Darwin's Reach A Celebration of Darwin's Legacy Across Academic Disciplines Thursday, Friday and Saturday March 12, 13 and 14, 2009

I will be doing a talk at this conference on the 14th. It should be good --- the conference, of course, not my talk.
It is a bit ironic that my kids confirmed to me that Darwin's names has never been mentioned in school science class so far, and this in New York City's PS/IS187. Anyway, here is the blurb and link to the conference program. --- BRBIII

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The Hofstra University Library, Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Hofstra Cultural Center present a conference:
Darwin's Reach
A Celebration of Darwin's Legacy Across Academic Disciplines

Darwin’s Reach examines the impact of Darwin and Darwinian evolution on science and society in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859).

The central theme of this academic conference is an exploration of how Darwin’s ideas have revolutionized our understanding of both the living world and human nature.

Keynote speakers include:

Frans de Waal, Ph.D., Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University; author of Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape; preeminent researcher on primate social behavior

Niles Eldredge, Ph.D., Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History; curator of the Darwin exhibition; author of Charles Darwin - Discovering the Tree of Life and numerous other books on the subject of evolution

Judge John E. Jones III, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who ruled against the Dover (Pennsylvania) area school board’s attempt to introduce teaching on "intelligent design" into school science classes

Jay Labov, Ph.D., senior advisor for education and communications at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

William F. McComas, Ph.D., Parks Family Professor of Science Education, University of Arkansas; 2007 recipient of the Evolution Education Award sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)

Online registration is available for this conference.
Conference Coordinator:
Carol D. Mallison
Hofstra Cultural Center
E-mail: Carol.Mallison@hofstra.edu

One group of Chimps found to modify tool.

In another of what is becoming an increasing number of specific studies, chimps in one group of chimps in the Congo have learned to modify their sticks to greatly increase the amount of food (termites in this case) that they are able to collect. This recent study appears in Biology Letters.

The lead researcher Crickette Sanz, from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said: "They have invented a way to improve their termite-fishing technique."

Dr Sanz told the BBC: "We found that in the Goualougo Triangle in the Republic of Congo, the chimpanzees were modifying their termite-fishing tools with a special brush tip."

To make their rods, the chimps first picked some stems from the Marantaceae plant and plucked off the leaves.

"They then pulled the herb stems through their teeth, which were partially closed, to make the brush and they also attended to the brush by sometimes pulling apart the fibres to make them better at gathering the termites," Dr Sanz added.

Further research revealed that a stem with a frayed tip collected 10 times more termites than a pointed probe.

Dr Sanz said: "The chimps seem to understand the function of the tool and its importance in gathering termites."

So far, the team have only found this behaviour in chimps in the Goualougo Triangle.

The apparent absence of this in populations in eastern and western Africa suggests that it is not an innate skill found in all chimpanzees.

Instead it seems that the Goualougo primates are learning the crafting techniques from other chimps.