A good sign of wildlife recovery. Photo by Amanda Holland, all rights reserved.
A cousin-in-law spends a few months working on condor recovery in California. We get photos from time to time.
This one isn’t particularly spectacular, but I love the irony, and the levels of meaning.
4 Comments | 
Biology, Bird Watching, Environmental protection, History, Humor, Natural history, Natural resources, Science, Signs, Wildlife | Tagged: Bird Watching, California Condor, Environmental protection, Humor, Natural resources, Science, Signs, Wildlife | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Members of commitee and scientist witnesses at May 6 hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. From left: Rep. Jay Inslee, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, Dr. James Hurrell, Chairman Ed Markey, Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Dr. James McCarthy, and Dr. Chris Field
Excerpt from the opening statement from Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, at a May 6 hearing:
Those who deny global warming point to past uncertainties that have been refuted. They ignore the overwhelming observational evidence that the increased levels of heat-trapping pollution are already warming the planet. Instead of trying to understand the science, they use stolen emails about analysis of tree rings in Siberia to turn an honest discussion into a Russian Tree Ring Circus. Or they manufacture a cooling trend by cherry picking a few years out of a longer record of warming temperatures.
While the deniers hope to confuse the public, the real world consequences of inaction mount. Over the weekend, killer storms blew through Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. In Nashville, nearly 13 inches of rain fell in just over two days time – almost doubling the previous record that fell in the aftermath of a hurricane in 1979.
These storms follow the wettest March on record in Boston. Two 50-year storms occurred within 2 weeks of each other. The National Guard was mobilized. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes. The region suffered millions of dollars in damages.
No single rainstorm can be attributed to climate change. Nor can a snowstorm disprove its existence. But the underlying science and the observed trends do point to more extreme weather events, especially heavy precipitation events because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture.
Extreme rainfall is just one of the consequences of the carbon pollution we are releasing into the air. Our witnesses today will explain how science has revealed this unseen pollution for what it is and discuss the very real consequences of its continuing accumulation in the atmosphere.
As we approach summer, our clean energy debate needs to acknowledge what many would like to deny. Our dependence on oil carries with it national security, economic and environmental risks. As gas prices rise and the oil slick spreads, perhaps we will finally acknowledge that we cannot drill our way to independence. We have less than 3 percent of proven oil reserves. Perhaps we can also acknowledge the basic facts that have been known for decades—increasing carbon pollution in the atmosphere is warming the planet and that the only way to put a halt to such warming is to move to clean energy solutions.
4 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: Chris Field, Christopher Monckton, Climate change, Global warming, Green Politics, History, House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, James Hurrell, James McCarthy, Lisa Graumlich, Politics, Rep. Edward J. Markey, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Endangered beaches in Chesapeake Bay - map from Jim Titus, EPA, via Wired
At Mother Jones Magazine’s website, “Buh-bye, East Coast Beaches”:
Over the past decade, [Jim] Titus and a team of contractors combined reams of data to construct a remarkably detailed model of how sea-level rise will impact the eastern seaboard. It was the largest such study ever undertaken, and its findings were alarming: Over the next 90 years, 1,000 square miles of inhabited land on the East Coast could be flooded, and most of the wetlands between Massachusetts and Florida could be lost. The favorably peer-reviewed study was scheduled for publication in early 2008 as part of a Bush Administration report on sea-level rise, but it never saw the light of day—an omission criticized by the EPA’s own scientific advisory committee. Titus has urged the more science-friendly Obama administration to publish his work, but so far, it hasn’t—and won’t say why.
So Titus recently launched a personal website, risingsea.net, to publish his work. “I decided to do my best to prevent the taxpayer investment from being wasted,” he says. The site includes “When the North Pole Melts,” a prescient holiday ditty recorded by his musical alter ego, Captain Sea Level, in the late ’80s.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Climate Desk.
1 Comment | Climate change, climate_change, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, oceans, Research, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Global warming, Green Politics, History, oceans, Politics, Research, Science, Sea Level Rise | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s way too short, but a great idea.
More:
1 Comment | DDT, Environmental protection, History, National Wildlife Refuge, Natural history, Natural resources, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: DDT, Environmental protection, History, Land Use, Natural history, Natural resources, Nature Conservancy, Rachel Carson, Rachel Carson NWR, Science, Silent Spring | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s the Dilbert cartoon Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli should have viewed before he went fishing:
3 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Climate change, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Research, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: Accuracy, Bogus history, Climate change, Global warming, History, Hoaxes, Junk science, Ken Cucinelli, Michael Mann, Research, Science, Virginia, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal provoked groans in 2007, but especially among those of us who had dealt with the news teams of the paper over the previous couple of decades.
For good reason, we now know. An opposite-editorial page article in the European edition shows why.
Richard Tren and Donald Roberts, two anti-environmentalist, anti-science lobbyists, wrote a slam at scientists, environmentalists, malaria fighters and the UN, making false claims that these people somehow botched the handling of DDT and allowed a lot of children to die. Tren, Roberts and the Wall Street Journal should be happy to know that their targeting essentially public figures, probably protects them from libel suits.
Most seriously, the article just gets the facts wrong. Facts of science and history — easily checked — are simply stated erroneously. Sometimes the statements are so greatly at odds with the facts, one might wonder if there was malignant intent to skew history and science.
This is journalistic and newspaper malpractice. Any national journal, like the WSJ, should have fact checkers to check out at least the basic claims of op-ed writers. Did Murdock fire them all? How can anyone trust any opinion expressed at the Journal when these guys get away with a yahoo-worthy, fact-challenged piece like this one?
Tren and Roberts make astounding errors of time and place, attributing to DDT magical powers to cross space and time. What are they thinking? Here are some of the errors the Journals fact checkers should have caught — did Murdoch fire all the fact checkers?
Tren and Roberts have a new book out, a history of DDT. I suspect that much of the good they have to say about DDT is true and accurate. Their distortions of history, and their refusal to look at the mountain of science evidence that warns of DDT’s dangers is all the more puzzling.
No world class journal should allow such an ill-researched piece to appear, even as an opinion. Somebody should have done some fact checking, and made those corrections before the piece hit publication.
Full text of the WSJ piece below the fold.
7 Comments | Accuracy, Africa, DDT, Disease, History, Hoaxes, Political Smear, Politics, Public health, Rachel Carson, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Africa, DDT, Disease, History, Hoaxes, Malaria, Political Smear, Politics, Public health, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science, World Health Organization | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
One surefire way to tell an Earth Day post is done by an Earth Day denialist: They’ll note that the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, was an anniversary of the birth of Lenin.
Coincidentally, yes, Lenin was born on April 22 (new style calendar; it was April 10 on the calendar when he was born — but that’s a digression for another day).
It’s a hoax. There is no meaning to the first Earth Day’s falling on Lenin’s birthday — Lenin was not prescient enough to plan his birthday to fall in the middle of Earth Week, a hundred years before Earth Week was even planned.
My guess is that only a few really wacko conservatives know that April 22 is Lenin’s birthday (was it ever celebrated in the Soviet Union?). No one else bothers to think about it, or say anything about it, nor especially, to celebrate it.
Wisconsin’s U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, usually recognized as the founder and father of Earth Day, told how and why the organizers came to pick April 22:
Senator Nelson chose the date in order to maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an “environmental teach-in.” He determined the week of April 19–25 was the best bet; it did not fall during exams or spring breaks, did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other mid-week events—so he chose Wednesday, April 22.
In his own words, Nelson spoke of what he was trying to do:
After President Kennedy’s [conservation] tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called “teach-ins,” had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me – why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air – and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:
“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”
Nelson, a veteran of the U.S. armed services (Okinawa campaign), flag-waving ex-governor of Wisconsin (Sen. Joe McCarthy’s home state, but also the home of Aldo Leopold and birthplace of John Muir), was working to raise America’s consciousness and conscience about environmental issues.
Lenin on the environment? Think of the Aral Sea disaster, the horrible pollution from Soviet mines and mills, and the dreadful record of the Soviet Union on protecting any resource. Lenin believed in exploiting resources, not conservation.
So, why are all these conservative denialists claiming, against history and politics, that Lenin’s birthday has anything to do with Earth Day?
Can you say “propaganda?”
Good information:
Wall of Lenin’s Birthday Propaganda Shame:
20 Comments | Environmental protection, History, Hoaxes, Holidays, Science | Tagged: Earth Day, Environmental protection, Gaylord Nelson, Hoaxes, Lenin, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Nature wins. You can’t dream up effects like this.
From Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), a photo of Iceland’s latest fuming, smoking European nightmare. Wow. Just wow.
Ash and Lightning Above Eyjafjallajökull, an Icelandic Volcano - Credit & Copyright: Marco Fulle (Stromboli Online)
How did Marco Fulle of the Stromboli team of volcano observers get that photograph? More of his great photos, here.
More:
Tip of the old scrub brush to Gormogons.
2 Comments | Disasters, Geography - Physical, geology, Science, Volcanoes | Tagged: APOD, Art, Eruption, Eyjafjallajökull, geography, geology, Great Photo, Iceland, Marco Fulle, Science, Stromboli Observatory, Volcano | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From NOAA, released April 15, 2010
Global warming slowed or stopped? Let’s look at the facts:
NOAA: Global Temps Push Last Month to Hottest March on Record
April 15, 2010
The world’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made last month the warmest March on record, according to NOAA. Taken separately, average ocean temperatures were the warmest for any March and the global land surface was the fourth warmest for any March on record. Additionally, the planet has seen the fourth warmest January – March period on record.
NOAA’s (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) report points out — again — that local weather is not world climate:
- The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 56.3°F (13.5°C), which is 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average of 54.9°F (12.7°C).
- The worldwide ocean surface temperature was the highest for any March on record –1.01°F (0.56°C) above the 20th century average of 60.7°F (15.9°C).
- Separately, the global land surface temperature was 2.45°F (1.36°C) above the 20th century average of 40.8 °F (5.0°C) — the fourth warmest on record. Warmer-than-normal conditions dominated the globe, especially in northern Africa, South Asia and Canada. Cooler-than-normal regions included Mongolia and eastern Russia, northern and western Europe, Mexico, northern Australia, western Alaska and the southeastern United State
News continues to roll in about the investigations of the stealing of e-mails from England’s Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU), and the news is that the scientists who documented global warming were accurate and honest. Alas, such reports do not slow the anti-science denialist mob provocateurs.
So, we have assurance that the scientists are honest and hardworking. Their hard work shows the planet warming, and the most likely proximate cause of the warming is human-caused effluents.
Did your newspaper cover the story? How will denialists react? Will anyone really notice?
3 Comments | Cost of Green, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Politics | Tagged: Climate change, Cost of Green, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, NOAA, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 25, 2010, is World Malaria Day.
Malaria plagues too many nations, still. Between 400 million and 500 million people in the world get infected with one form of the malaria parasites every year. About a million die, most of those children. Death disproportionately strikes pregnant women, too.
World Health Organization (WHO) chart on the life cycle of malaria
Advances in medicines and advances in controls of the insects that help transmit the disease led to several campaigns to eradicate the disease over the past 60 years. Malaria no longer torments most of Europe and most of North America, but it remains a serious, economy-crippling disease across Africa and Asia.
Malaria also poses as a political football. Over the next couple of weeks you can find dozens of articles on valiant efforts to fight malaria, including the RollBack Malaria Campaign, and efforts by the Gates Foundation and histories of the work of the Rockefeller Foundation. But you can also find a pernicious political campaign against malaria fighters and “environmentalists,” claiming that DDT is a magic potion that could have ridded the world of malaria by killing off all the mosquitoes, if only that great mass murderer, Rachel Carson, had not imposed her will on the unstable dictators of African nations who did all they could to prove to Ms. Carson that they were environmentally friendly by banning DDT.
All of that is a crock. But we see it every year.
It’s already shown up in the formerly-known-as-accurate Wall Street Journal, European edition. (Please watch — I may have more to say on that piece, later.)
Over the next two weeks I will ask myself a hundred times, why do these people fiddle with trying to impugn scientists, physicians and environmentalists, while fevers burn in the brains of children across Africa and Asia?
With action, hope is that we can save the million lives lost annually by stopping malaria, by 2015. Please consider joining the effort.
You should wonder about that, too. If you find a good answer, please let me know.
4 Comments | Africa, Asia, DDT, Disease, Health care, History, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science | Tagged: Africa, Asia, DDT, Disease, Economics, geography, Health care, History, Malaria, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, World Malaria Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
So, Maggie Thatcher, his boss, also rejected Christopher Monckton’s preposterous claims against the science of climate change?
Who knew?
It’s clear Christopher Monckton doesn’t know . . . much of value.
Sorta disappointed Peter Sinclair didn’t go after Monckton’s preposterous insults of Jackie Kennedy and Rachel Carson, but there’s only so much debunking one can do in a limited period of time, and so much of Monckton’s work requires debunking, even cries out for debunking.
Is there anything Monckton claims which is not hoax?
3 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Glaciers, Global warming, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: AIDS Denialism, Christopher Monckton, Climate change, denialism, Environmental protection, Glaciers, Global warming, Hoaxers, Hoaxes, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Sometimes progress is so strong that we forget to note the milestones.
I’m remembering Christa McAuliffe today.
Tomorrow, April 14, Mission Specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger is scheduled to talk with students at Eastern Guilford High School in North Carolina, and all of the 71,000 students in Eastern Guilford School District.
Caption from NASA: STS-131 Mission Specialist Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, attired in a training version of her shuttle launch and entry suit, poses for a photo prior to the start of an ingress/egress training session in the Space Vehicle Mock-up Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Photo Credit: NASA
Metcalf-Lindenburger is one of three teachers selected in 2004 as astronauts. NASA is committed to help education out. After the Challenger disaster, and the death of “teacher in space” Christa McAuliffe, NASA finally determined to make teachers into astronauts rather than fly “civilians.”
Bittersweet, but there it is.
Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-4997
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.govJenna Maddix
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-244-0185
jenna.c.maddix@nasa.govHaley Miller
Guilford Public Schools, Guilford, N.C.
336-370-3200
millerh3@gcsnc.comApril 12, 2010MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-048
Orbiting Space Shuttle Astronauts — Including Former Teacher — Call North Carolina Students
WASHINGTON — Astronauts orbiting 220 miles above Earth will speak with students in Gibsonville, N.C., on Wednesday, April 14. The call with the students and space shuttle Commander Alan Poindexter and Mission Specialists Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Stephanie Wilson and Clay Anderson will take place at 1:06 p.m. EDT at Eastern Guilford High School in Gibsonville.
Eastern Guilford High School is hosting students from Eastern Guilford Middle School, Gibsonville Elementary, McLeansville Elementary, Rankin Elementary and Sedalia Elementary for the downlink. The school also will broadcast the event to the entire Guilford County Schools district, which serves more than 71,000 students.
The astronauts launched Monday, April 5, aboard space shuttle Discovery from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. During the 13-day mission to the International Space Station, the crew will deliver science experiments and supplies; take three spacewalks to switch out a gyroscope on the station’s truss, or backbone; install a spare ammonia storage tank and return a used one; and retrieve a Japanese experiment from the station’s exterior.
Metcalf-Lindenburger is one of three teachers selected to fly as shuttle mission specialists in the 2004 Educator Astronaut Class. She operates the shuttle’s robotic arm. Without robotics, major accomplishments like building the station, repairing satellites in space and exploring other worlds would not be possible.
Students have been preparing for the downlink by conducting NASA engineering design challenges and implementing agency robotics resources and activities into K-12 classrooms. A science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, club was organized to increase participation and interest, particularly by female students.
The school’s guidance department also is collaborating with local universities to help students investigate and explore STEM opportunities beyond graduation. During follow up in-district workshops in April and May, a NASA Aerospace Education Services Program specialist will demonstrate how to access and use NASA resources in K-12 curricula.
Eastern Guilford High School employee Michael Woods, a former Aerospace Education Services Project specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is leading the downlink effort. In December 2009, NASA awarded Guilford County Schools a two-year grant of nearly $1 million to help middle and high school teachers develop science lessons using the space agency’s content.
The event is part of a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The in-orbit call is part of Teaching From Space, a NASA project that uses the unique environment of human spaceflight to promote learning opportunities and build partnerships with the kindergarten through 12th grade education community.
NASA Television will air video of the astronauts during the downlink. For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
Even Bob Park will pipe down for a day for this (though he’s right, you know).
2 Comments | Education, History, Science, Social Studies, Space exploration, Teachers, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: Christa McAuliffe, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Eastern Guilford High School, Education, Gibsonville North Carolina, Lesson plans, NASA, Science, Space exploration, Space Shuttle, Teacher in Space, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Peter Sinclair’s Hoax-Exposing Supervision found Christopher Monckton — and this is just part one. More hoax in Monckton than anyone really feared:
Tip of the old scrub brush to the indefatigable Tim Lambert at Deltoid.
Leave a Comment » | Green Politics, Hoaxes, Science, Voodoo history, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, Christopher Monckton, Climate change, Global warming, Green Politics, Hoaxes, Peter Sinclair, Politics, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Baja California — that’s in Mexico, you European readers — got hit with a large earthquake tonight, a 7.2 on the logarithmic Richter Scale according to some early reports. At least one person died; Mexicali, on the border with California, reports many people trapped. A state of emergency has been declared.
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake has hit the Mexican peninsula of Baja California, killing at least one person and causing tremors as far away as Nevada.
The quake struck at 1540 (2240 GMT), 26km (16 miles) south-west of Guadalupe Victoria in Baja California, at a depth of 32km, said the US Geological Survey.
Some people are still trapped in their homes in the city of Mexicali, where a state of emergency has been declared.
It was the worst quake to hit the region for many years, officials said.
The US Geological Survey said some 20 million people felt tremors from the largest quake to hit the area since 1992.
My students with Mexico connections tend to come from farther east, and higher in the mountains — I don’t think I have a single student who visits Baja California on breaks. But the news will prompt questions from them tomorrow.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tracks earthquakes around the world. It should have solid information. Data on the April 4 7.2 quake are here.
Here’s the tectonic summary:
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred at 3:40:40 p.m. (local time at the epicenter) on Sunday, 4 April 2010 in Baja California, approximately 75 km south of the Mexico-USA border. The earthquake occurred at shallow depth (approximately 10 km) along the boundary zone between the North American and Pacific plates. Since earthquakes have been recorded instrumentally, only two similar sized earthquakes have been recorded in the area. The first was the 1892 earthquake estimated at magnitude 7.0-7.2 along the Laguna Salada fault just south of the USA-Mexico border. The second was the 1940 Imperial Valley magnitude 6.9 earthquake which occurred in southernmost California. Today’s event is located nearly in line with these earthquakes along the plate boundary, but is situated farther to the south. There are several active faults in the vicinity of today’s earthquake, and the particular fault that generated this quake has not yet been determined. Faulting is complex in this region, because the plate boundary is transitional between the ridge-transform system in the Gulf of California and the continental transform system in the Salton Trough. Most of the major active faults are right-lateral strike-slip faults with a northwest-southeast orientation, similar in style to the San Andreas fault to the north. Other faults in the vicinity with the same orientation include the Cerro Prieto fault and the Laguna Salada fault.
USGS hosts good maps, too, like this “shake map” (click the map to go to the USGS site for more information):
USGS "shake map" for the April 4 7.2 quake near Mexicali, Mexico - Click to go to USGS site
What other questions can we anticipate? Somebody will ask whether this quake is related to the Haiti and Chilean quakes (probably not closely related). Somebody will wonder about the Pacific Ring of Fire, and this quake’s relation to volcanoes and general earthquake activity around the Pacific (high relationship). Someone will want to know about quakes in your area. Is this the precursor to “the Big One?”
The USGS site is a good place to start on all of those questions.
2 Comments | Disasters, earthquakes, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, Mexico, Science | Tagged: disaster, Earthquake, Easter Earthquake, geography, geology, Mexicali, Mexico, Science, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s a post at Ecographica about a typographical error in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the newspaper of the University of Arizona.
How long before some creationist seizes on it to claim Darwin’s theories are dead? 5 . . 4 . . 3 . . 2 . . .
If you find it, will you note it in comments, please?
(Notice how the only stuff creationists can make hay out of, is error?)
Background
Debates over the evolution of hominin bipedalism, a defining human characteristic, revolve around whether early bipeds walked more like humans, with energetically efficient extended hind limbs, or more like apes with flexed hind limbs. The 3.6 million year old hominin footprints at Laetoli, Tanzania represent the earliest direct evidence of hominin bipedalism. Determining the kinematics of Laetoli hominins will allow us to understand whether selection acted to decrease energy costs of bipedalism by 3.6 Ma.
Methodology/Principal Findings
Using an experimental design, we show that the Laetoli hominins walked with weight transfer most similar to the economical extended limb bipedalism of humans. Humans walked through a sand trackway using both extended limb bipedalism, and more flexed limb bipedalism. Footprint morphology from extended limb trials matches weight distribution patterns found in the Laetoli footprints.
Conclusions
These results provide us with the earliest direct evidence of kinematically human-like bipedalism currently known, and show that extended limb bipedalism evolved long before the appearance of the genus Homo. Since extended-limb bipedalism is more energetically economical than ape-like bipedalism, energy expenditure was likely an important selection pressure on hominin bipeds by 3.6 Ma.
Update: Wall of Shame
Here are creationists claiming the findings rebut, refute or befuddle Darwin:
Leave a Comment » | Creationism, Darwin, Evolution, Humor, Journalism, Research, Science | Tagged: Arizona Daily Wildcat, Evolution, human evolution, Journalism, Laetoli Footprints, Oops, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 