Darwin in the Galapagos

Wednesday, 1st May 2013 – “Darwin in the Galapagos” was the title of Professor Bill Hale’s talk on the 1st May. Charles Darwin’s visit to the Galapagos Islands during his five year voyage on the Beagle was instrumental in his development of The Theory of Evolution. Bill gave us a tour of the islands by proxy, with stunning photos taken while following in Darwin’s footsteps. Bill’s two visits to the Galapagos fulfilled a long-standing wish to see at first hand Darwin’s “finches”, among many other species.

For Better, For Worse

Wednesday, 7th November 2012 – Chris Procter gave us a wonderful talk on the relationships between different organisms – co-operative, competitive and exploitative, with a great set of very informative slides to illustrate her points.

Just as well we had finished our coffee and biscuits, as she described, in some gory detail, a variety of parasites that could infect humans, and how the human/parasite life cycle is maintained.

For Better, For Worse

Wednesday, 7th November 2012 – Have you ever thought how much one species depends on another? For instance, we know that a butterfly gets nectar from a flower, but how does the flower benefit from this?

Aphrodite fritillary on milkweed speyeria aphrodite by Sturm Ken, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

If you’ve been intrigued by such questions, come along on Wednesday afternoon to hear Chris Procter tell us about the various relationships between organisms – co-operative, competitive and exploitative.

The meeting starts with tea/coffee and biscuits at 2pm in the main room at the Scout HQ.

The Rise and Spread of Homo sapiens

September 6th, Scout HQ – Dr Stephen Doyle returned to give us another splendid talk, this time about Homo sapiens, and covered such notions as:

• How old is Homo sapiens?
• Are we all Africans?
• If so, why are we not all black?
• Who is Mitochondrial Eve?
• How many mothers do Europeans have?
• Did humans mate with Neanderthals?
• Who are the Desinovans?
• What did the Mount Tuba Super Volcano do? Will Yellowstone do the same?
• Was the Con Tiki expedition right?
• Lake Agassiz and the Biblical Flood
• Why can’t Chinese drink milk?

Stephen has been to Aughton twice previously, and this third talk lived up to the other two: great slides, relaxed manner, knowledgeable around the subject, and he even seemed to be enjoying himself!

He also suggests some links for further study and information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution – Wikepedia article that has lots of links from it

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ – Journey of Mankind

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/26/MN971KQCVQ.DTL – Denisovans and Neanderthals. The Swedish anthropologist Svänte Paabo and his colleagues first deciphered the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes and showed where and when they interbred with modern humans.

He also recommends a well written book he is currently reading called “Before the Dawn – recovering the lost history of our ancestors” by Nicholas Wade, which expands on much of what Stephen included in his talk.