The Natural History Cabinet of Alfred Russel Wallace, 19th Century

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Images © Robert Heggestad 2009 – All Rights Reserved

I just stumbled upon a wonderful collection of photographs documenting specimens from the natural history cabinet of naturalist explorer Alfred Russel Wallace; this incredible cabinet was famously discovered in 1979 at an Arlington Virgina-based antique store by Robert Heggestad. Heggestad--who took the photos you see above and who still owns the cabinet--purchased this amazing cabinet, seen by some to be a national treasure, for a mere $600.

Alfred Russel Wallace, The cabinet's creator, is famous for having come up with a theory of natural selection concurrently with his associate Charles Darwin; a letter he wrote to Darwin detailing his theory--which came to him in a fever dream, as explored compellingly by artist Mark Dion in the piece "The Delirium of Alfred Russel Wallace"-- famously led Darwin to overcome his qualms and publish his own work. The following excerpted text and images above are all from the blog Quigley's Cabinet:

“As you can imagine,” Heggestad writes, “after spending the past three years learning about his multifaceted life, I have become a great Wallace fan.” He notes that the cabinet is no longer on exhibit, but is still at the American Museum of Natural History cared for by Dr. David Grimaldi, Curator of Diptera, Fossil Insects & Lepidoptera, who will publish a paper on the historical and scientific significance of the collection. “I think this is a fabulous thing…a national treasure, actually,” says Dr. Grimaldi.

The collection contains some 1679 specimens in 26 glass-topped drawers that were originally hermetically sealed. “Of dragon-flies, I have many pretty species…” Wallace wrote in a letter from Singapore in 1854, and indeed the cabinet contains 36 dragon and caddis flies (1st image). The drawers in which the 398 butterflies and 294 moths were pinned had been built with a compartment along the front filled with camphor crystals, used to prevent damage to insect collections by other small insects. Wallace’s butterfly specimens include a “cracker” butterfly (Papilio amphinome, 2nd image), native to South America and named for the unusual sound the males produce as part of their territorial displays; a brush-footed butterfly collected in Brazil and commonly known as an “88” because of the pattern on its wings. The moths include a blue underwing, named for the bright hindwings hidden beneath dull forewings, and 2 species of sphinx moth, known for their quick and sustained flying ability, for which they are often mistaken for hummingbirds. Of the sphinx moth, Wallace wrote, “this moth, shortly after its immergence from the cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised stationary in the air, with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled and inserted into the minute orifices of flowers; and no one, I believe, has ever seen this moth learning to perform its difficult task which requires such unerring aim.”

Among the 396 shells (3rd image) and stones and 86 pods and botanical specimens (4th image) is the fruit of a large leguminous tree of Brazil, the pulpy center of which is pulpy and edible. But perhaps the most intriguing specimen is the skin of an African sun bird (5th image), an Old World bird also reminiscent of hummingbirds because of the iridescent coloration of the males.

The collection also includes a British butterfly that is now extinct, fireflies and bedbugs captured by Wallace when he was 11 years old, and glasswing butterflies. The cabinet includes 2 specimens of the death’s-head moth featured in “The Silence of the Lambs.” Wallace gathered insects with “protective resemblances” - beetles that look like dewdrops, and moths that look like leaves, sticks, and bird droppings – and insects that mimic each other. He had many examples of protective coloration. He collected multiples of a single species to show individual variation. Wallace believed “that a superior intelligence, acting nevertheless through natural and universal laws, has guided the development of man in a definite direction and for a special purpose” - a more theistic view than Darwin, and the equivalent of today’s theory of “intelligent design.”

You can read this story in its entirety and see the full image collection (from which the above were excerpted) by clicking here. You can read more about the discovery of the cabinet by Mr. Heggestad by clicking here. To find out more about Alfred Russel Wallace, click here. To find out more about Mark Dion's artpiece, click here.

Finland, still going its own way | Gene Expression

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Dienekes points to a new paper which highlights genetic variation in Fenno-Scandinavia (or in this case, Finland, Sweden and Denmark). A two-dimensional plot with the variation is pretty illustrative of what you’d expect:

leunordicdb

Finns are genetic outliers in Europe, to some extent even in comparison to Estonians, who speak a very similar language. But, I wonder if the situation will change a bit when we have more samples from Finnic populations of northern Russia. Remember that the nature of these representations is sensitive to the variation which we throw into the equation in the first place.

Reader survey results: politics | Gene Expression

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Since the reader survey is topping out in response, I though I’d report some of the results. Since I’ve been doing these surveys my readership has exhibited a few patterns, and I was curious as to any changes since moving to Discover. Not too much has shifted. Instead of 15% female, as was the case for years, the readers are now 25% female. It looks like ~10% of the readers know this website only through Discover. Feel free to browse the results yourself.

I think the most interesting aspect for many is the political diversity. Generally the readership is split between Left liberals and libertarians. Though there are a small number of conventional conservatives, it is very rare to find those who are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. These “populists” tend not to be as intelligent as the other combinations, and so I suspect that’s why they’re not well represented on the web, among my readership, or the political elite of the United States in general (for what it’s worth, I’ve been moving in a more populist direction over the years, starting from a libertarian stance).

First, a few summary statistics. I asked readers their index of liberalism, with 0 being as conservative as possible, 10 as liberal, and 5 in the middle. I asked on two dimensions, social and economic.


Social:

Median – 8
Mean -7.4
Standard Deviation – 2.48

Economic:

Median – 5
Mean -5.01
Standard Deviation – 2.74

The correlation between social and economic liberalism was 0.37. Here is a chart which illustrates the different distributions:

survey0

I’ve smoothed a bit, but it’s clear that while there’s several modes in the economic liberalism distribution, there’s a strong liberal slant on social issues. Not that surprising. But I wanted to look at the combinations, so I created some bubble plots. The size of the circle is proportional to the weight of the particular political combination within the set (or subset).

First, the whole data set.

surve1

You see four quadrants. The plural majority of readers are liberal, followed by libertarians, then conservatives, then populists. Remove the centrists (those who selected 5 on either social or economic responses) and summing up the numbers in the quadrants, here are the percentages:

Liberals – 40%

Libertarian – 28%

Conservative – 11%

Populist – 3%

(the rest are in the borderline zones)

Now let’s look at the subsamples and how that impacts distribution.

surveyfem

Female readers tend to be more liberal.

I’ll just leave you with the rest of the bubble charts with minimal comment. But if you want to know something about the data, ask in the comments. Doing the analysis isn’t usually that hard, but I don’t know what people want to know (virgins are young, but not different than the rest of the readership).


















Polly Cay Bahamas

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polly-cay-bahamas-2The Bahamas Island market is hopping right now with many exciting new properties coming on the market. Among the best of these new offerings is Polly Cay Island an 8 acre island located in Exuma chain. Located just 60 minutes by plane from Florida the island is services by Great Exuma which is equipped with medical clinic, 18 holes golf course and international airport with daily direct flights to USA.

Polly Cay is situated in the southern tip of Little Exuma, only 600 yards, 2 minute’s boat ride from main land, which allow to enjoy the luxury of private island without being isolated.  This private island is sited in the center of a lagoon, surrounded by warm turquoise crystal-clear water, hundreds of feet snow white sand bars.

Polly Cay has 20 ft elevation, great beaches, and significant protection by neighboring islands and Great Bahamas Bank. At hand a natural deep water channel, which allow easy approach for large yachts to the cay.

There is a building permit approved for two single family homes, which can easily be increased to eight. Commercial (resort) permits are also obtainable, since the Bahamian Government welcomes investors and their projects, as long it will not damage the environment.

For more information on this property visit Private Islands Online.

What Does a Molecule Look Like?

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As machinists, we are used to handling materials in the bulk world.

As machinists, our ease in obtaining productivity is influenced by the microscopic world of phases, microstructures, and chemistry.

Underneath this microscopic world lies the world of molecules and atoms themselves.

Would You Buy a Lincoln Concept Car?

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Car guys like to moan and groan about all the sweet concept cars that are unveiled each year at the auto shows, but that will never be available for purchase. Well, guess what. They are now - as long as you don't mind owning a Lincoln.

The 2004 Mark X concept, the Lincoln version of the For

Blowing in the Wind: Cassini Helps with Dune Whodunit

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Cassini radar sees sand dunes on Saturn's giant moon Titan (upper photo) that are sculpted like Namibian sand dunes on Earth (lower photo). The bright features in the upper radar photo are not clouds but topographic features among the dunes. Image credit: NASA/JPL (upper photo); NASA/JSC (lower photo) - Larger image

The answer to the mystery of dune patterns on Saturn's moon Titan did turn out to be blowing in the wind. It just wasn't from the direction many scientists expected.

Basic principles describing the rotation of planetary atmospheres and data from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe led to circulation models that showed surface winds streaming generally east-to-west around Titan's equatorial belt. But when NASA's Cassini spacecraft obtained the first images of dunes on Titan in 2005, the dunes' orientation suggested the sands – and therefore the winds – were moving from the opposite direction, or west to east.

A new paper by Tetsuya Tokano in press with the journal Aeolian Research seeks to explain the paradox. It explains that seasonal changes appear to reverse wind patterns on Titan for a short period. These gusts, which occur intermittently for perhaps two years, sweep west to east and are so strong they do a better job of transporting sand than the usual east-to-west surface winds. Those east-to-west winds do not appear to gather enough strength to move significant amounts of sand.

A related perspective article about Tokano's work by Cassini radar scientist Ralph Lorenz, the lead author on a 2009 paper mapping the dunes, appears in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"It was hard to believe that there would be permanent west-to-east winds, as suggested by the dune appearance," said Tokano, of the University of Cologne, Germany. "The dramatic, monsoon-type wind reversal around equinox turns out to be the key."

The dunes track across the vast sand seas of Titan only in latitudes within 30 degrees of the equator. They are about a kilometer (half a mile) wide and tens to hundreds of kilometers (miles) long. They can rise more than 100 meters (300 feet) high. The sands that make up the dunes appear to be made of organic, hydrocarbon particles. The dunes' ridges generally run west-to-east, as wind here generally sheds sand along lines parallel to the equator.

Scientists predicted winds in the low latitudes around Titan's equator would blow east-to-west because at higher latitudes the average wind blows west-to-east. The wind forces should balance out, based on basic principles of rotating atmospheres.

Tokano re-analyzed a computer-based global circulation model for Titan he put together in 2008. That model, like others for Titan, was adapted from ones developed for Earth and Mars. Tokano added in new data on Titan topography and shape based on Cassini radar and gravity data. In his new analysis, Tokano also looked more closely at variations in the wind at different points in time rather than the averages. Equinox periods jumped out.

Equinoxes occur twice a Titan year, which is about 29 Earth years. During equinox, the sun shines directly over the equator, and heat from the sun creates upwelling in the atmosphere. The turbulent mixing causes the winds to reverse and accelerate. On Earth, this rare kind of wind reversal happens over the Indian Ocean in transitional seasons between monsoons.

The episodic reverse winds on Titan appear to blow around 1 to 1.8 meters per second (2 to 4 mph). The threshold for sand movement appears to be about 1 meter per second (2 mph), a speed that the typical east-to-west winds never appear to surpass. Dune patterns sculpted by strong, short episodes of wind can be found on Earth in the northern Namib sand seas in Namibia, Africa.

"This is a subtle discovery -- only by delving into the statistics of the winds in the model could this rather distressing paradox be resolved," said Ralph Lorenz, a Cassini radar scientist based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "This work is also reassuring for preparations for proposed future missions to Titan, in that we can become more confident in predicting the winds which can affect the delivery accuracy of landers, or the drift of balloons."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information visit http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-251

BREAKING!! Feingold falls behind Ron Johnson in Wisconsin

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From Eric Dondero:

We have been closely following the Senate race in Wisconsin between ultra-leftist Democrat incumbent Senator Russ Feingold and his challenger Republican Ron Johnson. This is the ultimate match-up between a Socialist, AntiWar Democrat and a Right Libertarian, Pro-Defense, devotee of Ayn Rand.

Now this poll released overnight from Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Wisconsin shows Johnson with 48% support. Feingold, a member of the Senate since 1993, again picks up 46% of the vote. Two percent (2%) favor another candidate in the race, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Not too mention this was a race not on the radar screen of most political pundits as a likely turnover to the Republicans. A Johnson win over Feingold moves the GOP one step closer to the magic 50 number in the Senate.

Sharron Angle’s political activism started in the Home School movement

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by Paul Jacob

Sharron Angle, who is running for U.S. Senate against Harry Reid, the majority leader seeking a fifth term, had a very good reason for entering politics. The powers that be wouldn’t leave her be.

In his column “Candidate Nobody Is Not to Be Underestimated,” George Will reports that the roots of the grandmother’s current campaign lie three decades in the past.

Her son was being forced to repeat kindergarten, so she decided to teach him herself. But although homeschooling was legal in Nevada, you couldn’t do it unless you lived at least 50 miles from a public school.

Angle and other parents trooped to the state legislature to demand change. One job-holder there, annoyed by this torrent of interest by mere citizens in legislative doings, said if he’d “known there would be 500 people here instead of 50 and it would take five hours instead of 30 minutes, I would have thrown it [the legislation] in my drawer, and it would never have seen the light of day.” Angle has been “politically incandescent” ever since.

I like this story for many reasons, in part because my wife and I have home-schooled our kids. One thing you have to teach the young is not to expect politicians to look out for your genuine best interests.

Another is that vigilance is the price of liberty.

A third is that if you want something done right, often you have to do it yourself.

Paul Jacob is a longtime libertarian political activist; a one-time Draft Resistor, fmr. National Director of the Libertarian Party, and fmr. President of US Term Limits.