David Attenborough speaks

[Connie Weber]

"As part of the University’s centenary celebrations, and in association with the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Annual Meeting, David Attenborough came to Bristol to deliver an illustrated talk, Alfred Russel Wallace and the Birds of Paradise."

David Attenborough is one of my heroes. I feel familiar with him from seeing so many of his shows--and many of them multiple times since I use Planet Earth and Life on Earth in class.

If you have an hour and half and are interested in hearing from a great master (Attenborough) about some other great masters (Darwin and Wallace, primarily Wallace), here's the link. To me, it's bliss. I could listen all day. The only thing that would be better would be to be cooking while listening. Then I'd have Attenborough's voice, the subject I love to study (evolution), and the scent of scones baking in the over... Ahhhh. Just thinking about it makes me happy. Maybe I'll do that on Sunday.

Science geeks, enjoy!

[Connie Weber]

From Science News:

Scientific Observations:

"Human beings, because we're so clever, have removed every single one of those (population) limiting factors... So nothing controls our increase in numbers except our own wish. Since I first started making television programs, the population of the world has increased three times. That's an extraordinary notion. Can it increase four times? Can it increase five times? The Earth is a finite size. So a point will eventually come when we run out of food, when we run out of space and when we will have destroyed most of the natural world. So ought we to do something about it before that happens?" --Attenborough, during the September 24th speech.

[Connie Weber]

Attenborough does a good job of covering the curious relationship between Darwin and Wallace, something that's also covered well in Song of the Dodo by David Quammen. It appears that both of those guys "discovered" the principles of evolution at the same time--so how did the "sharing" go? It gets curiouser and curiouser.

[Ian Carmichael]

Darwin's Brave New World is just showing on TV here. A three-part series fairly well dramatised, bristling with (quality) experts - including, to be parochial, Australian ones, given that the Beagle touched Australia in several places.
For a rather fulsome, related, blog - try this.