OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS–MAY 2021

1.  Anti-science education legislation in Oklahoma

2.  Anti-science/pro-science bills in other states

3.  ‘Zombie’ forest fires may be more common with climate change

4.   T. rex’s incredible biting force came from its stiff lower jaw

5.  Nature Will Help Protect Us From Climate Doom—If We Let It

6.  Luca Fornelli Receives Prestigious ASMS Research Award

7.  May videos

ANTI-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OKLAHOMA
The legislature adjourned sine die on Thursday, May 27.  No anti-science education bills were heard this year. Thanks to all who contacted the Senate Education Committee leaders so that SB 614 and SB 662 were not heard in committee this session.  Numbers DO count.  The bills could be brought up again next year since this is the first year of the two-year session.  Next year’s session will start on February 1.  We will keep watch.
ANTI-SCIENCE/PRO-SCIENCE BILLS IN OTHER STATES
Arizona–Arizona’s Senate Bill 1532, as amended and passed by the House of Representatives on May 5, 2021, would, if enacted, require public school teachers who choose “to discuss controversial issues of public policy or social affairs” to “present these issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.” Teachers out of compliance could be fined up to $5000.
No definition of “controversial” is provided. When the author of the amendment, Michelle Udall (R-District 25), was asked on the floor of the House whether climate change denial specifically would have to receive equal time in the classroom under her bill, she replied, “If they’re working on controversial topics they should teach them from diverse and contending perspectives without giving preference to either side and let students draw their own conclusion.” More at NCSE.
Texas–House Bill 4157, which would have amended the Texas Education Code to add “the long-term problem of human-caused climate change and its effects” as well as “bioregionalism” to the topics to be covered in each school district’s required science curriculum, died in the House Committee on Public Education on May 10, 2021, when a de facto deadline for House bills to pass their committee expired. More at NCSE.

‘ZOMBIE’ FOREST FIRES MAY BE MORE COMMON WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
Winter usually kills most forest fires. But in the boreal woods that encircle the far North, some fires, like zombies, just don’t die. 
The first broad scientific look at overwintering “zombie fires” reveals these rare occurrences can flare up the year after warmer-than-normal summers and account for up to 38 percent of the total burn area in some regions, researchersNature Will Help Protect Us From Climate Doom—If We Let It report online May 19 in Nature. As climate change accelerates in boreal forests, the frequency of zombie fires could rise and exacerbate warming by releasing more greenhouse gases from the region’s soils, which may house twice as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere. More at Science News, phys.org, and Ars Technica.  Original paper in Nature.

T. REX’S INCREDIBLE BITING FORCE CAME FROM ITS STIFF UPPER JAW
The fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex could generate tremendous bone-crushing bite forces thanks to a stiff lower jaw. That stiffness stemmed from a boomerang-shaped bit of bone that braced what would have been an otherwise flexible jawbone, a new analysis suggests.
Unlike mammals, reptiles and their close kin have a joint dubbed the intramandibular joint within their lower jawbone, or mandible. New computer simulations show that with a bone spanning the IMJ, T. Rex could have generated bite forces of more than 6 metric tons, or about the weight of a large male African elephant, researchers reported April 27 at the virtual annual meeting of the American Association of Anatomy. More at Science News.  Original paper here.

NATURE WILL HELP PROTECT US FROM CLIMATE DOOM–IF WE LET IT

The biggest hint nature ever gave humanity was when it sequestered fossil fuels underground, locking their carbon away from the atmosphere. Only rarely, like when a massive volcano fires a layer of coal into the sky, does that carbon escape its confines to dramatically warm the planet.
But such catastrophes hint at a powerful weapon for fighting climate change: Let nature do its carbon-sequestering thing. By restoring forests and wetlands, humanity can bolster the natural processes that trap atmospheric carbon in vegetation. As long as it all doesn’t catch on fire (or a volcano doesn’t blow it up), such “nature-based solutions,” as climate scientists call them, can help slow global warming.
Earlier this month, scientists put a number on how much of a reduction in global heating these solutions might buy us. Writing in the journal Nature, they used a previous calculation of how much carbon such campaigns could sequester and married that with global warming scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  More at Mother Jones and Wired.  Original paper in Nature.

LUCA FORNELLI RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS ASMS RESEARCH AWARD

Luca Fornelli, an assistant professor of biology and chemistry in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences, is one of three recipients of this year’s prestigious American Society for Mass Spectrometry Research Award.
“Selection for this prestigious award recognizes Dr. Fornelli as one of the most talented and promising young investigators in the field of mass spectrometry,” said Richard E. Broughton, chair of the OU Department of Biology. “It is based primarily on his success in developing methods and adapting instrumentation for top-down proteomics. It also reflects his ongoing development as a top investigator in this field that holds great potential for advances in human health.  We are delighted for him as a recipient of this honor.”
Fornelli will receive the $35,000 award at the next ASMS annual conference, to be held Oct. 21-Nov. 4 in Philadelphia. The association presents the awards to promote the research of academic scientists within the first four years of joining the tenure track or research faculty of a North American university.   More at OU.

MAY VIDEOS
Talking Climate Models with John Cook
Proboscideans Preclude Young Earth Creationism