... and having far less fun than the crew, though the latter would pay dearly for their celebrations.

My last post saw HMS Beagle 180 years ago waiting what must have seemed an eternity for a north-easterly to carry her out of Plymouth and start her voyage around the world.

Slashing rain on 22 December added to Darwin’s misery, but on the 23^rd he had some fun with shipmates Sullivan and Bynoe, pitting his marksmanship against theirs to see who would be buying the drinks in Madeira. That evening, he endured a ‘bad concert’ in town with Stokes.

Christmas Eve was 'a blank and idle day', but Christmas Day was better for Darwin, as he found an old Cambridge friend leading the church service he attended. Darwin dined with the officers that afternoon, but didn't enjoy the conversation which, in such formal circumstances, was 'entirely devoid of interest.'

Not such a great time for our young naturalist then, but the crew all got drunk, that 'sole and never failing pleasure to which a sailor always looks forward'!

Fuegians and false starts on the run-up to Christmas

2011-12-20T22:12:00.003Z

Here's the second in a series of guest posts by archivist and historian Dr Gordon Chancellor, who has spent 30 years getting to know the HMS Beagle...

16 December 1831 was the first day Darwin spent entirely on the Beagle. He was daily writing his ‘journal’ for the voyage around the world of HMS Beagle, even though the little ship was still anchored in Plymouth waiting for a north-easterly breeze to take her south towards Madeira.

That day Darwin decided to write a preface, in which he recounted the months before his daily entries began on 24 October. He especially looked back to two ‘very anxious and uncomfortable days’ at the end of August when, having been offered the place on the Beagle, he had had to turn it down because his father had not approved it. Poor Darwin had been desperate to go and we have his uncle Josiah Wedgwood to thank for changing Darwin’s father’s mind and letting the young naturalist go.
Darwin had gone immediately to stay in Cambridge with his mentor John Henslow for a few days, before seeing the Beagle, then returning home to Shrewsbury for the last time. From there he was in London for three weeks, then arrived aboard the survey ship on 24 October. He spent the next month or so learning about longitudes and dipping needles, as well as doing some geology in limestone quarries and on the granite tors of Dartmoor.
The Fuegian Indians were on board by mid-November [!], and the superb ship’s library was stocked within Darwin’s easy reach - once he had learnt how to get into his hammock. HMS Beagle sailed on 10 December and Darwin’s brother Erasmus made his farewells, but she was driven back by storms.
On the 11^th, the date before the first of these posts, Darwin reflected that though he had been right to accept the position on the Beagle, he doubted ‘how far it will add to the happiness of one’s life’. On the 12^th he set out his agenda for the voyage, the number one priority being to collect, observe and read ‘in all branches of Natural history that I possibly can manage.’
A suitable breeze followed the Beagle from her moorings on 20 December and Darwin retreated to his hammock for the night to escape sea-sickness. A gale brewing off the Lizard had, however, forced her back again to Plymouth on the 21st, where she was anchored this day, exactly 180 years ago.

Get the inside story on Beagle happenings

2011-12-19T00:19:00.005Z

Our first official e-bulletin goes out today to folks who've registered for updates at the HMS Beagle Project homepage.

If you'd like to get the latest news on ships, trips, and ways to participate, by all means sign on! We won't bombard you, and it's easy to subscribe or unsubscribe.

A little Beagle for Christmas?

2011-12-17T09:40:00.005Z

From the shameless commerce department:

Just a quick note to say that if you're stuck for gift-giving ideas and want to support the HMS Beagle Project, you can still order a gift through our Café Press shop this weekend and have it arrive in time for Christmas - or for the Dec 27th anniversary of the second voyage.

A portion of proceeds goes to our project work, and the shirts, mugs, totes etc are quite nice. I've got the 'Charles Darwin signature' field bag, and have had compliments. On the bag...

Guest post by Captain Skellett: Future floating laboratory, prospectus of the HMS Beagle Project

2011-12-16T12:30:00.005Z

This is a guest post by Aussie pirate scientist blogger extraordinaire Captain Skellet. Her introductory post can be found here.

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Yesterday afternoon I went to a prospectus to the HMS Beagle Project while founder David Lort Phillips is in Adelaide.

It’s a CRAZY exciting project which plans to build a modern version of Darwin and FitzRoy’s tall ship the HMS Beagle, kitted out as a floating laboratory.

Marine biologists could benefit from getting much-needed ship time. As it’s a tall ship, it can get closer to land than large cruise vessels, giving it an extra bonus to people studying tidal areas. Groups into DNA barcoding might find it useful too, as it can be tricky to get high quality samples for DNA testing - most are set in formalin which ruins the info. More on DNA barcoding soon.

Climate research can be done from the boat, the connection between biodiversity and climate change could be exploited in the project. There’s a collaboration of the HMS Beagle with NASA, combining observations from space with water samples in the ocean.

Space shuttle before docking with space station.
Image by NASA

In 2009 the Brazilian tall ship Tocorime with the International Space Station, and they ran live hook-ups between scientists on the boat, an astronaut above, and school children in Paraty. Looks like Keven Zelnio from Deep Sea News was there! The students had questions written in English on paper which they screwed into a sweaty ball with excitement, according to Karen James, involved with the HMS Beagle Project.

Most interesting for me is the prospect of science communication on the high seas. We can take high-tech science to ports around the world, including remote areas that often miss out on science engagement events.

I’d like to see the online aspect of the beagle able to webcast and tweet from the deck, setting up chat sessions with classrooms and the public. Maybe people could watch the Beagle’s progress through the ocean, and be updated with the science we on the way. Oh, I gots ideas!

At the moment they have blueprints and some collaborations sorted out, but are still looking for funding to get it built and in the water. The first five years it would retrace the first voyage of the Beagle, including along the South American coast.

Chile are planning to build their own ship in connection to the project, possibly named after the Beagle support ship, the Adventure.

Darwin was 22 when he signed on with the Beagle, an amateur with an interest in science – mainly geology. What he saw from the ship and at port, particularly in the Galapagos Islands, lead him to a world-changing hypothesis.

Maybe the new Beagle will have the same effect on some young scientists. Good heavens, I just really hope they build this tall ship, and when they do, that I'm on it helping to share their discoveries online, in ports, worldwide.

This blog post first appeared on A Schooner of Science.

In the news...

2011-12-14T12:51:00.002Z

The Beagle Project has been (like the Beagle 160-odd years ago) in Australia. We made the news.

More on Antipodean developments later.

New guest blogger: Captain Skellett

2011-12-14T01:27:00.001Z

This is the first of what we hope will be several guest posts by Aussie pirate scientist blogger extraordinaire Captain Skellet, who came to our attention in Adelaide two weeks ago during our visit there (more about that shortly).

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Ahoy! Call me Captain Skellett. I’ve been running yonder blog, A Schooner of Science, for two and a half years. My interests include science, sailing and long walks on the beach with a compass and treasure map.

It’s exciting to be invited to guest post on the HMS Beagle Project blog, the greatest nautical science venture (adventure!) that I’ve heard tale of. Just the thought of a tall-ship following the voyage of Darwin, brimming with science reaching ports remote… well it gives me tingles!

We pirates are generalists by trade, so I write about anything that catches my fancy. My background in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular and drug design doesn’t stop me blogging on robots, stars and such suchness. Science art is particularly close to my heart. Here at the Beagle, I’ll keep it to topics that tie into the project, like the deep sea and evolution.

For those so inclined to follow, find me @CaptainSkellett on Twittarrr and on the book of faces. And so, me hearties, join me for a journey of guest posts on this here HMS Beagle Project blog.

About to set sail...

2011-12-12T23:38:00.002Z

Got a reminder this morning from palaeontologist, maritime historian and HMS Beagle aficionado Dr Gordon Chancellor, asking if we were going to mark the 180th anniversary of HMS Beagle's second voyage. He then kindly offered up the vignette below:

Monday December 12^th 2011 is a good date on which to recall that exactly 180 years ago a certain HMS Beagle was lying off Plymouth, waiting for a favourable wind to set off round the world.

On board was a twenty-two year old naturalist who had finished his Cambridge degree that summer. His name was Charles Darwin and he had started to keep a journal of his expedition for his family to read in instalments.

He wrote, once ‘snug and quiet’ back in his small berth in the poop cabin, that there was a heavy swell that day and that he feared sea-sickness. He had been ashore and dined with Sir Manley Dixon, returning to the mother ship after a ‘long and rough pull’, presumably in the dark. Darwin’s day ended at eight bells (midnight) as he turned into his hammock.

More to come...

Beagle Project parish notices

2011-11-21T11:03:00.005Z

The blog has been languishing of late, languishing in a most unseamanlike fashion and that will never do. I have been on paternity leave and turbo-blogger Dr Karen James has very sadly for this Isle been brain drained back to the USA. It's time to play catch up, but it will take a while.

Great Beagle Project things have happened in South America and I will be trying to get a full report from the Beagle People concerned to post here.

In the meantime stalwart friend of the Project Friends of Charles Darwin is now on Google+. Go and give him some BP bloglove.

And science with a smile returns to Radio 4 with a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage hosted by Mediagenic Manc Pop Particle Sci God Brian Cox. Appointment to listen radio. 4.30 pm, R4 today.

Darwin's octopus

2011-10-09T10:50:00.009+01:00

I learn via Michael Barton's The Dispersal of Darwin blog that 8th–12th October have been dubbed Cephalopod Awareness Days. What better excuse do I need to repost this 2009 post from one of my other blogs?

Charles Darwin to John Stevens Henslow (18-May-1832):
St Jago [modern-day Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands] is singularly barren & produces few plants or insects.—so that my hammer was my usual companion, & in its company most delightful hours I spent.—

On the coast I collected many marine animals chiefly gasteropodous (I think some new).— I examined pretty accurately a Caryophyllea & if my eyes were not bewitched former descriptions have not the slightest resemblance to the animal.— I took several specimens of an Octopus, which possessed a most marvellous power of changing its colours; equalling any chamaelion, & evidently accommodating the changes to the colour of the ground which it passed over.—yellowish green, dark brown & red were the prevailing colours: this fact appears to be new, as far as I can find out.

Darwin was hopelessly wrong about the colour-changing ability of octopuses being a new observation. But never mind: the good news is that one of Darwin's St Jago octopuses is still ~~alive and kicking~~ preserved for posterity in Cambridge, and I have photos to prove it:

Darwin's octopus

The accompanying label

New website, new look, new contributor

2011-10-08T04:30:00.001+01:00

Hello again, blogosphere! We have some announcements:

The HMS Beagle Project has a shiny new website, designed by M/A with invaluable input from Beagle Project associates Anna Faherty and Lisa Taylor.
This blog is in the process of being re-skinned to match the new branding. Pardon our mess while we get it all ship shape.
Please welcome our newest Beagle Project blogger Lisa Taylor. *clap clap clap* A lifelong traveler and fan of nature in all its oddity, Lisa has been to a handful of the countries HMS Beagle visited, and plans to explore more. Having worked as a journalist, video producer and project director on five continents, she linked two of them in 2009 by sailing the North Atlantic on a Canadian Navy vessel, and counts good sea-legs as a treasured genetic trait. She now lives in London, sharing her time between the HMS Beagle Project and sustainable housing advocacy.
Lisa Taylor, Beagle Project Administrator and your newest Beagle Blogger.

185 years ago today...

2011-05-22T12:01:00.005+01:00

On 22nd May, 1826, His Majesty's Ship Beagle set sail from Plymouth on a surveying voyage to South America.

Neither Darwin nor FitzRoy were on board. This was Beagle's first voyage. Her more famous second voyage was to begin five years later.

But her first voyage was not without incident: hardship; scurvy; several deaths; the suicide of Beagle's captain, Pringle Stokes; his temporary replacement by Lieutenant Skyring; his official replacement by the 23-year-old Robert FitzRoy, who joined the ship at Montevideo; surveying; the discovery and naming of of the Beagle Channel; the abduction of four young Fuegian natives.

The first Beagle voyage was to establish Robert FitzRoy as an able and talented ship's captain, making him the logical choice to fulfil the same role on what was to become her far more famous second voyage. The need to return the young Fuegians to their homeland was surely a factor in FitzRoy's acceptance of the commission; Stokes's suicide a key factor in FitzRoy's decision to take a gentleman companion on the voyage.

In other words, were it not for the events of the first Beagle voyage, history might have been very different.

The Beagle Project: news and website.

2011-05-20T09:55:00.003+01:00

Pop over to The Beagle Project main website and you will see changes afoot. They are afoot, ahoof, afin and apseudopod (that's enough of that lame gag - Ed) organizationally too.

We are no longer run by three enthusiasts from their respective attics and bedrooms: David Lort-Philips, Karen James and I (with almost immediate help and support from Richard Carter at Friends of Charles Darwin go and join if you haven't) set the project up in our spare time and with our own resources.

However, with the Project gaining great interest and support in South America and arrival of our first large donation there is the need to put things on a more organized, professional footing. We now have scientists of the calibre of Dr. Simon Boxall on the board of trustees and are moving to secure our next lump of funding . The Beagle Project is developing a scientific programme. This is not independent of the ship build, building a new, sailing HMS Beagle remains our main objective.

It hasn't been easy keeping things running during the current economic crisis, and Karen James and David Lort-Phillips have done a fantastic job. I've been preoccupied with an evolutionary project of my own, but am back and excited that the Project is gaining momentum. Too many people have given time and money for the new HMS Beagle not to be built.

The voyage of the Beagle

2011-05-17T23:42:00.005+01:00

reported in the Manchester Guardian. Go read a contemporaneous report.

Beagle Project housekeeping: several member of the BP are in Chile doing Important Things. I will extract a report from them on their return and blog it for all to read. I know you're impatient for updates, but the Project is no longer treading water in the way it has been.

From the Beagle Project blogroll: if you don't go and read this wonderful piece from Deep Sea News about Hans Fricke and his research into the secret lives of coelacanths, you're missing something good. This kind of stuff is what the internets are for.

And congrats to NASA

2011-05-17T12:37:00.004+01:00

for launching Endeavour safely.

Blogging about this from Whitby is particularly poignant because the Shuttle Endeavour was named after the ship in which our local hero James Cook made the first of his circumnavigations. Cook learned his sailing skills in Whitby and Endeavour (the Earl of Pembroke before she was bought into the Royal Navy) was a Whitby-built ship. Cook's first voyage, like the modern Endeavour's last, was of cosmic import - his trip was to observe the transit of Venus acoss the face of the sun. As Cook wrote:

Saturday 3 rd This day prov'd as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Clowd was to be seen the Whole day and the Air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Suns disk: we very distinctly saw an Atmosphere or dusky shade round the body of the Planet which very much disturbed the times of the contacts particularly the two internal ones.

Endeavour's mission is to deliver a mass spectrometer, a high pressure gas tank, two radio antennae and spares for the all-important meteorite shield. Thier mission is at the cutting edge of what is possible just as Cook's was. As they orbit the earth, the crew of Shuttle Endeavour are the living embodiment of Cook's personal motto 'Nil intentatem reliquit'.

Leave nothing unattempted. We wish them all a successful mission and safe return. (Pic the Australian-built replica Endeavour sailing into Whitby.)

For those interested in Beagle's chronometers...

2011-05-17T12:31:00.003+01:00

Wikipedia now has a page up about them.

The fact that Captain Fitzroy carried so many (more than 20, the majority purchased at his own expense) and cherished them so well throughut the voyage is a tribute to the man's rigour and seamanship. The primary purpose of the 1831-36 voyage was not to carry Darwin to fame, but to survey the coast of South America and to 'carry a chain of chronometric measurements' around the world.

Navigation in those days was far more complex than the modern penchent for punching up the GPS, and an accurate chronometer was crucial in calculating longitude. Fitzroy has a dedicated padded cupboard set aside for his stock of chronometers and a crew member appointed to ensure that they were wound.

Darwin's rooms update

2011-04-21T15:04:00.004+01:00

Richard Carter of Friends of Charles Darwin emails (with no triumph whatsoever) to say he has been there, done that and got the photos. He and the Disperal of Darwin's Michael Barton were shown around by John van Whye (no less) who has done such great work with Darwin Online. And rides an echt cool bike.

Writery rooms: Darwin's rooms at Cambridge.

2011-04-21T12:34:00.004+01:00

Charles Darwin was a very modest student at Christ's College Cambridge, suggesting that University performance is no guide to subsequent greatness. While many would consider him a scientist, the conservative UK political journal The Spectator dubs him a writer and includes his rooms at Christ's in their list of quirky or desirable writers' rooms and abodes.

Award for quirkiest writerly abode, meanwhile, is won by Charles Darwin. For Darwin at 200 in 2009, Christ's College, Cambridge made a motherly fuss over Darwin's old college rooms, redecorating the insides to best echo the original right down to chalking in Darwin's name outside the staircase (pictures included on the link above), an act of architectural homage afforded few.

Looking at his bibliography many a person now considered a writer has published far less, but then looking at the grounds of Down House gardeners may equally claim him one of their own. Perhaps we should call him a polymath or renaissence man and have done with pigeonholing him, despite his love of pigeons.

Anyway, for the 2009 Darwin Year bash Christ's titvated the rooms back to their 1820's state and the results can be seen here. According to the biographies, Darwin did lots of hunting and feasting while at Cambridge, while developing his eye for natural history at the point where he was called 'the man who walks with Henslow' (John Stevens Henslow). Darwin's friendship with Henslow was fateful, as it was Henslow who wrote to Robert Fitzroy prevailing upon him to accept Darwin as the Beagle's gentleman scientist. And the rest is (natural) history.

On this day in 1882

2011-04-19T19:48:00.004+01:00

Charles Darwin died. His wife Emma recorded the event in terse diary style:

'fatal attack at 12'

J Smith (bosun's mate, HMS Beagle) would have been proud

2011-04-18T23:43:00.006+01:00

of Andrew Smith (they've got to be related...) of the Indianapolis Smiths for his splendid 1:36 scale radio control model of the Beagle. Do go and have a gander: Mr Smith is recording progress by the week as he builds. He carved the hull from a pear tree bough using an axe. Most gonzo. And most recently disaster has struck as the 2011 Beagle suffered a main mast collapse on her maiden voyage.

Obviously we want to see more Beagles of all sizes in the world, so we here wish Mr Smith well in his rerigging of the Indianapolis Beagle and will be awaiting details of her next voyage.

J. Smith of the 1831 crew should be looking on with approval.

For those who want a model of HMS Beagle and don't have Mr Smith's dedication and skill, Premier Ship Models do a superb HMS Beagle.

So good that one was bought by Simon Keynes, Professor of Anglo Saxon history at Trinity Cambridge who also happens to be a Darwin descendent.

He pronounced himself happy with the result which Beaglers Karen James and I were lucky enough to see in Prof Keynes's rooms in Cambridge.

Popular science book review sites: go look.

2011-04-17T12:38:00.004+01:00

For those of us without the grey matter, patience or Nature subscription to get our science news from primary sources, popular science books are an intellectual lifeline.

As a very average zoology graduate from Liverpool University, I was clicked back onto the wonder of science by Wonderful Life: Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, Stephen Jay Gould's book about the fossils of the Burgess Shale. My shelves now groan with the weight of popular science books and good-looking well-written books like these are absolutely vital in the cultural fight to prove that scientists are not the Einstein-alikes or evil world destroying megalomaniacs so beloved of Hollywood's clichéd screenwrtiting groupthink.

One of science writers on my radar (through my membership of the writers' colony Litopia) is the prolific Brian Clegg. He has done his bit to spread the pop-sci word through his site Popular Science. This site has done the biological thing and reproduced,its offspring being a discussion forum for popular science books, which is here. It's new, it's worthy and I hope Beagle Project supporters will get stuck in. For those of us looking through the bars, good popular science books are a must.

The day we have been working and waiting for: our first six-figure donation!

2011-01-19T02:00:00.002Z

As announced at Science Online 2011, I am delighted to confirm that The HMS Beagle Trust has received a six-figure donation from a private source in the UK. *snoopy dance*

Without naming the source, I will just say she is a committed Darwinist and has a background in politics.

The funding will be used to 1) hire a full-time professional fundraiser and 2) re-launch the project in the form of a new website and new marketing, fundraising and communications mechanisms.

This blog will continue is some shape or form... probably not this form, though; as you will have noticed we've been trailing off for some time as a natural result of changes in our personal and professional lives.

Pre-flight interview with astronaut Mike Barratt

2010-11-04T00:57:00.000Z

As those of you who follow me on Twitter cannot have escaped, I am in Florida for the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. It is that spacecraft's final flight and also Beagle Project collaborator astronaut Mike Barratt's ride back to the International Space Station.

Mike was interviewed in advance of the flight by NASA TV. In the 30-minute interview he talks about his hometown of Camas, Washington, his educational, academic and career development, his experiences in space in 2009 and his hopes for the STS-133 mission:

Interview with Mike Barratt

In Galapagos!

2010-10-19T13:58:00.000+01:00

As those of you who follow me on Twitter cannot help but notice, I am in Galapagos right now, through the 30th of October, accompanying the Wellcome Trust's Survival Rival Winners on their prize trip. What follows below is a description of what we're doing there. It's an identical cross post from our main trip blog, Galapagos Live, so do follow that for the whole story!

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As I noted in my inaugural post here, our little band of Darwin wannabes isn’t just visiting Galapagos… we’re going to try capture our experience the way Darwin did – through notes, ‘specimens’ and prose. Unlike Darwin (and of course this isn’t the only way we’re unlike him), we’re doing this in public and online for all to follow along live.

My proposal — ‘Galapagos 2.0′ — is why I was selected to accompany the four lucky deserving 17-year-old Survival Rivals winners (Becky Hill, Eleri Morgan, Charlotte Woodfield and Jess Woodfield), their teachers (Sue Benjamin and Nicholas Alford) and representatives from the Wellcome Trust (Amy Sanders) and Ignite! (Amy Turner). I guess I’m a kind of guide, if not to Galapagos (as I’ve never been before) then to Darwin, evolution, and the voyage of HMS Beagle.

The proposal’s full title is ‘Galápagos 2.0 Creative science learning and communication in evolution’s spectacular living laboratory’ and the gist is that our little band of Darwin wannabes will be doing what Darwin did in Galapagos. That is, we will capture our experiences, ‘specimens’, thoughts, connections and speculations – not using a pen and a red notebook, but Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

At the end of each day or few days, we will raid our tweets, photos, videos and memory banks and write a short, illustrated blog post (using WordPress). And at the end of the trip, all of this will serve as our source material for our own version(s) of Darwin’s Journal of Researches (better known now as Voyage of the Beagle), an e-Book to be written and published approximately six months after the trip.
Darwin used layers of increasingly formal writing tools — field notebooks & specimens ➙ diary ➙ book — and so will we, except that our technology will be a little different: Twitter, Flickr and YouTube ➙ Blog ➙ e-Book.

So follow us on Galapagos Live but also on Twitter, Flickr and YouTube for the full immersion experience!

For the full proposal (which begins with the sentence, ‘Charles Darwin would have been a blogger.’) in its original PDF format glory, click here.

Richard Livsey (1935-2010)

2010-09-18T19:42:00.005+01:00

It was with great sadness that the Beagle Project learned that Richard Livsey CBE died Wednesday. He was not only a Lib Dem MP for Brecon and Radnorshire for 11 years, leader of the Welsh Lib Dems and, in more recent years, Peer, but also the Beagle Project's first patron.

In his quiet but determined way he did more to open doors and lend encouragement than any other supporter. His death is a great loss to his family, his friends in Wales, and to those like us whose causes he supported.

Beagle Project co-founder, David Lort-Phillips writes:

Some might be surprised to learn that Richard, the farmer and countryman, also had, alongside his interest in jazz, a passion for the sea, exploration and maritime history. He said this sprang from his roots in a seafaring family, in particular the experiences of his master mariner father, who served aboard many vessels carrying cargo between South Wales and ports all over the world. He was the Lib Dem spokesman in the House of Lords on the last government’s Marine Bill, a lengthy and intricate piece of legislation which he studied with the thoroughness he devoted to every task he took on.

As a dairy farmer with a particular interest in rural development, I have known Richard since the 1970’s and regularly attended the Welsh Agricultural College Conferences he led. As a novice I learned much from the deeply researched but practical advice which was a feature of his lectures.

As was the case with all other causes he was drawn to, he worked tirelessly for the Beagle Trust, became its first patron, opened many doors for us and hosted occasions for us at the House of Lords.

The mission of the Trust, to rebuild in modern form the famous little ship which took Darwin around the world, as a resource for science, education and adventure was an idea which clearly caught his imagination. He was never too busy to help, always thanking us for whatever positive information we could pass on to him (often little enough), as if he was the beneficiary of the association rather than the trustee. We will miss him greatly and apply ourselves all the more to realise the vision we shared with him.

Beagle Project in the Guardian

2010-09-15T22:10:00.002+01:00

Many thanks to Alok Jha for inviting me to contribute to the Guardian's science blogging festival. It's great publicity for the Beagle Project as we enter into what I hope will be a good autumn for us, and I have to admit being pretty excited to see my byline on the Guardian's website.

Hello Scientopia

2010-08-02T19:17:00.003+01:00

Via Bora at Coturnix. Readers here probably followed the ructions on Scienceblogs when their Seed overlords allowed PepsiCo to pay to blog on the network.

Several Scibloggers left and have set up a new blogging home at Scientopia, along with some new blogging talent. Pop over and say hi to the new blogs on the block.

Being involved with the Beagle Project

2010-08-01T11:57:00.005+01:00

has led to some strange and wonderful meets and requests. The most recent, which is definitely in the wonderful category, is whether I could find a fragment of James Cook's Whitby-built ship HMS Discovery.

To send into space.

I'm sure the curator of Whitby Museum will greet Monday's request and my explanation with great equanimity.

Or call for the men in white coats to take me away to the local Napoloeon farm for my own safety.

Project update and more FitzRoy

2010-07-22T06:02:00.002+01:00

I've been on sabbatical so am just playing catch-up with my Beagle Project colleagues. Supporters are long overdue a project update and as soon as I have caught up with my Beagle Project fellow directors I'll be posting a while-I've-been-away catch up.

Many thanks to Karen James who has taken up my blogging slack. As readers will know she is being been brain drained home to the US which will in future benefit from her bright scientific lights. We aren't losing her to the Project but Britain generally and its science in particular will be the poorer for her taking her Maine chance.

More on Captain FitzRoy. According to Geekzone the NZ National Institute of Water and Atmospherics has just installed a whopping supercomputer to help with weather forecasting the IBM has been called FitzRoy because:

The supercomputer is called FitzRoy after Robert FitzRoy, a 19th century scientist, surveyor and hydrographer. He captained the Beagle on Charles Darwin’s famous 1831 voyage. He founded the forerunner to the UK Met Office (1854), was the second Governor of NZ from 1843 where he, among other things, insisted that the New Zealand Company pay Maori a realistic price for the land they claimed to have purchased. He was also the first person to do ‘data assimilation’ and produce a ‘weather forecast’.

Good for Roger R and his

2010-07-21T17:47:00.003+01:00

blog Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary.

Roger not only publishes Charles Darwin's diary entries during the Beagle Voyage for our improvement and amusement, he has started adding Captain FitzRoy's journal entries for which this sailor and FitzRoy fan says hurrah.

FitzRoy got Darwin safely around the watery globe in small ship and reading his journals reveals a scientist of no mean ability himself. One of the results I would like from the Beagle Project is that the ship helps enhance the reputation of Captain FitzRoy: he is all too often known as the moody, mentally unstable man who opposed Darwin's theory and eventually killed himself.

That may be so, but as anyone familiar with his story knows, he was a great seaman and his contribution to meteorology alone should assure his place in the history books. A Beagle Project page appreciating FitzRoy is long overdue.

Spain's museum of human evolution

2010-07-17T16:13:00.003+01:00

has a replica HMS Beagle, according to this article in the Irish Times.

The museum's website is here.

We are working flat out to see that the country that gave the world HMS Beagle and all the discoveries that flowed from her decks and crew has a sailing replica of this great ship too. We know times are tight, but if you have £5 million to spare there is little better you could do to help lighten the nationally austere mood than by helping us build and launch a sailing replica of the ship that changed the world.

'Creation' out on DVD in the US

2010-07-16T08:38:00.006+01:00

'Creation' was the film industry's nod to Darwin's 200th anniversary in 2009. As the blurb says:

From director Jon Amiel (The Singing Detective, Entrapment) and writer John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) comes CREATION. A psychological, heart-wrenching love story starring Paul Bettany (A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) as Charles Darwin, the film is based on “Annie’s Box,” (Guardian review here) a biography penned by Darwin’s great-great-grandson Randal Keynes using personal letters and diaries of the Darwin family. We take a unique and inside look at Darwin, his family and his love for his deeply religious wife, played by Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream), as, torn between faith and science, Darwin struggles to finish his legendary book “On the Origin of Species,” which goes on to become the foundation for evolutionary biology.

The film didn't get great distribution in the UK but failed to secure distribution at all in the USA so this is your chance to buy the DVD or download and see 'note perfect' Paul Bettany acting an anguished Darwin. The rather clumsy title refers to the 'creation' of the Origin of Species. If Bettany is half as good as his sub-Darwin performance as the physician and naturalist Steven Maturin character in Master and Commander, the film will be worth it for his performance alone.

Here's what BBC Radio 5 Live's bequiffed film critic Mark Kermode has to say on the matter:

If you've seen it, let us know what you think.

Quiz: but which other boat did Darwin sail on?

2010-07-14T17:27:00.002+01:00

Wiki answers helpfully tells you that Darwin sailed on the Beagle (can anyone have studied science or history at school and emerge not knowing that? Probably, I sometimes think Eeyorishly.) Having done what few mariners have achieved and circumnavigated the globe, Darwin only went to sea twice again in his life.

Where and why? Answers in comments, please.

Spectator's Susan Hill recommends The Voyage of The Beagle

2010-07-13T07:01:00.004+01:00

for summer reading.

The Spectator is a British conservative political magazine and is often a very good read, even if some of its columnists do occasionally get some intelligent designery and antievolution comment through its otherwise rational editorial net.

So good to see writer and Spectator blogger Susan Hill banging the drum for more people to read one of the greats of exploration and science: The Voyage of the Beagle.

Not everyone wants escapism in summer but escape, yes – in 1831 Charles Darwin escaped by sea and wrote a journal about it, The Voyage of the Beagle. If you expect it to be dry as dust scientific prose, you will be astonished at how vivid and fresh it is.. Darwin writes with life and colour. His encounters with all manner of wild life, much of which he promptly kills and preserves in the most non-PC manner, are extraordinary and the people he meets are written about in the same manner – as species under his microscope. This is a great classic true-adventure story.

Another blow to British Maritime Heritage.

2010-07-10T16:22:00.007+01:00

For the last few years, visitors to Whitby would see a town centre graced by the square rigger Grand Turk, a sailing replica of the 20-gun Royal Navy frigate HMS Blandford.

It certainly added something to the town, especially a town which gave so much to maritime exploration: visiting kids would demand that their parents pay to take them on the 'pirate ship' and they would spend a half hour or so marvelling at the masts and rigging, looking along the cannon and making loud broadside noises and shouting 'arrrrr'! (Right: Grand Turk entering Whitby Harbour and firing a cannon salute. The cannon actually blew up when firing this salute.)

Whitby is the maritime home of one James Cook and of many other less celebrated mariners. Cook insisted on Whitby-built ships for his circumnavigations and in the days of sail it was said that Whitby sailors were so zealous and hard working that every ship wanted one aboard. For a small town we have a lot to sailing history to brag about.

Yet the Australians built a the replica of Cook's Endeavour (left seen entering Whitby Harbour). It spent many happy weeks berthed here in Cook's maritime home but eventually, despite lukewarm efforts to keep it in Whitby it is now wowing the crowds and doing fine work in Sydney.

The Grand Turk was its replacement. Turk was a ship without a purpose: built as a film set, its work and income suffered with the introduction of CGI and she became uneconomic. Whitby was happy to offer her a cheap berth since the town was sorely missing a tall ship. She was put up for sale. Again, half-hearted efforts were made to keep her here but one March night, with little fanfare, Grand Turk slipped her Whitby moorings and set sail for her new berth in the bosom of the enemy she was built to fight: France. She will live in St. Malo, Brittany where she will do corporate hospitality, charter and film work.

Australia built and now run the replica Endeavour. France now runs Grand Turk. Another chance to use a sailing ship to inspire and educate a generation of children has slipped through our clumsy and uncaring British fingers.

Our young people need hands that can haul ropes as well as hands that hold games consoles. That's why we need a new Beagle gracing the ports of the UK.

Richard Keynes

2010-07-10T14:38:00.008+01:00

I can't really add anything to Richard Carter's excellent obit of the man and Karen's comments on the wonder that was Richard Keynes' study*. So I'll add an anecdote.

In a previous life I was skipper of a sail training boat in Northern Ireland (a 56' Ohlund aluminium ketch that sailed like a witch for anyone interested in the details).

One of the few books in my cramped skipper's cabin was Richard Keynes' Fossils, Finches and Fuegians, his superb account of Darwin's voyage of the Beagle and its consequences. If you haven't read it, do try to track down a copy.

After a hard day trying to get a bunch of often arsy teenagers to love sailing in the boisterous Irish sea and fixing the boat as it fell apart around me, reading Darwin's cramped and seasick privations on the Beagle put my relatively comfortable seagoing life into perspective.

Until a certain lanky, charming Northern Irish lad (let's call him Eamon) came aboard and while off watch picked up Fossils, Finches and Fuegians and started reading. And didn't stop. 14, he had shown no interest in either science or history but something about Richard Keynes' book grabbed his tripes.

For the next two days has was all but useless as a crew member as his nose could not be removed from the book. He was utterly absorbed, and kept finding me to read extracts. He brought it into the cockpit to read when he was on watch (well he tried to...), he read it while walking around the boat. While on a lively passage from Campbelltown in Scotland to Belfast the boat fell off a wave and Eamon measured his length on the saloon floor with a crash, the book pressed between his stunned face and the heaving deck.

At the end of the voyage he gave me the book back, saying he'd try and buy one because he wanted to finish it. Well, I couldn't let such an obvious seed go unwatered, so I told him to wait a few days and emailed Randal Keynes, one of Richard's sons.

He told me that his father would be delighted to help and a few days later I was able to post Eamon my copy of Fossils, Finches and Fuegians inscribed to Eamon by the author along with a wonderful personal letter encouraging Eamon in his interest in the voyage and science generally.

I later met Richard Keynes along with my Beagle Project colleagues and he was every bit as much of a gentleman as his prompt and personal reply to my request suggested. His work on Darwin's notes and correspondence mean that those of us with an interest in Darwin's work can go right to the source.

We, those of us who value Darwin and his work, owe him a great debt. The world was better for his being and is lessened by his passing. One of the great shames of Darwin year in 2009 was that despite several requests HarperCollins declined to reprint Fossils, Finches and Fuegians. A great pity since no biology class and lab in this country should be without a copy. Who knows how many more Eamons might meet Richard Keynes' great grandfather through its pages, and fall in love with science or want to step aboard a boat and explore the great inner space of our oceans.

* Karen despite her protestations, behaved perfectly well in Richard Keynes' study. I, on the other hand, did just gaze around at the first edition books and original prints like a slack-jawed imbecile.

Beagle Project Blog hiatus (duh)

2010-07-08T08:57:00.005+01:00

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, over the last year or so The Beagle Project Blog has gone from a once-a-day blog to a once-a-week blog to a once-a-month blog. I'd like to think that all blogging hiatuses (hiati?) are planned out in advance but the truth is that sometimes they just happen: life gets in the way, enthusiasm ebbs, twitter scratches the writing itch.

So, at the risk of putting the hart before the corse here, I'm going to make it official: the Beagle Project Blog is on recess until October, when we will be leaping back onto the blogging scene with new energy, a new website, a TAM London presentation, a space shuttle launch and a Darwin and the Adventure reprise in Chile.

In the meantime, follow my tweets, or if you are overwhelmed by my tweet frequency, just my Beagle tweets, and if there's any really big news, we'll break the silence and post. <---shameless ploy to stop you from removing us from your RSS readers

Richard Darwin Keynes (1919-2010)

2010-06-25T11:04:00.000+01:00

Richard Darwin Keynes (1919–2010)
Photo: R.D. Siegel

It was with great sadness that the Beagle Project learned of the death on 12th June 2010 of Richard Darwin Keynes, age 90.

Richard was the great-grandson of Charles Darwin. A Fellow of the Royal Society since 1959, and a former Professor of Physiology at Cambridge University, he edited a number of Darwin's writings, including The Beagle Record, Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary, Charles Darwin's Zoology Notes and Specimen Lists from HMS Beagle, and Fossils, Finches and Fuegians: Charles Darwin's Adventures and Discoveries on the Beagle, 1832–1836. He also co-edited Lydia and Maynard: Letters Between Lydia Lopokova and John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes was born on 14th August 1919, the eldest son of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, MD, FRCP, FRCS, FRCOG, and Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Darwin, KCB. He was educated at Oundle School and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1945 he married Anne Pinsent Adrian, eldest daughter of 1st Baron Adrian, OM, FRS, and Dame Hester Agnes Adrian, DBE, only daughter of Hume C. and Dame Ellen Pinsent, DBE; they had four sons, Adrian (1946–1974), Randal (b. 1948), Roger (b. 1951) and Simon (b. 1952). Both Randal and Simon have been great friends and supporters of the Beagle Project, so our condolences extend especially to them.

During the Second World War, Keynes served as a temporary experimental officer at the Anti-Submarine Establishment and Admiralty Signals Establishment (1940–45), returning to Cambridge after the war to complete his degree. He remained at Trinity College as a Research Fellow between 1948 and 1952, winning the Gedge Prize in 1948 and the Rolleston Memorial Prize in 1950. His career at Cambridge included: demonstrator in Physiology (1949–53); Lecturer (1953–60); Fellow of Peterhouse College (1952–60, and an Honorary Fellow, 1989); Head of the Physiology Department, and first Deputy Director (1960–64), then Director (1965–73); Director of the ARC Institute of Animal Physiology (1965–72); Professor of Physiology (1973–87); Fellow of Churchill College.

Outside Cambridge, Keynes's positions included: Secretary-General of the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (1972–78), then Vice-President (1978–81) and President (1981–84); chairman of the International Cell Research Organisation (1981–83) and the ICSU/Unesco International Biosciences Networks (1982–93); President of the European Federation of Physiological Societies (1991); a Vice-President of the Royal Society (1965–68); Croonian Lecturer (1983); Fellow of Eton College (1963–78); foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy (1971), American Philosophical Society (1977), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978) and the American Physiological Society (1994).

The Beagle Project's Dr Karen James writes:

As you can see from Keynes' long list of accomplishments, he was an accomplished and influential scientist in his own right. His high quality scholarship on his famous forebear therefore only adds to an already impressive scientific resume.

And yet it is this careful and dedicated scholarship that made him so dear to the Beagle Project. I have very fond memories of the day in 2008 that co-director Peter McGrath and I were fortunate enough to meet Richard Darwin Keynes at his home in Cambridge.

The first thing to notice on entering Keynes' study was the sheer number of original Darwin artifacts hanging on the walls, crammed onto bookshelves, piled up on the ample desktop. I can't speak for Peter but it took me a great deal of concentration to stop my eyes rudely wandering around the room... to the original Conrad Martens watercolours... to the several first editions of Origin, to...

But that only lasted for a minute, because Keynes' himself was obviously by far the most engaging thing in the room. Despite his age (then 88), he was talkative and vibrant, and still intensely interested in Charles Darwin - particularly his voyage on the Beagle.

We were honoured to have met him and even more honored to have had his support in our humble endeavour to rebuild the little ship that carried his great-grandfather to great-ness.

Beagle Project to feature at TAM London!

2010-05-21T16:29:00.000+01:00

It's official! I'm giving a short presentation at The Amaz¡ng Meeting, London, October 16-17. Other speakers include James Randi, PZ Myers, Robin Ince, and Stephen Fry. *sweats a little* This is fantastic timing as we're preparing to reboot the Beagle Project around the same time (stay tuned!). Many, many thanks to Skepchicks Rebecca Watson and Tracy King for suggesting and inviting me respectively.


Too bad I'm not in very good company here...

The Beagle Project coming New York City way

2010-04-12T15:23:00.000+01:00

Calling all Beagle Project friends, collaborators and assorted sympathizers in and around the five boroughs:

I'll be in NYC from this Wednesday night through Sunday afternoon should you want to meet up and talk science shop.

The purpose of my trip is the second tree DNA barcoding campaign meeting in as many years, at the beautiful New York Botanical Garden. I'm giving a talk about one of my Natural History Museum projects involving - as the cleverest among you will have guessed - DNA barcoding trees.

Long-time readers (we heart you!) may remember my trip report and photos from the first Tree-BoL meeting in 2008. You may also remember my uber-bad rendition of Sinatra's New York, New York. What can I say? It was my first time to the Big Apple; so what if I went a little overboard? You know you loved it. XOXO

(Yes, that was a Gossip Girl reference.)

A postcard from Cape Horn

2010-03-21T16:17:00.000Z

'I went to Tierra del Fuego in November, and was able to
pay my respects to the Beagle gazing south from Cape Horn...' ~Simon Keynes

Norwich or bust: talking Beagle to kids for National Science and Engineering Week

2010-03-21T13:09:00.004Z

I'll be at the John Innes Centre in Norwich tomorrow for The Voyage of the Beagle, a 'day devoted to Charles Darwin's journey on the Beagle to include exhibitions, display, talks and hands on activities', part of British Association's National Science and Engineering Week.

I'm looking forward to sharing the adventures of a young Charles Darwin aboard HMS Beagle, and our plans to rebuild the Beagle for future young scientists, with around 500 British schoolchildren and members of the public. A beautiful and detailed model of HMS Beagle, commissioned by Simon Keynes and familiar to those who visited the Darwin exhibition at the Natural History Museum last year, will be on display, as will posters, leaflets and video clips about the Beagle Project.

Much kudos to Colette Matthewman, a final year PhD student researching sulphur metabolism in plants at the John Innes Centre, who put the day together and got it funded through an RCUK National Science and Engineering Week Award!

T minus 6 hours to Dr. Kiki's Science Hour

2010-03-11T16:56:00.003Z

I was delighted to meet Dr. Kirsten Sanford, an undisputed member of online science communication royalty, at Science Online '10. I was even more delighted and honoured, too, when she invited me to court: that is, to appear on Dr. Kiki's Science Hour!

Tune in TODAY at 3pm PST/11pm GMT for the live show, or catch it on or after Saturday on twit.tv. There are chat rooms: please do participate!

Darwin writes home about the Concepción earthquake

2010-03-01T18:57:00.004Z

My dear Caroline,
[…] We are now on our road from Concepciòn.— The papers will have told you about the great Earthquake of the 20^th of February.— I suppose it certainly is the worst ever experienced in Chili.— It is no use attempting to describe the ruins—it is the most awful spectacle I ever beheld.— The town of Concepcion is now nothing more than piles & lines of bricks, tiles & timbers—it is absolutely true there is not one house left habitable; some little hovels built of sticks & reeds in the outskirts of the town have not been shaken down & these now are hired by the richest people. The force of the shock must have been immense, the ground is traversed by rents, the solid rocks are shivered, solid buttresses 6–10 feet thick are broken into fragments like so much biscuit.— How fortunate it happened at the time of day when many are out of their houses & all active: if the town had been over thrown in the night, very few would have escaped to tell the tale. We were at Valdivia at the time the shock there was considered very violent, but did no damage owing to the houses being built of wood.— I am very glad we happened to call at Concepcion so shortly afterwards: it is one of the three most interesting spectacles I have beheld since leaving England—A Fuegian savage.—Tropical Vegetation—& the ruins of Concepcion— It is indeed most wonderful to witness such desolation produced in three minutes of time.
— Charles Darwin to his sister Caroline
10–13 March, 1835

A lifetime supply of data

2010-02-21T12:53:00.007Z

Culture 3.0 has an interview with Darwin biographer Janet Browne entitled Darwin Behind the Scenes. One of the questions is about the Darwin's Beagle voyage:

Do you believe that the light bulb went off in [Darwin's] head during the voyage of the Beagle?

You know, I do think that. I think that historians have perhaps swung too far the other way for many years, and believed that it only happens after the voyage. But if we go back and we look at those notebooks, the field remarks that he writes down, his observations in his private diaries, it seems that he was becoming unsettled by the idea of "species".

We see in his notes an intelligent young person thinking through the consequences of what he was reading and what he was discovering, and beginning to formulate big questions. Yes, those big questions only really become answerable when he returns, when what had seemed like simple varieties became species, and he wonders: what kind of creator does such a thing? It was certainly a long process, but what we forget is that the Beagle voyage provided Darwin with a lifetime supply of data to pursue.

In fact, his first publications were in geology, he was a wonderful geologist, and had been places where very few geologists had traveled. We forget that he was also a zoologist, he loved botany, and so he was a very skillful, complete naturalist. Those of us who only read The Origin of Species tend to forget the other aspects of his life. And it’s the voyage of the Beagle that supplies him with that information.

Seems to me we could do with another HMS Beagle to inspire young scientists, and give them a lifetime supply of data with which to work.

[h/t Adrian Thysse]

The Beagle Project on Little Atoms radio and podcast

2010-02-19T23:29:00.008Z

Last Friday, the 12th of February (Darwin's 201st birthday, as it happens), I was interviewed by Skepchick extraordinaire Rebecca Watson and Neil Denny (not a Skepchick) on Little Atoms, a weekly live talk show on Resonance 104.4FM and official podcast of The Skeptic magazine. We talked about my work at the Natural History Museum on Darwin's mockingbirds and DNA barcoding and, of course, about The HMS Beagle Project. You can listen again to the 30-minute interview by downloading it or on iTunes.

From the left: Rebecca Watson, me and Neil Denny live on the air!

Links to projects I mentioned in the interview:

Notes and corrections:

How it is that I failed to say that the mockingbird specimens I worked on were the ones collected by Darwin and Fitzroy, I do not know.
The overall NASA budget wasn't cut, but the Constellation program was canceled.
I tend to say 'tend to' too much

Astronaut Mike Barratt's guest post 'Cosmopithecus' selected for Open Laboratory!

2010-02-12T13:18:00.006Z

Cosmopithecus, the Beagle Project Blog guest post by NASA astronaut and Beagle Project collaborator Mike Barratt, which he wrote during his long-duration flight aboard the International Space Station last year, has been selected for inclusion in Open Laboratory!

Mike emails to say he's really pleased and proud that his post was chosen. He wanted to write more posts during his flight but 'all the electrons were constrained to the mission and medical logs'. Yeah, what a slacker.... oh wait... he says that in addition to the blog post, he also wrote 'a few medical papers' during the flight. You heard that right, readers, he actually kept up his academic publication record while in space! Massive props.

Needless to say, we are honoured to have hosted his guest post and delighted that it's been selected for Open Lab!

Photo: NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 20 flight engineer, holds storage containers with his legs while floating freely in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. NASA photo ISS020-E-021255.

Drift....ing along with the tumbling tumbleweeds

2010-02-12T10:39:00.006Z

Wow. Sorry about that, folks. We probably should have given you some advance warning about what posterity may very well come to call The Great Beagle Project Blog Post Gap of 2010, but, to be honest, we didn't see it coming. In our defense, I've heard this happens to bloggers from time to time... I guess this was our time.

*shakes off cobwebs*

So, what better way to celebrate Charles Darwin's 201st birthday than by reanimating the blog associated with a project that not only celebrates Darwin's legacy but aims to re-live it?

In the coming days and weeks, you can look forward to:

an updated and refreshed side-bar
an updated blogroll
a new series of posts called 'And now, the news' that will keep you up to date with Beagle Project information, status and activities
a consolidation of labels, to help you navigate our archive and find what you're looking for
last but not least, regular posts!

Happy Darwin Day!

There is grandeur in this view of life

2010-01-07T00:50:00.002Z

...and Symphony of Science has neatly captured that sentiment in their latest video, The Unbroken Thread:

The Beagle Project is back online

2009-12-30T16:52:00.004Z

It's alive, UHLIIIIVE! The Beagle Project domain that is. Sorry for the week-long black-out. Service is now restored and our website and email are up and running again. *blots forehead with hankie*

The bad news is that all emails to addresses ending '@thebeagleproject.com' during the last week were bounced back. If you have tried to email one of us during the period 22-29 December, please do re-send now. Thanks for your patience.

Domain is down/open thread

2009-12-27T21:47:00.002Z

Our website is down, including all emails ending @thebeagleproject.com. We're working on it, but for now please communicate with us in one of the following ways:

Leave a comment under this post, which will serve as an open thread for project communication until the domain is back up.
If you're on twitter, send a mention or direct message to @beagleproject
Email me here.

Year-end post coming soon...

178 years ago today

2009-12-27T13:36:00.003Z

As opening lines to great adventure stories go, it's one of the best:

After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.

Brings a lump to my throat every time I read it.

'In a moment overthrown'

2009-12-11T18:22:00.005Z

Darwin's first big theory wasn't evolution by natural selection, it was a mechanism for the formation of coral reefs and atolls. The story of Darwin and corals is beautifully narrated by David Dobbs in his book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which I'm nearly finished reading now and plan to review here later.

Today I'm writing to add our support to the global call for action to save coral reefs from extinction by climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and overfishing:

Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen from Earth Touch on Vimeo.

Watching this I couldn't help recalling how, at the end of his Journal of Researches (a.k.a. The Voyage of the Beagle), Darwin wrote,

'Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld, may be ranked the stars of the southern hemisphere—the water-spout—the glacier leading its blue stream of ice in a bold precipice overhanging the sea—a lagoon island raised by the coral-forming polypi—an active volcano—and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake. The three latter phenomena, perhaps, possess for me a peculiar interest, from their intimate connexion with the geological structure of the world. The earthquake must however, be to every one a most impressive event : the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the most beautiful and laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.'

That last thought is especially poignant now that we are seeing the most beautiful and laboured works of nature in a moment overthrown.... by us.

We'll need sailing vessels, Part II (repost)

2009-12-11T13:47:00.000Z

Originally posted on 9 January, 2008.

In Part I of this post I wrote about an important but oft overlooked message to be carried by the new Beagle: that a return to sailboats as a viable form of transportation is an essential piece of the climate-saving puzzle.

Today, I stumbled upon this BBC video hilariously entitled Ship using 'sail' technology, with sail in quotes, just like that, as if the BBC thought its readers might not be sure what sails were for.

My laughter turned to cheers, however, when I watched the video, which reports that the first cargo ship to harness wind power in more than a century is going to sail across the Atlantic this year.

'The age of sail may not be past,' it begins. 'In the age of climate change, windpower is making a remarkable comeback.'

According to the video, the new merchant ship is equipped with something called a SkySail, a high-tech 160 square-metre kite that will deliver 20% savings in CO2 emissions and fuel costs, which is equivalent to $1600 US Dollars per day.

The video ends by echoing the hopes of SkySail's developers, that the SkySail's maiden voyage will 'herald a new age of sail'.

SkySail in action

Why we need a new Beagle (reason 4,283)

2009-12-09T16:07:00.004Z

Edward O. Wilson on a recent Guardian Science Extra podcast (quote begins at 11:27):

You couldn't duplicate Darwin today. We have lots of young men and women now with comparable dedication, but they can't develop the way that Darwin did. There is no equivalent opportunity like the voyage of the Beagle.

Not yet, Prof. Wilson.

Not yet.

We'll need sailing vessels (repost)

2009-12-09T13:42:00.001Z

Originally posted on 9 April 2007.

"If we want to make it to the future, we'll need sailing vessels" writes Dmitry Orlov of Boston, Massachusetts in the second of a trio of can-do environmental citizenship stories from Orion Magazine's new department Making Other Arrangements.

By "make it to the future", Orlov means maintenance of a functional civilisation in an environmentally sustainable future. Sailboats will figure heavily, Orlov argues, and in doing so he reminds us that a 21st Century Beagle should fly the flag for more than just science.

"Sailors and their ships run on food and water and wind—all renewable" writes Orlov. "Sailboats can be made from renewable materials as well: wood, hemp, flax, and pitch ... the trends that will once again make sailing a viable form of transportation are already in place."

Always a rich source of segues, Orion this month offers up yet another Beagle aim. In "Leave No Child Inside" (for those who understandably tune out American politics, this is a play on George Bush's No Child Left Behind strategy that many argue leaves plenty of children behind), Richard Louv paints an achingly appealing picture of a future in which children and nature are reconnected as a central function of education.

"Such a future is embodied in the nature-themed schools that have begun sprouting up nationwide," writes Louv, "like the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center Preschool, where, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in April 2006 'a 4-year-old can tell the difference between squirrel and rabbit tracks—even if he can’t yet read any of the writing on a map.'"

And so should be the Beagle: a floating nature-themed school that gets youngsters outside and fosters their native intelligence of nature amongst other virtues. And on these I'll give Orlov the last word: "The culture of sailing is rich, ancient, and largely intact. It is also a culture that fosters competence, fitness, self-reliance, and courage, which are all sadly missing from the world we see around us."

The new Beagle won't just promote science-based action on climate change, she'll embody it

2009-12-07T12:31:00.008Z

A Greenpeace vessel floats offshore to welcome flights arriving at Copenhagen airport (Kreutzmann Nanna/AP).

As anyone not locked in a closet knows, a certain climate change summit is taking place this week in Denmark. There's already lots being written and even more said about it, so we just want to add this one thing: sails, people.

Hopenhagen, they're calling it, and that's just what we're all doing: hoping it's successful. But at The Beagle Project we also believe that hope isn't enough. We all need to take action on climate change, not just look to politicians. And so I give you our climate change pledge:

The new Beagle will:

be a research platform to investigate climate change (and its inextricable link to biodiversity change)
carry the urgent message of the need for climate action to audiences literally around the world
celebrate her namesake's captain Robert Fitzroy who founded the science of weather forecasting (he coined the term 'forecast'), established the use of the then-new telegraph to transmit weather reports so that storm warning cones could be raised in ports saving countless lives and established the Met Office, today a leader in climate change science
embody the commitment to climate action by traveling mainly under the power of that greenest of green energy sources - wind

Be on the lookout for reposts this week on the contributions sailing vessels can make to solving the climate crisis.

On Origin's anniversary, it's time for some legacy-thinking

2009-11-24T19:51:00.000Z

150 years ago today John Murray published Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. This is the last of three Darwin anniversaries spanning 18 months, a period of celebration we've been calling Darwin200 here in the UK.

For me, as both director of science for this here Beagle Project and also the science coordinator for the Natural History Museum's Darwin200 campaign, it's been pretty much all Darwin all the time for the entire time. I confess to having succumbed a little to Darwin fatigue – I don't get quite as excited as I used to at the sight of a First Edition of On the Origin of Species for example, and I worry that any Darwin-related projects or stories proposed for the next few years will suffer from unfair backlash ('Oh this is a Darwin project? Wasn't the anniversary in 2009?').

And this has got me thinking: what will be the legacy of these celebrations? What, if anything, have we done that will have a lasting effect on the academic and/or public consciousness? Some of the Darwin200 projects have involved permanent installations – Andrew Smith's young Darwin statue at Christ's College in Cambridge is a literally gleaming example – but many more have been of a more ephemeral sort: conferences, plays, musical performances, special exhibitions, etc. As good as these have been, they're over now.

One solution is to immediately embark on yet another commemoration, another 'Year of [insert scientist's name or scientific discipline here]'. Directly on the heels of Darwin200, many of that group's partners will be smoothly transitioning to the International Year of Biodiversity. But if I've learned one thing from Darwin200 it's that it will be over before we know it. It's time for some legacy-thinking. By that I mean creative thinking – and action to go with it – about how to capture and extend the momentum of these commemorations beyond their sell-by dates.

We believe that The Beagle Project, though indeed initiated during the build-up to 2009, will bear Darwin's legacy well into the future, without hinging on any special day, month, year or even decade. Our vision is a project that will generate and maintain enthusiasm for science and the natural world not only by commemorating the achievements of the past but by creating the opportunity for new adventures and the discoveries that will change our future.

Saving Darwin's Muse: Update! With data!

2009-11-18T03:37:00.006Z

Remember Darwin's mockingbirds? Last year I was all excited about getting to extract DNA from the specimens Darwin and Fitzroy collected on Floreana in Galápagos in 1835. Well the paper reporting the results of the DNA study will be published today in Royal Society's Biology Letters and it's already been covered by The Times, the BBC and Conservation Magazine's Journal Watch (so far... I will add more here if and when they appear). The Natural History Museum press release is here.

It's an exciting day, to see this project published, and I'm delighted about the coverage, not least about how it can highlight the bird's conservation status and efforts underway to protect its long-term survival.

The only thing about this that makes me a little bit uncomfortable is that these articles focus a lot on me, when, in fact, as I said in my first post on the topic, I am but a tiny player in a large, multi-layered research and conservation project. Particular mention must be made of Paquita Hoeck, a PhD student in Lukas Keller's research group at the Zoological Museum of the University of Zurich, who is first author on the paper and is doing a much larger genetic analysis of Galápagos mockingbirds which includes hundreds of specimens from Gardner-by-Floreana and Champion – both historic specimens and birds they captured live and sampled on site over the last few years. Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation are developing a conservation programme for Floreana, and the Bird Group at The Natural History Museum in Tring, where the mockingbird specimens are held, were instrumental in providing access to the specimens and dissecting the tissue samples.

So what did I do then? As the NHM's Darwin200 science coordinator I facilitated the inclusion of the 1835 specimens in the project, I helped write the paper, and in terms of the research itself I did DNA extractions and microsatellite amplification reactions on the NHM specimens in parallel with Paquita to ensure that the data generated in Zurich were indeed from the two historic specimens and not the result of contamination.

Update: the latest piece, in Conservation Magazine's Journal Watch, interviews Lukas Keller. Hurrah!

Darwin and the Adventure: media linkfest

2009-10-14T18:34:00.007+01:00

At long last, I have got a leg up on the rigging (right) and written the first of several blog posts recapping our recent trip to Brazil for our British Council funded science, education and outreach extravaganza called Darwin and the Adventure.

This post will archive all the known links to media, blog posts, images and video to come out of the project. As it's an archive, I ~~may~~ will update it from time to time with more links so if you notice anything missing (bloggers, don't be shy), please let me know in comments and I will add it.

To start off with here's the overview I wrote for our press release:

In September, 2009, two hundred years after Darwin's birth, 20 marine research scientists from around South America, the UK and the USA, representatives from The HMS Beagle Project and NASA, and 60 local schoolchildren will gather in Paraty [pronounced Par-a-CHEE] (right) on the Costa Verde (Green Coast) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (source: Wikipedia) to:

Celebrate: During Charles Darwin's bicentenary year, the programme will promote the modern scientific legacy of his historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle.
Discuss: The British Council Darwin Now Network will convene for a one-day scientific workshop will be held to discuss the potential for modern science in a new age of sail. In particular, the discussions are meant to underpin a second more intensive scientific expedition using a new tall ship modeled on HMS Beagle for operation around the world in the path of the 1831-1836 voyage, including further research around Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius and South Africa.
Sail: Participants will undertake two half-day voyages to establish the feasibility of modern scientific techniques aboard a traditionally rigged tall ship, the Tocorimé (Spirit of Adventure).
Connect: Ship-to-space scientific and educational connections will be made with astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a demonstration project for the planned collaboration between the station and the new Beagle NASA and The HMS Beagle Project
Learn: Approximately 60 local schoolchildren will participate in educational activities around the programme, including the opportunity to speak directly to astronauts aboard the ISS.
Promote: Media involvement will be invited to promote Darwin's legacy, marine science and conservation, the history and future of science under sail, and the unique whole-earth scientific collaborations possible with the International Space Station.

So that was before... what about after? Here I give you the results of my exhaustive but admittedly amateur search for all of the content to come out of our 'party in Paraty' as we came to call it:

Mainstream media coverage:
TV Brasil
RioSulNet televisão
Terra Brasil
SRZD
El Nacional
Tal Cual (pdf)
Duke University Press Release

Blog posts (English):
Deep Sea News 1
Deep Sea News 2
Deep Sea News 3
Deep Sea News 4
Deep Sea News 5
Cephalopodcast
ISS Fan Club

Blog posts (Portuguese):
Instituto Sangari
Derrubando Barreiras
DC Una-SE Um Novo Tempo
Blog Carioca
Ideias
Reporter Aventura
Mundo Eco
Ciencia Hoje

Photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

[If the Flickr widget above doesn't work, click here.]

Videos:

Brazil round-up: coming soon

2009-10-07T13:50:00.003+01:00

As some of you will know, we recently went to Brazil and, as some of you will wonder, this blog has been pretty quiet about it. Please rest assured that this is not because the whole trip wasn't covered in science, outreach and education-flavoured awesomesauce, but rather because I'm snowed under to an epic degree and still trying to process it all. I will have a full report for you soon, but until then here are a few things to keep you busy:

visit Deep Sea News where Kevin Zelnio has done a much more admirable job covering the event in a timely manner than I have
see our Flickr group for the event
watch me climb the Tocorime's rigging on YouTube

Mike Barratt landing in Kazakhstan on Sunday morning

2009-10-07T13:42:00.004+01:00

NASA astronaut (and Beagle Project collaborator) Mike Barratt will land this weekend in Kazakhstan following seven busy months aboard the International Space Station, but he won't be grounded for long, as he's just been assigned to the final flight of the Space Shuttle, scheduled for the end of 2010!

I've had the great pleasure and honour of speaking to Mike several times by phone while he's been aboard the station and I can tell you that while he's looking forward to coming home and seeing his family, he will miss life on station, especially the views of Earth from up there, of which he never grows tired.

Watch a live on NASA TV:

October 9, Friday

3 - 3:15 p.m. - Expedition 21/20 Change of Command Ceremony

October 10, Saturday

5:30 p.m. - ISS Expedition 20/Spaceflight Participant Farewells and Hatch Closure (Farewells and Hatch Closure scheduled at 6 p.m.)
8:45 p.m. - ISS Expedition 20/Spaceflight Participant Undocking from ISS (Undocking scheduled at 9:05 p.m.)
11:15 p.m. - ISS Expedition 20/Spaceflight Participant Deorbit Burn and Landing in Kazakhstan (Deorbit burn scheduled at 11:36 p.m.; Landing scheduled at 12:28 a.m. Oct. 11)

(Eastern time)

Mike Atherton hits it out of the ground on The Origin.

2009-10-07T09:00:00.004+01:00

An article in today's (London) Times looks at four writers' science epiphanies. It's a good read and instructive to see how the scientific scales dropped from formerly indifferent eyes.

Cricketer Mike Atherton's contribution particularly made me cheer, even before coffee. Atherton was a superb batsman who had the misfortune to captain the England cricket team when we were a particularly indifferent, cross-eyed malco-ordinated outfit regularly pummeled by all comers. But on science he times it beautifully off the bat and cover drives it for a four...

In our house, David Attenborough is a living god and it is to the great man that I defer most of my children’s questions through his wonderful documentaries. It is hard to think that there is a better living broadcaster: expertise, lightly worn, combined with unbridled, childlike enthusiasm and a lovely, warm voice makes him the perfect conduit between ignorance and scientific knowledge.

His recent programme, Charles Darwin and the Tree of Lifewas epic television. It made me realise that you cannot go through life having not read the most important scientific book ever, and so On the Origin of Species is lying by my bedside.

No hang on, he slogs it brutally a out of the ground for a 6:

After all, you wouldn’t want your son growing up as a loony creationist, would you?

Damn right Mike.

(For our American readers who may not get the cricket references: hitting a '4' means that the batsman hits the ball to the boundary but it bounces at least once on the way. The cover-drive is a particularly elegant batting shot. Hitting a 6 means that the batsman really gives it some humpty and wallops the ball clean over the boundary rope.)

Beagle logbooks to provide climate data...

2009-10-06T10:34:00.005+01:00

the logbooks of HMS Beagle are among those being used in retrospective climate studies according to a report on the BBC News website. The hourly records of weather observations made by the ship's senior officers may give researchers clues as to past climate.

The project will also digitize the logbooks, providing Darwin and Beagle scholars with another rich vein of information: the logbooks will be on the National Archives website next year.

This is a bit of kicker, since it's something I'd hoped we'd be able to do as part of the Beagle Project, but anything that puts more Beagle information in the public domain and brings Captain FitzRoy further to public attention is welcome here.

The homepage for the CORRAL Project is here.

The Times: Captain Cook's weather logs help scientists predict climate changes (Beagle gets a passing mention.)

Science role models at the British Science Festival ...via Second Life

2009-09-07T13:28:00.001+01:00

Tonight at 6pm I will be a panelist in a discussion on science role models and inspiring the next generation of scientists. In true-to-science form, the event, hosted by the UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), will feature an evidence-based approach: introspection about how we ourselves got interested in science will be our platform for exploring how to inspire others.

The event takes place at the British Science Festival in Guildford, Surrey, but the other panelists and I will be participating via Second Life from a BIS office in Westminster (and you can too--sign up here).

I've dabbled in Second Life before: I gave a presentation on Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle for the launch of Nature's Second Life exhibit Notes from the Voyage (screen capture at right shows a virtual HMS Beagle and my avatar, K2 Snowpaw), and I used Second Life to attend Science Online London 2009 when I was stuck at home with the 'flu. So I'm looking forward to having another go.

I'm also looking forward to seeing my co-panelist and fellow UK Science Tweetup regular the great Dr. Andrew Maynard of Twitter, Mashable and 2020Science fame.

Andrew is way ahead of me in terms of online preparation and build-up; he's written a fantastic blog post in advance of the event called "Hooked on science: ten things that inspired me to become a scientist" ...so fantastic in fact that I've nominated it for inclusison in Open Laboratory 2009.

Though I haven't written down my own thoughts (yet!), I have at least marshalled them and am looking forward to sharing them with the audiences in Guildford and Second Life and exploring how we can better enthuse people about science!

Charles Darwin to be on the Fourth Plinth!

2009-09-06T18:00:00.000+01:00

The Fourth Plinth, on the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square in London, was built in 1841 but was never topped with a statue (insufficient funds, apparently). In 1999, the Royal Society of Arts started the Fourth Plinth Project, which commissioned a succession of works by contemporary artists. More recently, the Greater London Authority has become responsible for the plinth and has started a new series of exhibitions.

From 6 July - 14 October 2009 Antony Gormley's One & Other occupies the plinth; for a hundred consecutive days, 2,400 selected members of the public will each spend one hour atop the plinth doing whatever they feel like doing, and it will all be streamed live. According to Gormley, the point is to 'elevate of everyday life to the position formerly occupied by monumental art'.

Some of us Darwin groupies (stand up and be counted, peeps!) were kind of hoping that Charles Darwin's statue - perhaps even this one - might be selected for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth during 2009 to mark the bicentenary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. Alas, our dream was crushed by Gormley's selection.

Or was it?

In an event the British Humanist Association has called the Ascent of Darwin ...onto the Plinth, today, in fact, RIGHT NOW, Charles Darwin will occupy Gormley's plinth for one hour. He will answer questions posted to the twitter account @QuestionDarwin.

Beards 'n' Bowlers: a flashmob proposal

2009-09-04T19:29:00.000+01:00

First, a bit o' backstory. The UK Science Tweetup is a quasi-regular meeting of scientists and sci-curious tweeps (twitter + peeps, in case you were wondering) in London, usually on a weekday evening at a pub. The tweetups are organised and followed-up using a hashtag; anyone interested in the tweetups just need bookmark and/or subscribe to a twitter search for #ukscitweetup. All welcome.

Anyways, a fellow #ukscitweetup regular @ayasawada suggested a science flashmob and then @rpg7twit, @steinsky and I jumped on the idea and agreed to discuss it a bit more at the next #ukscitweetup (which I think is happening during and after the Lord Drayson-Dr. Goldacre debate at the Royal Institution on the 16th of September).

I've given it some occasional thought, wondering if we should do some kind of cool citizen-science project like a London bioblitz, but flashmob style, but nothing had really crystallised until...

I saw @QuestionDarwin's very cute Darwin emoticon complete with bowler hat and beard and then...

BOOM into my brain came 'Beards 'n' Bowlers', a flashmob to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species on November 24th, 1859.

The idea is that at an appointed time of day (perhaps 18:59?) on Tuesday, the 24th of November, in a large, public space* with plenty of unsuspecting commuters mixed in with all of us in-the-know flashmobbers, we will suddenly don bowler hats and/or fake beards, open our copies of On the Origin of Species (1st Ed.) and, at some signal, and perhaps following along with someone with a loudspeaker, we will recite, in unison, the last few sentences:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

After which, everyone removes their props and disperses.

After the initial giggling came a bit more thinking, and a problem started to bother me: where are people going to get bowler hats? Will not having an easy source of bowler hats and/or beards be a deterrent? So I did some googling (as one does) and was delighted to find Bring Back Bowler Hats, the blog/website of Bowler Hat Day 2009. I kid you not: on Friday 13th February, 2009, half a million City workers (okay maybe not quite all of them) went to work in bowler hats. The event was even covered in the Financial Times.

As I guess you might expect of City-folk, they solved the whence-bowler-hats problem in fashionable and profitable style. They convinced not one but three bowler-hat suppliers to donate 10% of their bowler hat sales to their selected charity, SOS Children 's Villages. Their suppliers were http://www.hatsandthat.com/ , for fancy dress felt http://www.madworldfancydress.com/ on Tabernacle Street in the City, or plain old plastic www.onlinejokeshop.co.uk (though we frown on plastic here at the Beagle Project).

So I've sent an email to the address posted on Bring Back Bowler Hats asking them if they want to collaborate with The Beagle Project Blog in this special bowler hat flashmob honouring Charles Darwin and benefitting two charities: The HMS Beagle Project and the Galapagos Conservation Trust. I have yet to receive a reply...

*It can't be the Natural History Museum as it closes its doors at 18:00 - perhaps Charing Cross Station as that's where Darwin would have alighted when he traveled from London from his home in Downe, Kent?

Send a Grrl to Antarctica

2009-09-02T20:51:00.004+01:00

Earlier this summer, we endorsed Beagle Project supporter and science blogger GrrlScientist in a competition to become the official blogger on a trip to Antarctica.

With one month to go, Grrl is in third place, but climbing fast. If you are lacking the motivation to spend the ten seconds or so it takes to vote for Grrl, please consider that in second place is Donny Osmond's son, who is receiving voting support from his father (that world-renowned authority on science communication) and from the Mormons (that world-renowned authority on science communication). If Don wins, we can expect the following gems from Antarctica (excerpted from his contest entry):

Every moment of every breath is a gift give to us, which we should embrace. Live life in crescendo. … Life is a journey, not a destination. Those who embrace this mantra find happiness and adventure in every facet of life.

So there's your reason to vote against Don Osmond, but why should you vote for Grrl? Grrl's been blogging longer than the other contestants - and the thing is, she's good. She's demonstrated for years that she represents and promotes our values (science, conservation, environmentalism) through clear, knowledgeable writing. Her mystery bird series is a reader favourite - and, my friends, it is in need of some penguins!

Follow this link to vote for Grrl.

And remember, one vote per email address (and who has just one?).

Ah, how I love the smell of a fresh PhD in the morning

2009-08-28T20:51:00.004+01:00

If you happen to hear the sound of wild applause coming from the direction of London, that'd be me, giving the newly minted PhD, one Dr. Peter Etnoyer, friend, Beagle Project supporter and blogpeep, a standing ovation.

Peter just finished his doctorate at Harte Research Institute, which he said was his 'best job ever'. Peter's skipping straight over the post-doc (wow!) and starting a 'real job' next month with JHT, Inc. working 'in support a deep-sea coral research program at NOAA’s Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, SC'. The job apparently includes advising on a deep-sea aquarium, which will be a good outlet for Peter's talent for public engagement, since blogging is apparently 'not compatible' with his new gig.

Best of luck in your new job, Peter! You do good by the oceans, and for that we thank you.

The Beagle Project goes to Brazil

2009-08-25T18:47:00.007+01:00

Get ready, readers, blog peeps, space tweeps, and all our fans out there because The HMS Beagle Project is about to get its feet wet!

Regular readers may remember my announcement in March that we had been funded by the British Council Darwin Now Network to hold a scientific workshop and 'science under sail' feasibility study in Paraty, Brazil.

I am now in the position to divulge some detail:

When: September 20th-23rd, 2009

Where: Paraty, Brazil (see map below) and aboard the Brazilian Tall Ship Tocorimé (right)

What: A scientific workshop on the potential of doing modern oceanographic and biological research aboard a sailing ship such as on the voyages planned for the new Beagle and a feasibility study consisting of two day science cruises aboard the Tocorimé. The day-cruises will be coordinated with overhead passes of the International Space Station, where astronaut Mike Barratt (a.k.a. Cosmopithecus) will be photographing our position as a test-run for our future planned scientific collaborations. Hopefully, Mike will also be speaking with us live via ham radio, when, in addition to testing our ship-to-space connections he will be answering the questions of local school children in Paraty!

Who:
~20 marine scientists from around South America
from the HMS Beagle Trust: Me! ...and Beagle Project co-founder David Lort-Phillips
from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton: Dr. Simon Boxall, oceanographer and collaborator on the brilliant Cape Farewell project (Note: Dr. David Billett, Co-Chair Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems Group at NOCS cannot join us in Paraty but he deserves a big mention as he is the Principal Investigator on this project and has done an enormous amount of work on the science and logistical side)
from tall ship Tocorimé: Markus Lehman and Adriana Perusin
from NASA: (alas, Dr. Susan Runco, Earth Remote Sensing Scientist of NASA's Image Science and Analysis Group can't join us - her replacement has yet to be named)
...and last but most certainly not least, Kevin Zelnio of Deep Sea News has kindly agreed to serve as our research technician!

View Larger Map

Formal press release coming soon but I wanted you all to be the first to know!

The new Beagle: a flagship for science in a new age of sail

2009-08-21T18:54:00.015+01:00

Note: this is a longer version of my recent Letter to the Editor published early online in Zoologica Scripta (doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2009.00403.x). As long as I tell you that the 'definitive version' is available here, I am entitled by Wiley-Blackwell 'to use all or part of the article, without revision or modification, in personal compilations or other publications of [my] own work'. To comply with 'all or part...without revision or modification', I quote whole blocks of the article without revision below in italics. -KJ

The new Beagle: a flagship for science in a new age of sail

SIR – Your Special Issue, ‘In Linnaeus' Wake: 300 Years of Marine Discovery’ (Zoologica Scripta 38: Suppl. 1, February 2009) encompassed both the history of maritime scientific exploration and its enduring legacies. Impressive marine and terrestrial specimen hauls from three centuries of scientific voyaging, largely under sail, underpinned major scientific advances not least Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

‘Science in the age of sail’ came to a gradual end between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, as sails were first combined with and ultimately replaced by coal-fired steam and then diesel engines—an irony considering that the historic specimens collected on such voyages would ultimately be seen as useful to establish pre-industrial baselines for climate change research.

While a changing source of energy for maritime transport signaled the end of the 'sail' in 'science under sail', the 'science' also suffered setbacks. After a brief but intensive period of specimen collecting on diesel powered expeditions (such as the Discovery expeditions), ocean voyages for scientific discovery under all modes of propulsion declined as research funding was diverted to post-war explorations of both outer space and also the inner space of the cell.

Contrary to public perception, expedition-based science did not decline because the task of species discovery was completed: though 1.8 million species have been discovered and named this figure is estimated to represent only 1-10% of the true total. Moreover, marine organisms are under-represented; the diversity of marine life is still largely unknown to science, especially in the deep sea, of which a smaller percentage has been explored than of the surface of the moon. Exacerbating this dearth of marine knowledge are the increasing threats of climate change and habitat loss, coupled with a decline of taxonomic expertise and resources called the ‘taxonomic impediment’.

The need for a new age of discovery science

There is international recognition that the time is ripe for a reinvigoration of expeditionary science, with a particular emphasis on marine environments. The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans, (POGO) was created in 1999 “by directors and leaders of major oceanographic institutions around the world to promote global oceanography, particularly the implementation of an international and integrated global ocean observing system” (www.ocean-partners.org). POGO makes a case for extensive and sustained oceanic observation, research and modeling – a case which is echoed in a themed issue of Nature (450; 2007) on “Earth Monitoring” and the accompanying online special, “Earth Observation” (http://tinyurl.com/mvp9bg), which calls for the ‘patching together' of a complete worldview that unites Earth observations from space with ground- and ocean-based exploration and monitoring.

Today, wine; tomorrow, science

Since the aim of a new era of discovery and monitoring is to understand and mitigate the effects of climate change and habitat loss on biodiversity and other complex Earth systems, there is both a real and a symbolic benefit to conducting these explorations a way that minimises environmental damage.

Sail-power is already making a comeback in the cargo industry. After nearly a hundred years of fossil fuel-driven shipping, the first transatlantic voyage to be (once again) augmented by high-tech sail power has just been successfully completed; the so-called SkySail delivered an average fuel savings of 20% on the journey. The use of traditional sailing ships for the movement of goods is also being revived, as marked by the first shipment of Bordeaux wine to Dublin aboard the 170-foot brig Belem in February of this year.

That's very well for wine, but what of science? Though a few private sailing vessels have already been used for modern scientific exploration, such as J. Craig Venter’s Sorcerer II and the Oceanographic Research Vessel Alguita, a symbolic sailing ship to mark the beginning of science in a new age of sail has not yet materialised.

The new Beagle

The HMS Beagle Project (www.thebeagleproject.com) is raising funds to rebuild HMS Beagle to serve as a charismatic flagship for science in a new age of sail. After she is built, the new Beagle will circle the world in Darwin's wake, making similar landfalls. She is not intended to be a museum ship; she will be equipped with modern laboratories and equipment to support a series of researcher-led marine and terrestrial projects as well as continuous collections of samples for DNA barcoding (www.barcoding.si.edu) and metagenomics (Nature Reviews Genetics 6, 805; 2005).

As formally established in a signed International Space Act Agreement with NASA, scientists aboard the new Beagle will collaborate with astronauts aboard the International Space Station on biodiversity and climate change research. Ocean surface water samples for biological assessment will be time-stamped for correlation with images taken from space. These images will enable the visible characteristics of plankton blooms and other biotic phenomena as seen from space to be ground-truthed by real measurements from the ship.

Charles Darwin improvised the first plankton collecting apparatus aboard HMS Beagle in 1832 which he wrote “is a bag four feet deep, made of bunting, & attached to semicircular bow this by lines is kept upright, & dragged behind the vessel. — this evening it brought up a mass of small animals, & tomorrow I look forward to a greater harvest” and, the next day, “I am quite tired having worked all day at the produce of my net. — The number of animals that the net collects is very great & fully explains the manner so many animals of a large size live so far from land. — Many of these creatures so low in the scale of nature are most exquisite in their forms & rich colours. — It creates a feeling of wonder that so much beauty should be apparently created for such little purpose.”

Today, the source of Darwin's wonder is under threat by anthropogenic change. An essential part of diminishing this threat is increasing public awareness and inspiring mitigating action from personal to global scales. Thus the new Beagle’s public engagement and formal learning capacities are equally if not more important than her science capacity.

The attraction of a famous tall ship – even a replica of one – is exemplified by the fact that 300,000 people visited the replica of the Swedish Ship Götheborg (right, towering above yours truly) during her voyage to China, and 2 million visited the exhibition site, with a total media coverage value of €300 million.

The original Götheborg was one of many ships that bore Carl Linnaeus' so-called 'disciples' around the world on their seminal voyages of discovery, and the physicality of climbing aboard the replica Götheborg brings those journeys to life in a way that no written history can.

Just as Linnaeus and his apostles had a double mission to spread the ‘gospel’ of the new botanical principles and collect empirical data so the new Beagle will have a double mission of multi-disciplinary science and inspiring public engagement with – and action to protect – global biodiversity and climate stability.

Taueret: wearable art in support of the Beagle Project

2009-08-20T14:30:00.004+01:00

We are delighted to be able to add another name to our list of artists who support the Beagle Project with a portion of their proceeds.

Taueret (blog, twitter) makes 'a range of handmade jewelry and other wearable art that celebrates nature, science and rationality' which she sells in her Etsy shop, The Long Legged Fly ('wear your smart on your sleeve').

Tauret has kindly offered to donate 100% of the proceeds from the sale of anything in The Long Legged Fly's Darwinia category, such as the lovely tree-of-life pendant at right (the pendants are also available as brooches), to the HMS Beagle Project!

A very hearty Beagle Project thank-you to Taueret and the other artists in support of The HMS Beagle Project, Claudia Myatt, Diana Sudyka and Glendon Mellow.

Bella Gaia

2009-08-16T17:04:00.003+01:00

A view of the whole Earth from space is one of those innumerable, invaluable gifts that the human race has given to itself as a result of the space program.

The first such view, Astronaut Bill Anders' 1968 photograph now called Earthrise (right), has been called 'the most influential environmental photograph ever taken'. At the time, however, it's impact was unanticipated. The expectation that such an image might be captured wasn't even on NASA's agenda; Anders famously joked that the photograph wasn't scheduled.

But now the view has become ubiquitous, and as a result I suppose it's easy to become hardened against its aesthetic and symbolic power. A new project called Bella Gaia by Kenji Williams is helping to recapture the romance - and the message - of Earthrise. Here's a clip:

From this, it seems to me that Bella Gaia is a kind of modern-day Earthrise. Using up-to-the-minute technology, it evokes awe at the same time as instilling a message of oneness and fragility.

We hope that the Beagle Project - espeically through our collaboration with NASA - will make a significant contribution to whole-earth science tied with public engagement.

h/t @bethbeck

Ahoy there!

2009-08-03T14:09:00.003+01:00

Two little shout-outs that need shouting out:

Jennifer Rohn is organising a get-together of science bloggers for the 21st of August, the night before Science Online London.
As I've blogged about DNA barcoding here before, and as it's something we hope to do on the new Beagle, readers might be interested to know that I've written a blog post on Data Not Shown entitled 'Gene angst: finding a DNA barcode for plants'.

Cosmopithecus (guest post by astronaut Mike Barratt)

2009-07-27T21:41:00.006+01:00

The following is a guest post by NASA astronaut and Beagle Project collaborator Mike Barratt, written aboard the International Space Station where Mike is about half-way through a six-month long-duration flight.

Cosmopithecus
by Mike Barratt

As a flight surgeon and specialist in space medicine, I have awaited my own space flight experience with great anticipation. I have spent years practicing the craft of space medicine, studying the world’s literature and debriefing crewmembers following their flights. The prominent topics on my mind have been the specific physiologic problems associated with living in weightlessness – bone and muscle loss from disuse atrophy, cardiovascular deconditioning, neurovestibular reprogramming, etc. I have often said that humans essentially become extraterrestrials in space due to the global multi-system changes that define adaptation to weightlessness. Many physical and laboratory norms shift, and medical problems may present differently against this backdrop. But after 100 days on orbit, what has struck me most is the constellation of fundamental changes in behaviour and motion associated with deep adaptation to weightlessness. Learning to live and work here prompts a metamorphosis of sorts in habits, body awareness, motion control, and hygiene. This is in concert with a remote, expeditionary lifestyle with somewhat sparse provisions, which rather reminds me of being at sea. In some ways we degenerate as compared to what people expect. Let me paint a picture.

The neutral body posture assumed in weightlessness represents the sum resting flexion force of the major postural muscles. Put simply, you assume a posture somewhere between standing and fetal. You have to make a conscious effort to ‘stand straight’, and it is actually uncomfortable to be restrained out of this position for long periods. Shrug your shoulders and let them fall a little less than half-way, then keep them there. That’s us, a posture your mother would never approve of. As for your feet, as my Air Force buddies often remind their Army counterparts, we don’t walk; we fly. The calluses on the soles of your feet slough, part of the process we call the mid-mission molt, giving the word tenderfoot a new meaning after return to earth. Inflight, you go around in stocking feet or barefoot (my preference), and the prehensile nature of the toes rises to the surface. Your feet are used to stabilize the body, allowing you to fix yourself into position to optimize your work envelope, and toe holds are a key part of this. Calluses develop on the upper surface of the feet due to contact with foot restraints, particularly the dorsal aspect of the 1st metatarsal-phalangeal joint.

In weightlessness, every structural surface is used for work and stowage. The concept of walls and ceiling is a very gravocentric construct which we don’t have up here; we change this orientation frequently, sometimes appearing to be hanging from surfaces in the camera views. It has been surprisingly easy and natural to develop the three dimensional spatial awareness to work and move through the ISS, changing orientations quickly and frequently in the course of normal work. And finally, opposite our terrestrial counterparts, up here we locomote with our hands and arms, carrying big loads with our feet and legs.

Add a few behavioural changes that abound up here – letting hair grow, playing with food, and singing primitive chants – and I give you Cosmopithecus. The physiological changes I mentioned are certainly prominent but reside at a deeper level, most below a threshold of appearance or detection without medical imaging, biochemical analysis, or provocative physiologic testing. On the surface that extraterrestrial I have been describing for years is a hunched over, fast flying, spatially versatile creature that functions naturally in 3 dimensions. The pace of work here is quite brisk, and as you might guess the pressure to execute the plan without errors is high. The picture painted is the sum of several forces that result in an efficient worker in the weightless environment. And if there is any doubt, it is tremendous fun up here!

Photo: NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, Expedition 20 flight engineer, holds storage containers with his legs while floating freely in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station. NASA photo ISS020-E-021255.

The HMS Beagle Project salutes Apollo 11

2009-07-21T03:56:00.006+01:00

Beagle Project Podcast episode 2: Messages from Above

2009-07-19T20:51:00.006+01:00

The Beagle Project now has a a dedicated website for its podcasts. We've decided to call it The Beagle Channel (geddit?).

The really good news is that you can now subscribe to the podcast using your favourite podcatcher, or you can listen to the podcasts online by visiting the podcast website.

This afternoon, the Beagle Project's Director of Science, Dr Karen James, and I recorded a brand-spanking-new podcast episode, which I have named 'Messages from Above', for reasons which will become apparent if you listen to it.

Listen now:

Download | Embeddable Player

Stokes's Journal

2009-07-11T14:46:00.007+01:00

What remains of Pringle Stokes's HMS Beagle journal went under the hammer last month. The Brisbane Times had the story.

Pringle Stokes was the ill-fated first captain of the Beagle, who took his own life off the coast of Patagonia in 1828. Unfortunately for poor Stokes, his pistol-aim was far from true, and he took 12 days to die a painful death.

This all happened during the first Beagle voyage. It was Stokes's suicide, combined with a fear of a hereditary suicidal trait, which convinced Robert FitzRoy that he should take a gentleman companion with him when he captained Beagle on her second voyage. As we all know, Charles Darwin was selected for the role.

So, putting it rather simplistically, no Stokes suicide; no On the Origin of Species.

As a Brit, I have to say it irks me somewhat that Stokes's journal - an important artefact of British maritime history - has ended up in Australia (where, admittedly, it was rediscovered in 1977, having been taken there by Stokes's shipmate, Philip Parker King). Having said that, as a Brit, I probably shouldn't complain too much about important historical artefacts' being housed in other countries.

The Cambridge Darwin Festival

2009-07-07T09:42:00.003+01:00

This week I'm at the Cambridge Darwin Festival - probably the biggest single Darwin event in this big Darwin year - where I'm wearing both my NHM Darwin200 science coordinator and Beagle Project hats. There are lots of juicy talks and sessions planned, plus evening events and a fringe festival. In addition to all of this I'm determined to take in Endless Forms at the Fitzwilliam Museum and Anthony Smith's bronze of the young Darwin.

I will be tweeting the festival here: @kejames ...and you can see a stream of all festival tweets here: #DarwinFest.

Go South young Grrl!

2009-07-05T22:26:00.006+01:00

As you may have noticed, the Beagle Project's tag-line is "bringing the adventure of science to life". Now, with your support, Beagle Project supporter and science blogger GrrlScientist will be doing just that in February 2010. Grrl is in a competition to become the official blogger on a trip to Antarctica and to get there she needs our votes! There is one vote per valid email address (and if you're like me you've got more than one... *cough*).

As a proponent of adventure blogging it's great to hear that this journey is going to be blogged and I cannot think of a better person to bring this personal and scientific adventure to life for all of us than GrrlScientist. She is a brilliant and consistent blogger, an excellent photographer, and is endorsed by The Digital Cuttlefish.

Follow this link to vote for GrrlScientist.

Coming soon: Beagle Project website re-boot and FAQ

2009-07-01T11:49:00.005+01:00

Thanks to Tony in comments (and others by email) for your interest in updates and information about The Beagle Project. As a result of personal, professional and other issues (not least preparing for our upcoming British Council-funded feasibility study in Brazil), we're in a bit of a communication lull right now but we are acutely aware that our fans and followers are wanting news and that our website is out of date.

We are planning to relaunch our website soon with the help of a generous offer of support by Sanphire Design, and this will include a Frequently Asked Questions page to answer the ...well ...the most frequently asked questions, but to briefly answer Tony's question: the construction of the new Beagle has not yet begun; we are still fundraising, and we are as committed as ever to ushering in a new age of science under sail aboard the new Beagle!

'An aweful & solemn sound'

2009-06-28T19:45:00.006+01:00

It wasn't all plain sailing on Darwin and FitzRoy's Beagle voyage. The ship frequently sailed into unknown territory. Her crew were on their own, many days from help.

One-hundred and seventy-five years ago today, Beagle's crew buried one of their colleagues at sea. Darwin recorded the event in his Beagle diary:

On the 27^th [June, 1834] the purser of the Beagle, M^r Rowlett expired; he had been for some time gradually sinking under a complication of diseases; the fatal termination of which were only a little hastened by the bad weather of the Southern countries. M^r Rowlett was in his 38_th year; the oldest officer on board; he had been on the former voyage in the Adventure; & was in consequence an old friend to many in this ship; by whom & everyone else he was warmly respected. — On the following day the funeral service was read on the quarter-deck, & his body lowered into the sea; it is an aweful & solemn sound, that splash of the waters over the body of an old ship-mate.

It seems incredible that the oldest officer on board Beagle was just 37 years old. Great responsibility was placed on young shoulders in those days. I suppose it still is.

175 years after his untimely death, I sit at my computer screen and raise a glass to poor George Rowlett (1797–1834).

Twelve days

2009-06-18T23:48:00.004+01:00

...is far, far too much time between blog posts, for which we apologise, dear readers and blogpeeps.

My fellow Beagle bloggers will, no doubt, have their own very good excuses; as for me, though, you can direct your ire squarely in the direction of twitter. I've been bit by the twitter bug, big time, swept off my feet in a frenzied flurry of blue feathers.

But this twelve days thing is a wake up call. I've gone too far to the microblogging extreme and it's time to seek balance before I forget how to write paragraphs. So, with hand on heart, I promise to resist the 140-character siren song long enough every week to post something substantive here.

...uh, well, except for next week when I'll be away on a technology-free holiday in the mountains - you know, those big, pointy, rocky things you sometimes see when you go outside in certain parts of the world.

"My Dearest Catherine" (Part III)

2009-06-07T00:51:00.000+01:00

Simmons Buntin has kindly agreed to let us reproduce his series of three poems as imagined letters from Darwin to his sister Catherine when he was aboard the Beagle. They are published in his book of poems Riverfall (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2005). They also appeared in MIT Press's anthology on evolution and progress. We've already posted the first and second; here is the third:

Letter from Charles Darwin to His Sister, Catherine

Simmons B. Buntin

9 October, 1835
My Dearest Catherine,

We have sailed from the anarchy
of Lima and Peru
for the drier anarchy of the Galapagos,
where volcanic craters burn
without lava—
their regular forms jutting
from the archipelago
like the great iron-foundries
at Staffordshire.
And though there are no plumes,
the slight vapour blends
with low sky so that once again
the world is gray.

It is gray in the mutinied captain’s
skull found among salt-green
succulents, in the oppressive
heat of absent wind, and
in dusky hues of equatorial finches.
Perhaps it is my mood which is truly
gray, as Fitzroy turns
madder with the days
and crewmen yearn for British seas.

Yet we are here, among these
curious rocks, and surely there is hope
in their exploration.

25 October, 1835
What joy in the cloudless skies,
in these barren isles! Though I have found
few species, it is their rarity
which excites. On Albemarle,
the largest island, I have tossed
a remarkable lizard by tail into the sea.
And always he returns!
On Chatham Island
I have balanced unsteadily
upon the giant back of a tortoise grazing
the sweet red fruit of cactus!
And of thirteen species
of finch, where I was drowning
in the dullness of feather,
I now sail on the varied waves
of their beaks!
Come sail with me
Catherine—take the wind west
to these juvenile isles and dance
among the gray feathers
that make up the brilliance of life.
If I appear too drunk to write
with steady hand and level mind
it is because I am too
undernourished not to go on.
Though sailors laugh
as I sketch the remarkable shapes
flourished since just one finch
lit upon Indefatigable’s jagged
beach, I am aware only of life’s
ability to persevere,
and evolve.

But in man’s own wilderness,
void of cottages and cobblestone
and into the saline deck
of navigator’s ship, perseverance
usurps evolution, discarding it quite
entirely. No, you should not dance here.
Dare say that I should not, either—
but for these birds and vines
and islands. And the faint memory
of a distant home.

In loving passage,
Charles

Three things Big Ben and the Beagle have in common:

2009-05-31T19:55:00.012+01:00

1. They're both British icons.

2. The the clock that faithfully triggers Big Ben's oh-so-recognisable chime (for "Big Ben" is actually the name of the bell, not the clock or the tower), has been ticking for 150 years today, and On the Origin of Species - the book that got its start in Darwin's notebooks aboard the Beagle - was published 150 years ago this year.

3. The man who built the clock, Edward Dent, also made a chronometer for HMS Beagle.

The Beagle had a whopping 22 chronometers, which enabled, as Fitzroy put it in his narrative of the 1831-1836 voyage, "a connected chain of meridian distances around the globe, the first that has ever been completed, or even attempted, by means of chronometers alone." This and other survey-related undertakings were the Beagle's chief purpose - not, as hindsight might tempt us to believe, to carry a young Charles Darwin around the world.

Bow of the sprit to @friendsofdarwin.

"My Dearest Catherine" (Part II)

2009-05-31T00:43:00.000+01:00

Simmons Buntin has kindly agreed to let us reproduce his series of three poems as imagined letters from Darwin to his sister Catherine when he was aboard the Beagle. They are published in his book of poems Riverfall (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2005). They also appeared in MIT Press's anthology on evolution and progress. The first one is here, and today we post the second:

Letter from Charles Darwin to His Sister, Catherine

Simmons B. Buntin

Letter No. 2
9 June, 1834
My Dearest Catherine,

Our course lays due south, a new passage
through the Straight
of Magellan, and I cannot fathom
what strange currents lurk
beneath the iron clouds. Once
I captured the alien
view of Southern glaciers:
inverted domes rimmed with purest
white (oh, how the stars must be jealous!);
but Catherine, it is their blue
which holds me.
Fitzroy remarked
these are the frozen flames of Vulcan,
though I questioned the atmosphere
and found other evidence: ice
crystals gathering and refracting
the light. A simple combination
of muted sky and sea.

Yet I fear this voyage
is leaving me too scientific—it is not
some chemical reaction or
ice cones permeated by tropospheric rays.
There is more; and
I can only say, when I see these glaciers,
I am reminded of mother’s eyes.

Beneath heavy skies,
however, we are threatened
by harrowing winds and black
fingers of basalt.
These are unexplored waters,
so I am braced by the cartography, the geology—
yet I must fear
a wooden hull’s limitations.

28 July, 1834
Valparaiso!
We have anchored
(both our wind-tattered sails
and our restless feet) at the chief
seaport of Chile, the city
whose fragrances recall the intricate
tropical gardens of St. Cruz in Teneriffe.
And if the dense green
forests of Brasil cause your eyes
to ache, then Aconcaqua
and the long chain of Andes
will leave you blind!

I am reminded again
of the numerous species
which make up the grandeur of life:
I have seen, in the high
hills of Patagonia,
a bird larger in wingspan
than a British skiff’s sails, and more
buoyant. I have seen on the uneven
playas of Tierra del Fuego a dumb and
flightless bird six hands higher than my brow.
And I have seen, weaving
the icy Antarctic waters, a slick
bird whose wings
are more efficient
than the finest pair of fins. And I have found
a striking likeness in their thin bones,
in dry feathers...
Every evening I ask the Creator,
How long are the days of the Genesis,
oh Lord? Yet I cannot discuss
such a heresy with Fitzroy, who nearly abandons me
upon a lifeless rock in the Pacific;
but with you, I can leave
these questions, and more...

In loving passage,
Charles

A new CafePress shop in support of The HMS Beagle Project

2009-05-25T01:49:00.009+01:00

Sometimes I think, "that'd make a cool t-shirt". What can I say, I'm geeky like that. So to quench my creative thirst and make some more dough for The HMS Beagle Trust (UK Charity No. 1126192), I've created a new CafePress shop - Periphera - to complement The Beagle Project Shop. Here's the goods:

The Darwinius design is inspired by raw indignation and John Wilkins' blog post
and is available on t-shirts and a mug

Front (left) and back (right) of t-shirts commemorating the first tweet from space.

"My Dearest Catherine" (Part I)

2009-05-24T00:24:00.005+01:00

Letter from Charles Darwin to His Sister, Catherine

Simmons B. Buntin

21 January, 1832

My Dearest Catherine,

Passage to the Cape Verde Islands,
a minor stopover for the Beagle,
but a major one for myself.
Oh, if you could have seen my face—
the color of stitched linen at Downs
(where last I have seen either you or Susan).
How can I explain my misery at that time?
The tormenting waves, the incessant rocking,
always rising and collapsing
as my stomach did the same.
Fitzroy is a fine man,
as he would look in on me while
I lay idle at sick bay;
But Wickham, his first mate,
knew no friendship for me.
My quarters fare little better—
I share the poop cabin,
and have my drawers; the two others
(officers both) have lockers.

16 March, 1832

Finally it is Spring—
it seems as if even these vast seas
know the changes. They are richer,
though I knew well before we reached the mainland
we were there. A single leaf, a barkless twig,
a clod of saturated grass, still living—all signals.
No beauty exists in all the world
such as in these tropical lands.
In all my days of studying,
under Henslow or even Sir Adam Sedgwick,
I was never prepared for the absolute
numbers and grand diversity of life—
of species. I have been able to collect,
though I must have killed
hundreds of insects, small mammals, and birds.
(Do not worry, Catherine, I know how
you love life. These species are too numerous
for my sampling to harm.)
One butterfly must be named for you—
its wings are the majesty's blue blazoned
with scarlet, violet, and even silver.
How much it reminds me of your favorite brooch.
These lands have too many more to describe,
the brilliantly colored parrots, the gay
primates swinging on twisted branches...
Father must accuse me
of lizard-catching now, as well.

Yet in all of this beauty, one thing
remains disturbing. Here
on Bahia, on the Northeastern coast
of Brasil—chiseled into the delirious
greenness of rainforest—
man holds man captive.
Nothing plays enchanting in blood
mixing with sweat on the whip-cuts
of the negroes. Nothing enchanting
in the deep brown skin
chained with iron coils.
You must see the difference.
I collect a few specimens for knowledge,
for all—it is my passion, no man sees harm.
But these men, vulgar and cruel,
they act as if they transcend the Creator,
though He who created such solitudes
surely must not agree.

We depart for the South
in but a short while. I cannot say
I will be home soon—the Beagle
shelters my bed now, much as
the tropical canopy is secure in the mist.
You cannot know
unless you see these forests
and breathe this air...

With loving passage,
Charles

Originally published New Mexico Humanities Review.

It's never too late in the week for sex

2009-05-22T21:47:00.003+01:00

It's sex week at Deep Sea News! I know, I know, the week's almost over, but that just means there's even more good sea sex to read about than if I had posted this on Monday. "We are very excited for this theme week," wrote Beagle Project supporter and Deep Sea News contributor Kevin Zelnio in a recent email. "We have put a lot of time and effort into it," he continued. I'll bet they have. Now get on over there and read about underwater sex ...all in the name of science of course.

Space and ocean exploration win!

2009-05-22T00:08:00.007+01:00

Those of you who follow me on twitter will know I've been just a teeny tiny bit obsessed by the space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope scheduled to land tomorrow in Florida after an uber-successful mission. This fixation is part of my steadily building ~~addiction to~~ interest in NASA's doings ever since Mike Barratt emailed me almost exactly two years ago to suggest a NASA-Beagle Project collaboration (now codified by an International Space Act Agreement).

I've been watching as much of the live and recorded mission video* as life and work allow, and have come across some fantastic moments, which I've been tweeting. But there's one video in particular that's worth a nice fleshy blog treatment simply because it is absolutely chock-full of win:

STS-125 - ATLANTIS MEDIA EVENT FLIGHT DAY 11
(Source: NASA TV as archived at Space-Multimedia)

My personal highlights are:

1:10 - 'Why should I care about Hubble?'

ABC's Charlie Gibson asks Commander Scott Altman how he would answer someone who asked him to give a brief answer to the question above. Altman's answer included this: "Hubble, as a scientific instrument, takes incredible scientific observations that are cutting-edge, rewriting the textbooks, but at the same time bringing galaxies that are billions of light-years away into our own homes and hearts for us to look at and marvel at the beauty of this universe."

4:22 - Ingenuity, teamwork and perseverance

In response to Gibson's question about the now infamous sticky bolt, Mike Massimino (@Astro_Mike) says, "I remember coming back toward the airlock to fetch some tools because we couldn't get that bolt to go, and I was feelin' pretty sad about what was happening and concerned if we would be able to do the repair. And I remember looking up to the window ... of the shuttle and I saw my buddy Drew Feustel ... and he was just giving me thumbs-up and smiles and telling me - no one could hear but I could read his lips - "We're gonna be okay. We're gonna get it done."

7:30 - Questions from schoolchildren & twitterers

Megan McArthur and Drew Feustel answer schoolkids' questions about what it's like in space. You get the feeling that they're not ever going to forget the day they had a phone call with astronauts. Then the reporter asks a question that had been submitted via twitter. More questions from California science students at 18:24.

10:58 - Advice to rookie spacewalkers (and everyone)

A CBS reporter asks veteran Hubble spacewalker John Grunsfeld what was the most important advice he gave to the first-time spacewalkers. He said the most important advice is, "Don't hurry, manage frustration, and don't get crushed by the robotic arm." That's great advice for all of us ...well except maybe for the robotic arm, which isn't a particularly common workplace hazard for most of us.

16:52 - Oceanographer-turned-astronaut Megan McArthur on Earth's oceans

NBC News Washington notes that Megan has a doctorate in oceanography and asks her for her thoughts on the view from 350 miles up. She says, "It's a beautiful view up here ... it's breathtaking to look out at the world and see the oceans, and really so much of our planet is covered by oceans and it's a good reminder that we have so much at home on our own planet to explore and that exploration is ongoing. At my own university, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography - that's really where a flavor for exploration took hold and I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to be up here in a different mode of exploration, helping to carry on the exploration of our universe." Yep, a real pale blue dot moment.

21:05 - The economic benefits of the space program

Jimmy in Toronto asks why, during this economic turmoil, should the American taxpayer continue to fund the space program? John Grunsfeld replies with an impressive list of some of the direct economic benefits of the space program including energy technologies, national competitiveness in high technology, inspiration to kids to study math and science ("you'd be hard-pressed to find a K-12 classroom that doesn't have a Hubble image in it"), medical technologies, software, cancer detection. Then he finishes it off by pointing out that "for every dollar we put into NASA, we get many dollars back into our economy". Grunsfeld: 1, tea-bagger: 0.

Scott, John, Drew, Mass, Megan, Mike and Greg, you've done us proud, yet again. Have a safe journey home.

*Live video on NASA TV (schedule here), and for recorded content there's NASA's YouTube channel and also the excellent Space-Multimedia download site, both of which get most of the NASA TV content up within 24 hours. Some of the YouTube videos are abridged for length but usually the Space-Multimedia site serves up the full enchilada.

We get email ...from orbit!

2009-05-17T15:57:00.003+01:00

After we sent our birthday video greeting to Mike Barratt who celebrated his 50th aboard the International Space Station in April, I sent him this email via his colleague Susan Runco at Johnson Space Center in Houston:

Dear Mike

I'll be brief as I know you've got just a few things going on up there!

1. I hope you received and found time to watch our video birthday card. An amateur job we know, but heartfelt.

2. What great luck that the Dayton Daily News happened to ask you about the Beagle Project in your news conference on the 15th - the mention of our project in space has sparked quite a buzz down here in Beagledom!

3. We've got funding from the British Council for a research workshop + feasibility study in Brazil this autumn. It will include a series of day-cruises aboard the tall ship Tocorime to pilot science equipment, workflows, etc. We haven't set a date yet as I'm hoping we can plan this to coincide with ISS passes & your own availability. So you may get to do some Beagle Project science yourself after all! I'll discuss this in much more detail with your colleagues on the ground of course, but wanted you to know about it.

4. My home phone was unexpectedly disconnected last week as a result of being in between service providers. Hope I didn't miss a call from space! It should be back up and running as of tonight. Just to reiterate my contact details: [snip]

My warmest wishes to you, Gennady and Koichi for continued good health, enjoyment and success!

Karen

Here was his reply:

Terrific, many thanks. I received really nice birthday videos from Karen and Peter.

Actually glad some time has gone by before the Beagle targets, so that I am a little better with the whole CEO thing. There is definitely some skill to acquire.

Will be talking; having a great time up here, in spite of the age!

Ciao

Mike

What's this about 'Beagle targets', you ask?

In addition to upgrading the ISS and doing lots of science experiments, astronauts aboard the ISS also do a lot of Earth Observation. So, again via Sue Runco, we've sent up a list of 'targets' from the 1831-1836 voyage of HMS Beagle so that if and when the ISS passes over those points and Mike is in the position to photograph them, he can. This is all groundwork for our collaboration - formalised by an International Space Act Agreement - to correlate ISS imagery and ocean surface water samples taken from aboard the new Beagle.

Think this sounds exciting? Why not help us realise the new Beagle by donating to our build fund or buying something from our shop?

Royal Society Beagle podcast

2009-05-16T13:47:00.004+01:00

The Royal Society has just published its latest podcast: Marine Archaeology and 'Hunting the Beagle' in which maritime historian Dr Robert Prescott talks about his mission to locate the final resting place of HMS Beagle.

Podcast URL (MP3, 56.4 MB): http://royalsociety.org/podcast/audio/Beagle.mp3

Beagle Campaign opponents: ocean awareness FAIL

2009-05-13T22:20:00.008+01:00

Earlier this week, The Beagle Project endorsed The Beagle Campaign, a band of Royal Geographical Society fellows who seek 'the reactivation of the Royal Geographical Society's multidisciplinary research projects to greatly advance geographical science and knowledge.'

With the vote on the campaign's resolution less than a week away, the campaigners are ...well, campaigning and the RGS is urging its fellows to vote 'no'. Opinions are flying right and left in the press and online.

We've already explained in our endorsement why we support the campaign, but, since then, several wrong-headed statements have come out of the mouths and pens of the nay-sayers and they need some shouting down:

And so, to Christopher Ondaatjeo who said, "When the RGS was formed there was a need for exploration to places in Africa and so on; that need is not really there now."

...and to Max Davidson, who wrote, "However the vote goes at the special general meeting, perhaps the biggest problem facing the RGS is the shrinking world it inhabits: the great mountains have been scaled, the big rivers tamed. The expeditions that attract publicity today tend to be stunts rather than scientific research."

...and to Michael McCarthey who wrote, "Exploration is geography's past, and a very glamorous past it was, dangerous and romantic. Yet by the end of the Second World War, certainly by the 1960s, most of the globe had been discovered, if not mapped in detail; there was no more North-west Passage to be searched for."

...I give you this short video:

David Gallo explains how we've only explored 3% of the ocean, and the surprising discovery that the deep sea may contain more biological diversity and density than a tropical rainforest (thanks to Graham Steel for reminding me about this video)

In other words, there is absolutely more exploring to be done especially - but not exclusively - in the oceans. In its executive summary "The Legendary Ocean - The Unexplored Frontier" the U.S. Department of Commerce (Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere: Office of the Chief Scientist, NOAA) makes this statement:

"The ocean remains as one of Earth’s last unexplored frontiers. It has stirred our imaginations over the millenia and has led to the discovery of new of new lands, immense deposits and reservoirs of resources, and startling scientific findings...[snip]...In spite of the development of new technologies, comparatively little of the ocean has been studied...[snip]...As exciting and enlightening as ocean discoveries have been, they will pale in comparison to future discoveries.”

Deep sea scientist Craig McClain told me in an email that by his calculations based on the amounts of sampling he and collaborators have done with each of the different sampling devices (sleds, cores, ROV, submersibles, etc.), "we have sampled probably much less than 1% and probably closer to 0.5% an area roughly the size of Alaska".

And it's not just the oceans. Only 1-10% of the estimated number of multicellular species on Earth are known to science and if you added in unicellular organisms that number would be down to a tiny fraction of a percent. These organisms will both interact with and respond to a changing climate, having a profound affect on our own species' future.