OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE NEWS–OCTOBER 2019

Clickable links in BLUE and underlined. Oklahoma specific items in GREEN. Each state and some Canadian provinces have similar listserves, and this list is a sponsored activity of Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education (OESE). Posts are usually one per month. Subscribers: 1049.

1. Anti-science education news in other states

2.  How tardigrades protect their DNA to defy death

3.  The best way to teach science? Rig your experiments to confound students’ predictions.

4.  Long stretches of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA helped Homo sapiens adapt

5.  Ocean acidification can cause mass extinctions, fossils reveal

6.  Remarkable fossils capture mammals’ recovery after the dino-killing asteroid

7.  Last month was the warmest October on record globally.

8.  October video

ANTI-SCIENCE EDUCATION NEWS IN OTHER STATES
Pennsylvania–As Pennsylvania begins the process of revising its 17-year-old state science standards, there is concern that the process will “ignite political battles” over the treatment of evolution and climate change.
Educators expect that climate change education will be a major sticking point in the overhaul of Pennsylvania’s science standards, which currently lack any mention of human-caused global warming.  Only three other states—Montana, Nebraska, and Ohio—fail to mention human-caused global warming in their current state science standards.
The inclusion of evolution in the state science standards adopted by Pennsylvania in 2002 was contentious. Earlier in 2019, the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association encouraged its members to lobby for the state to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, already used in twenty states (plus the District of Columbia).  More at NCSE.

HOW TARDIGRADES PROTECT THEIR DNA TO DEFY DEATH

Tardigrades may partly owe their ability to survive outer space to having the molecular equivalent of cotton candy. 
Water bears, as the creatures are also known, can famously survive just about anything, including being bombarded with X-rays or cosmic rays, or being doused in hydrogen peroxide. Such radiation and chemical exposure result in production of DNA-damaging hydroxyl radicals, molecules composed of oxygen and hydrogen.
Previous research indicated that a protein called Dsup, for damage suppressor, shields the tardigrade species Ramazzottius varieornatus from radiation. When added to human cells, the protein also protects against radiation. Now researchers have found out how.  More at Science News.  Original paper at eLife.

THE BEST WAY TO TEACH SCIENCE?  RIG YOUR EXPERIMENTS TO CONFOUND STUDENTS’ PREDICTIONS
In a Wired article, Rhett Allain argues there is a challenge in science education that is less often recognized: Students often enter a course with their own unarticulated ideas about how the world works. We call these “misconceptions,” but it’s important to realize that these are also models, based on their life experiences, and that they must “make sense” to the student.What I’d like to suggest is that this actually provides a great way into the adventure of science and an opportunity to meet our objectives as educators. If you can create a situation that challenges students’ assumptions and produces conceptual conflict, that’s a great opportunity for learning.

LONG STRETCHES OF NEANDERTHAL AND DENISOVAN DNA HELPED HOMO SAPIENS ADAPT

University of Washington geneticist PingHsun Hsieh and his colleagues found Neanderthal and Denisovan versions of some genes in the genomes of people from Melanesia. These versions have several thousand base pairs of DNA that have been duplicated or deleted in the normal human versions. Most of this altered DNA is in or near genes related to metabolism, development, the life cycle of cells, communication among cells, or the immune system.
Those gene variants are surprisingly common among Melanesian peoples, and that could mean that their effects were useful enough that natural selection favored passing them along.  More at Ars Technica.  Original paper at Science.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION CAN CAUSE MASS EXTINCTIONS, FOSSILS REVEAL

Ocean acidification can cause the mass extinction of marine life, fossil evidence from 66m years ago has revealed.
A key impact of today’s climate crisis is that seas are again getting more acidic, as they absorb carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists said the latest research is a warning that humanity is risking potential “ecological collapse” in the oceans, which produce half the oxygen we breathe.
The researchers analysed small seashells in sediment laid down shortly after a giant meteorite hit the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs and three-quarters of marine species. Chemical analysis of the shells showed a sharp drop in the pH of the ocean in the century to the millennium after the strike.  More at the Guardian.  Original paper at PNAS,

REMARKABLE FOSSILS CAPTURE MAMMALS’ RECOVERY AFTER DINO-KILLING ASTEROID
Understanding how life rebounded after an asteroid strike 66 million years ago, which wiped out up to 75 percent of Earth’s species and ended the dinosaurs’ reign, has been hard. Fossils from the immediate aftermath are exceedingly rare (SN: 4/2/19). Now, though, a fossil-rich deposit in Colorado’s Denver Basin is offering paleontologists a window into how mammals, plants and reptiles recovered and flourished following the impact.
The find has allowed the scientists to piece together a detailed timeline of how mammals quickly diversified and grew in size once nonavian dinosaurs were out of the way. Within 700,000 years after the impact, for instance, some mammals had grown to be 100 times as heavy as the original survivors, researchers report online October 24 in Science.   More at Science News, Science, and the New York Times.

LAST MONTH WAS THE WARMEST OCTOBER ON RECORD GLOBALLY

As we rolled into November, scientists discovered last month was the warmest October on record globally.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analyzes temperature data from around the planet, said October 2019 was the warmest in their data record, which goes back to 1979.
Globally, October was 0.69 degrees Celsius (1.24 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the average of all the Octobers in the 30-year span from 1981-2010, Copernicus said in its report. Last month narrowly edged out the previous record for October, set in 2015, by only 0.01 degrees Celsius (0.018 degrees Fahrenheit).  More at CNN, the Washington Post, the Independent, and US News.

OCTOBER VIDEO
Bias in perception