Military robots are in the news today, with the BBC reporting six deaths in Pakistan, allegedly caused by a missile strike from a US unmanned aircraft, or drone. We’re going to see a lot more of this. The military robot sector is booming and well funded through the USA’s $145bn Future Combat Systems (FCS) programme. Robots (the name derives from the Czech vobota, for forced labour) are seen as battlefield lifesavers, which doubtless they are for the side that controls them.
On a lighter robotic note, cuddly dinosaur robot Pleo continues to wow pundits with its cuteness and personality capability – tested here, while in Japan, this unicycle riding robot demonstrated state of the art balance. Balance, particularly in pseudo-human robots with legs, is one of the big challenges for robot engineers. Maybe the solution is to double up on the legs, as in this slightly disturbing clip of Boston Dynamics ‘Big Dog’.
When it comes to buying books, I’m either very keen and go straight for the new hardback edition, or I’ll trawl the bargain basements for unwanted and long forgotten editions selling at three for a fiver. I’ve just finished one of the latter, and can belatedly vouch that Heather Pringle’s Mummy Congress is the most interesting, original, and frankly amusing treatises on preserved corpses you’ll find.
Maybe it’s old news (Mummy Congress was published in 2001), but it’s ghoulishly intriguing to learn that mummies have until quite recently been used to make paint for artists. Human flesh and bone, combined with the resinous embalming materials of the time, make all the difference in achieving the silky texture only Mummy can deliver. Available into the early years of the twentieth century, the paint left the market when the supply of mummies dried up.
Paint made from mummies had a silky texture
Further research convinces me that despite the horrified reaction of artists such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Burne-Jones, on discovering the true nature of what they had happily been throwing at the canvas for years (Burne-Jones even gave his tube of Mummy a decent burial in the back garden), our national galleries must be displaying a fair selection of canvases and boards that are essentially smeared with dead people.
According to Pringle’s sources, Martin Drolling’s L’interieur d’une cuisine, now in the Louvre, is a prime candidate, although in this case the mummies were of more recent French origin. But what about Burne-Jones? His pictures do have that atmospheric brownish aura about them.
Drolling’s L’interieur d’une cuisine
Burne-Jones’s The Beguiling of Merlin (1874). Nice browns.
Science, in the form of mass spectroscopy, can help identify ‘mummy’ paintings. The molecules associated with bitumen, asphalt, and human remains all have their tell-tale signature. Yet the technique hasn’t been widely used, probably due to the disincentive of an invasive procedure, the results of which can only turn people off.
If anyone knows more about this fascinating topic please get in touch.
Yesterday evening I joined the British Film Institute’s ‘BFI 75 – A Story in Pictures’ on London’s South Bank, celebrating 75 years of film and TV culture through a mix of archive clips and interviews.
75th Birthday
The evening was hugely enjoyable. What a delight to see Leslie Phillips, beloved of the Doctor and Carry-On films, take up the microphone with his trade mark saucy “Hello” . And to be transported back to 1901 with big screen footage from the Mitchell and Kenyon archive, beautifully restored, complete with live piano accompaniment.
Science and technology was represented by films about the railways and telephony. From John Grierson’s GPO Film Unit, that produced industry and transport films in the 1930s, was a sequence from ‘The Fairy of the Phone’, a fantasy involving female telephonists singing and standing atop telegraph poles.
Ironically, given the light coverage of science in the main program, later discussions and guest commentaries addressed the role of technology for enabling positive change in the industry, like the accessibility of professional quality, low cost, equipment. More exotically, Frank Skinner looked forward to a cinema world of wrap-around 3D, while another pundit held out for the holy grail of odorama (a low tech scratch ‘n’ sniff version has been done).
You’ll hardly need reminding that next year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his best known work – On The Origin of Species. It’s already a big deal: special events, new book editions, talks, tee-shirts, diaries, calendars, and commemorative mugs – the lot. And rightly so – however we might nuance the term, there would be no Darwinism without Darwin. But as the celebrations bubble up to a crescendo of reverence on February 12th, I wonder if the world will spare a thought for Darwin’s own origins, and particularly his illustrious grandfather – Erasmus (1731-1802). He’ll certainly be struggling for attention, so consider this a pre-emptive strike on behalf of The Other Darwin Genius.
Charles (1809-1882)
We automatically associate ‘Darwin’ with the name ‘Charles’. A mention of Erasmus in conversation brings blank looks, even from devotees of the definitive Charles. Genius twice in the same family – impossible! And if the old fellow had some notoriety in his day, surely it must pale beside that of his grandson.Yet Erasmus is not to be compared to Charles in any competitive sense. Their skills, inclinations, personality, temperament, and achievements were very different. It was their shared inquisitiveness and intellectual energy that destined each to leave a lasting imprint on the world. We all know about Charles’s lasting imprint, but few are aware that Erasmus was:
Erasmus (1809-1882)
The greatest physician of his time
An original and popular poet
A respected scientist and inventor
A key player and catalyst in the industrial revolution
His life has been richly documented by physicist Desmond King-Hele, whose analysis reveals a breathtaking range of interests, involvements and achievements. Not associated with one single big theory or event, Erasmus confuses our conception of the traditional achiever. Charles by contrast is easy – well and truly Mr Evolution. So what makes Erasmus so appealing?
His lifelong profession was medicine. Widely recognised in England as the top doctor of his day, he famously declined to be King George III’s personal physician. (Had he accepted of course, George’s porphyria would have quickly cleared up, the King’s eye would have stayed on the political ball, and America would still be ours – yippee! Well, O.K. – maybe not; Erasmus’s sympathies actually tended towards the pro-revolutionary.) He chose rather to spread his benefaction widely, making house calls to ordinary folk in all weathers and treating the poor for free.
Erasmus’s medical knowledge is captured in the 1796 ZOONOMIA. At 5kg, the big and heavy first edition makes fascinating reading. Some of the 18th century cures sound worse than the diseases, but while Erasmus’s use of the blood-letting lancet for physical conditions may have been typical, his approach to mental disease was ahead of its time. Lunatics in his care could expect compassion instead of the more familiar beating.
Zoonomia Vol II was a catalogue of disease (Tim Jones private collection)
Charles inherited his knack for ruffling religious feathers from his grandfather, who in Zoonomia classified religion as a mental disease – a ‘Desease of Volition’. Here he dismisses it along with other fantasies in a discussion on Credulitas, or Credulity. To get a flavour of the language and its appearance, the reader is invited to struggle through this photocopy of the original text:
[text continues]………
In regard to religious matters, there is an intellectual cowardice instilled in the minds of the people from their infancy; which prevents their inquiry: credulity is made an indispensible virtue; to inquire or exert their reason in religious matters is denounced as sinful; and in the catholic church is punished with more severe penances than moral crimes…
For each desease, Darwin offers a cure. Headed ‘M.M.’ for Materia Medica, his wise council on credulity reads:
M.M. The method of cure is to increase our knowledge of the laws of nature, and our habit of comparing whatever ideas are presented to us with those known laws, and thus to counteract the fallacies or our senses, to emancipate ourselves from the false impressions which we have imbibed in our infancy, and to set the faculty of reason above that of imagination.
Rational thinking and appeal to scientific method shine through – not surprising given the very interesting people Erasmus was mixing with: James Watt and Matthew Boulton of steam engine fame, Josiah Wedgwood of pottery fame, the Scottish chemist James Kier, and the politically animated chemist and co-discoverer of oxygen Joseph Priestley.
Statue of Boulton, Watt, and Murdoch in Birmingham, UK (Photo: Tim Jones)
With Erasmus’s support, Wedgwood got England’s first canal built, while his friendship and technical exchanges with Watt and Boulton catalysed the steam age. Together known as the Lunar Men, (so called because they travelled to monthly meetings assisted by moonlight) this group drove the industrial revolution and gave us the roots of our technological world.
A pioneering scientist and engineer in his own right, Erasmus is unsung in many fields. He discovered ‘Charles Gas Law’ before Charles -who claimed it 24 years later, glimpsed partial pressures ahead of Dalton, and explained how clouds form. His musings appear almost casually in a letter to Boulton, where we first learn that his plans for weather forecasting will be enhanced by the accuracy of John Harrison’s new clock – that is Harrison of longitude fame (this single letter is astonishing in the icons it embraces), then:
Erasmus explained cloud formation
I am extremely impatient for this Play-Thing! [Harrison’s clock] as I intend to fortell every Shower by it, and make great medical discovery as far as relates to the specific Gravity of Air: and from the Quantity of Vapor. Thus the Specific Gravity of the Air, should be as the Absolute Gravity (shew’d by the Barometer) and as the Heat (shew’d by Boulton’s Thermometer). Now if it is not always found as these two (that is as one and inversely as the other) then the deviations at different Times must be as the Quantity of dissolved Vapour in the Air.
Elsewhere in the same letter, having playfully struck Boulton off as a “plodding man of Business” he proceeds to bribe him with wine on the condition he glass-blows one of the empties into a specific form required for his (Darwin’s) researches.
The first reference to the mechanism for cloud formation comes in a 1784 letter to Josiah Wedgwood; with what amounts to a description of the universal law of adiabatic expansion of gases, which he later published in a formal journal.
Evolution is also discussed in Zoonomia and The Temple of Nature, also by by Erasmus. His coat of arms comprised three scallop shells with the telling motto E conchis omnia – ‘everything from shells’, reflecting his belief that all life started from sea creatures. Unfortunately, the device was not subtle enough to evade the local clergy, leaving Erasmus force-put to paint it out and thereby keep the peace (it remained on his bookplate). Erasmus’s gift for marrying art with science matured in his narrative poem The Botanic Garden, which brought him literary fame and the respect of influential friends like the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, both of whom record him as an important influence on their work.
Erasmus was clever but not boring. A true man of the Enlightenment, he took all his pleasures seriously. Shunning alcohol, he preferred to act on his conviction that sugar and cream were the healthiest of foods, consuming both in quantity. He had a semi-circular profile carved in his dining table to accommodate the girth of his indulgence. Always amorously inclined, his successful bid for the hand of the young socialite Elizabeth Pole, whilst in the disrepair of his fifties, is intriguing – not to say impressive, as are his liberal reproductive powers, evidenced by 14 children including two illegitimacies.
And so it goes on: from speaking machines to steam turbines, from educational reform to carriage design, from the moon’s origin to the formation of coal; in all these areas and many more, Erasmus made a valuable and original contribution to knowledge. For me though, it is the combination of The Other Darwin Genius’s bon-viveur attitude, innovatory energy, rationality, compassion, and his measured disrespect for authority, convention and the status quo, that makes him (and I know this is blasphemy) the more interesting Darwin. Spare him a thought on February 12th.
Other Links Erasmusdarwin.org – custodians of his memory and former home in Litchfield.
“Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality“
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
That sentiment will be endorsed when, on 8th November, John Adams’s opera Dr Atomic is broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City to cinema venues across the world.
Trinity
Taking as its theme the first U.S. atomic bomb tests in 1945, Doctor Atomic draws on declassified documents to inform a production that explores the tensions, dilemmas, and decisions that occupied the minds of J.Robert Oppenheimer and his project associates in the weeks leading up to detonation.
Originally, I wanted to draw attention here to Sarah Palin’s environmental credentials, lest the topic be short-changed amidst the lively discussion of her religious beliefs. This article by Britt Collins in the Guardian was the spur; liberally illustrated with quotes from Palin and others, it includes this passage – reproduced verbatim in Collins’ contextual frame with the quote attributed to Palin bolded:
She then wrote a piece for the New York Times, saying that these “magnificent cuddly white bears are doing just fine and don’t need our protection. If the ice melts, they’ll adapt to living on land”. That is a contention most scientists found reckless, given that polar bears have shown little ability to feed on land.
Endangered
But here I came unstuck, the issue being I can’t find the quote in the cited reference (New York Times). I found this article by Palin, titled ‘Bearing Up’, and covering the right topic – but the quote’s not there. Maybe it turns up eventually, but it’s an emotive quotation, not to be spread lightly, even on a blog with Zoonomian’s embryonic circulation. So while I’m not a Palin fan, and find her potential career progression deeply worrying, that’s not the point here.
It turns out the quote has itself been quoted on several blogs concerned with climate change, conservation, or just anti-Palin; sometimes there’s a reference to the Guardian – sometimes not; but all dated after the Guardian posting.
I guess the issue is how comfortable we are in relaying information which can’t be verified – at least in the short term, even when it derives from a normally trustworthy intermediary and supports our own motives.
Two real hoo-hahs have gone down in the world of UK science this week. At the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool, the Director of Education at the Royal Society, Rev.Prof.Michael Reiss, appeared to support at least some discussion of creationism in school science classes. At the same festival, embryologist and TV science star Robert Winston stirred up journalists and festies alike with further criticism of what he sees as the irresponsible behaviour of the super-atheist clan (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al). This post relates to the Reiss storm; here is a podcast featuring Reiss that accompanied his entry on the Guardian Science Blog on 11th September, and Reiss’s pre-presentation press brief from the BA.
Compatible?
Reiss’s comments are surprising and, given his position and the ammunition he is handing to less moderate interests, politically puzzling. The arguments for and against debate of non-scientific, non-evidence-based, and logic-deficient world views in school science classes have been done to death (the comments on Reiss’s statement on the Guardian Science Blog say it all).
My personal stance is that it is important in schools to explicitly state what science is not, as well as what it is. Science is not a methodology for analysing non-evidence-based beliefs, which includes most religious beliefs as self defined. It is a separate issue if a student wants to argue a religion is evidence based; that’s a good discussion topic for the religious studies class. There would be less angst all round if boundaries, rules, and definitions were more clearly defined in this way.
It is the duty of the educational authority (in the broadest sense of the term, but here including Michael Reiss) to agree the ground rules, and to instruct and enable teachers to relay them to children at the start of term. It boils down to making sure kids know up front what science is and what it is not.
There are two reasons this has not happened. First, the authority setting the rules is itself confused over what science is; and second, there is political comfort in maintaining that ambiguity in an atmosphere where the setting of any boundary is seen as an implied attack on anything lying outside it. The first weakness may be countered with a relentless appeal to reason, defense of the scientific method, and political lobby. The second requires political courage from our leaders, faced with the inescapable truth that the intellectually honest position, without vindictive or malicious intent, will be painful to some.
Those following my interest in Cluster Headache research and the broader issues of illegal drugs in pain control and other conditions (Criminally in Pain and Criminally in Pain – Update) may like to check out two recent articles from New Scientist magazine (for the first of the online articles you will need a NS subscription).
This would represent something of a flagship breakthrough in the US; one likely to ease the path for other controversial treatments such as psilocybin for cluster headache. It would also represent a significant shift in what Doblin sees as the “the fear, the paranoia and the pathology of how the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] looks at things”. In this regard, the installation in November of a Democratic administration under Barack Obama, whose supporters, Senators Kennedy and Kerry, in 2007 endorsed the setting up of a medical marijuana facility, would be seen as a good thing – albeit politically motivated. Doblin shared the commercial insight that irrespective of the legal position there is still the task of motivating pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments based on drugs that are often both unpatentable and competing with their own products.
On a personal note, during my first visit to Venice Beach last week, it was a depressing endorsement of the ‘anti’ lobby to find hot-pantied girls with cannabis plant wristbands openly soliciting passers-by to partake of ‘medical marijuana’. Fascinating stretch of beachfront, but not helping the science go forward.
The second feature by Rachel Nowak (NS 6Sept 2008) describes the inadequate provision of opioids for the treatment of pain in terminal patients living in countries outside Europe and the USA. Nowak refers to issues addressed at two recent forums: the World Congress on Pain, and the World Cancer Summit, and cites the statistic that less than 1% of Indians get the morphine they need. Key messages are that the emphasis has tended to be on prevention of abuse rather than the positive applications of opiates (some resonance here with the previous article) , and that restricting prescription priviledges to doctors only is unworkable in regions of Africa and Asia.
Latest Update 15th September 2008
Federal Court Rules Against Bush Administration’s Subversion of California’s Medical [Cannabis] Laws
Last month, the International Primatological Society reported that nearly 50% of the world’s 634 primate species and subspecies are in danger of going extinct, with more than 70% of species in Asia coming under near term threat. Reading this on the way out to the USA earlier this month set a grim backdrop to an encounter I had very much been looking forward to.
Gibbons are found in three places: the jungles of Asia, the zoo, and, the subject of this post – a gibbon conservation center.
Northern White Cheeked Gibbons at the Gibbon Center. All rights reserved Tim Jones 2008.
It was with bleary eyes that Erin and I arrived at the Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita, California, at the virtuous hour of 7.15 a.m. Erin had arranged the visit with Director and founder Alan Mootnick, as an anniversary present (I am a lifelong fan of these hairy cousins). Not an all-comers zoo, the Gibbon Center welcomes groups and serious researchers by appointment, so the personal tour was a bonus; a little politeness and a sensible donation helps.
The declared mission of the Center, established in 1977, is to help ensure the survival, preservation, and propagation of all gibbon species in the wild and captivity, to provide a captive haven for gibbons as a complement to protecting them in the wild, to educate the public and to further our knowledge of gibbon care, and to support ongoing field projects.
Alan warmly welcomed us at the gate and introduced our feet to a tray of disinfectant. Gibbons are highly susceptible to human disease and, with forty in residence, precautions are essential. It is unsettling to learn that more than 75% of Americans have oral herpes but downright scary that the gibbons who contract it will be dead within four days. Volunteers are the lifeblood of this Center, but medical tests are a pre-qualification.
The wire fenced compound houses several individual cages of gibbon family units – typically a male, a female, and one or two offspring. The family theme is very strong and not artificial – this is how gibbons live. One group we became absorbed with comprised a darker haired, white-bewhiskered male, a golden female partner nursing a gangly infant of 1yr, a hyperactive younger son, and an older sister – visible to, but separated from, the group; the consequence of uncontrollable spats at meal times. Anthropomorphising animal behaviour may not be in vogue or politically correct with some, but after three hours close to these families the parallels in behaviour to our own are obvious – whether we like it or not.
A successful breeding programme is essential to meet the Center’s conservation goals, and there was evidence aplenty of this during our visit. Between the five families on which we focused, we saw three recent offspring (including the acrobatic ‘Canter’ in the photo above) and two evident pregnancies. Such prolific reproduction is one indicator that the animals are relatively happy in their captivity. Also, while the chainlink fencing looks intimidating to us, its regular geometry and strength makes it popular with the gibbons, who strangely have spurned more sophisticated apparatus provided for their brachiating delight (that is their characteristic swinging from arm to arm). We certainly saw no evidence of the repetitive and obsessive rocking behaviours characteristic of bored, disturbed or mistreated animals. With no less than nine separate feedings a day, there is little chance of gibbon ennuie setting in within this community.
While Mootnick clearly cares deeply about his charges, he is not overly sanctimonious in pursuing his task. He delights in the gibbon’s hesitant yet rapid two legged walk, likening it to a man walking on hot coals. Indeed, the gibbons’ entertainment value may be their salvation; during the tour a call came in from a major TV company keen to film at the Center, and its not the first time, as this sequence for the L.A. Times and this half-hour interview with Alan Mootnick shows.
Inevitably, the conservation business has its own politics. The main players are zoos providing a more corporate approach; then the ‘activists’ – who seem driven mostly by the principle of keeping gibbons in their countries of origin; then groups like Alan’s (his model is not unique) – which, while a team effort, is also personally inspired with a flexibility that I sensed is not always endearing to more regimented interests. But from the recent visits and best practice exchanges that Alan described – not to mention gibbon exchanges – the Center is an important part of an informal network that essentially pulls together. 2% of donations to the Center go to support projects devoted to conservation of wild gibbons.
Despite the Center’s success, encroaching humanity from an enlarging Santa Clarita is threatening the gibbons and driving the current imperative and funding appeal to relocate and expand operations. Details are on the Centre’s website.
I will be following the fortunes of these California residents with interest, and plan to call in at the Center again over the new year. In the meantime, I would encourage anyone to learn more about the plight of primates, and especially gibbons, and consider supporting the Gibbon Center if you are able.
Other Links
BBC online article by Russell Mittermeier of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
This post is for anyone who has ever looked through an old book and wondered who its previous owners were.
The intrigue starts with the discovery of a name inside the front cover, or an elegant family bookplate, or perhaps some obscure ephemera tucked in amongst the pages. These kinds of evidence, along with the book’s theme, content, and price, can tell a lot about the previous owner – who may turn out to be more interesting than the book itself. Once the purview of bibliofiles and librarians, provenance research is now accessible to anyone; in a Google world we can all be book detectives.
Science books are no exception, as I discovered with three of my own. The books are connected in so far as they either paved the way for, or hammered home, the idea of evolution in the Victorian mind.
Robert Chambers House in Edinburgh (Photo:Thanks S.Klinge)
Mid-nineteenth century editions such as these would have been expensive items, objects of desire for the professional or aspiring man of business. These sort of people were often successful in their own right and, along with their descendents, are likely to have left their mark on the world. To the owners…….
The Worthington family Vestiges (Photo:Tim Jones)
The first page of this Vestiges tells us the book has spent at least three generations with the Worthington family. The first custodian ‘J.H.’ was probably the first owner of this 1845 fouth edition. The book passed next to ‘W.B.’ in 1915, and finally to Edgar Barton Worthington as a christmas gift in 1931. Based on one evening’s Googling, the clearest picture emerges around the last owner – E.B.W. As is doubtless common knowledge to those who share the subject’s profession and have a knowledge of its history, Dr Edgar Barton Worthington was a biologist and zoologist. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, EBW worked extensively in Africa to become theNile expert, was a personal friend of paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey (of human ancestor artifact fame), and corresponded with Liddell Hart. From 1962, he managed the 10 year International Biological Programme (IBP), the first attempt to manage rationally the world’s reserves in the face of a changing environment and rising population – sounds familiar. The death of EBW in 2001, aged 96, signaled the end of 150 years of Worthington custodianship for this Vestiges. Further research on W.B. and J.H. will have to wait for another evening.
Thomas William Keates's Explanations (Photo:Tim Jones)
The most likely candidate owner of Explanations is the chemist Thomas William Keates. Thomas William lived at Chatham Place in Blackfriars, London, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Chemical Society in 1852. He may not have set the sky on fire, but he did develop an improved method for turpentine distillation.
The Origin of John S Swann (Photo:Tim Jones)
When the Origin of Species was published in 1859, the 37 year old John S Swann was working as a lawyer in Charleston, West Virginia. When the fourth edition was printed in 1866, Swann purchased his own copy – this one.
While Darwin was working up revised editions of the Origin of Species in the gentle surroundings of Downe in Kent, Swann was languishing in a Civil War prison. Indeed, one of Captain Swann’s two claims to fame is his survival, and later documentation, of his incarceration at Fort Delaware. Swann’s second notable achievement is the geological survey and topographical map he made of the Kanawha Coalfields in West Virginia; the first of its kind and work he pursued post-civil war – his legal career killed by his Confederate past. (Ironically, Kanawha county was embroiled in a modern day book banning controversy in 1974.)
I have no record of how or when Swann obtained his Origin. But, if it was bought on publication, two years after his release, it is likely the book was with him the twenty years he spent cogitating and planning his war memoirs – a period of introspection and hesitation reminiscent of Darwin’s own.
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