OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE NEWS–DECEMBER 2019

1. Anti-science education legislation in Oklahoma

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

3. Newly described fossil whale represents intermediate stage between foot-powered and tail-powered swimming

4.  A climate change guide that is truly teacher-friendly

5.  The tree of life may have only two major branches once again

6. Sam Noble Museum seeks educator for amphibian citizen science project

7.  Globe had 2nd-hottest October and year-to-date on record8.  Fake frogs in school dissections eliminate gross-out-factor

ANTI-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OKLAHOMA
January 16 is the deadline for bills to be introduced for this year’s Oklahoma legislative session.  As of this writing, no anti-science education bills are listed on the Oklahoma legislature website.  Please check the OESE website regularly after January 16 for updates on bills introduced and actions needed.  Also, this year new science standards will be proposed and will require legislative approval, so we will keep you informed of any actions needed regarding those as well.  

ANTI-SCIENCE/PRO-SCIENCE LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES
Idaho–When the Idaho legislature adjourned sine die on March 28, 2018, a three-year-long struggle over the treatment of climate change in the state’s new science standards ended, with a generally favorable outcome. Now, however, it appears that the legislative attack on climate change education in Idaho may resume.
Motivated by frustration over a number of recent controversies, legislators earlier this year chose not to renew Idaho’s 8,000 pages of rules and regulations, which are typically renewed annually as a matter of course. In doing so, they resurrected a slew of hot-button issues that had previously been resolved—including the science standards, which legislators will be able to address when the legislature convenes in January 2020.  More at NCSE.

NEWLY DESCRIBED FOSSIL WHALE REPRESENTS INTERMEDIATE STAGE BETWEEN FOOT-POWERED AND TAIL-POWERED SWIMMING

A newly described fossil whale represents a new species and an important step in the evolution of whale locomotion, according to a University of Michigan paleontologist and his colleagues.
The fossilized remains of Aegicetus gehennae were recovered in the Egyptian desert in 2007 and were dated to around 35 million years ago. The creature appears to have been well-adapted for swimming through undulation of the mid-body and tail, somewhat as crocodiles swim today, according to U-M’s Philip Gingerich.  More at phys.org.  Original paper at PLOS ONE.

A CLIMATE CHANGE GUIDE THAT IS TRULY TEACHER-FRIENDLY
A lone but confident teacher stands in front of the classroom. She is teaching an amazing lesson about climate change and the planet’s future. A hand shoots up into the air, pumping with excitement, and she thinks, “Yes, yes … this is why I teach!” The student, face shining, then announces with much fervor that climate change isn’t really happening: it is all a made-up  theory. And so the teacher’s bubble of enthusiasm instantly pops.
How might our teacher regroup and recover from this sudden setback? Simple. All she has to do is to turn to the Paleontological Research Institution’s The Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change, which will prepare her to blow away each and every misconception out there about this vitally important topic. Even seasoned teachers, who have already fielded every conceivable objection to the science of climate change during their tenure, will take away new facts and ideas from this valuable teacher resource.  More at NCSE.  Online version here.

THE TREE OF LIFE MAY HAVE ONLY TWO MAJOR BRANCHES ONCE AGAIN

In the 1970s, archaea were discovered. These organisms are single-celled and lack nuclei, like prokaryotes, but their cell membranes and the way they make proteins from DNA are similar to eukaryotes. They are dissimilar enough to both prokaryotes and eukaryotes that they became their own third domain on the tree of life. And they became contenders for the role of eukaryotic ancestor—maybe the cell that initially swallowed a bacterium was an archaea.
Researchers were able to home in on a likely candidate for this proto-eukaryote with the advent of metagenomics, the ability to sequence the DNA of species that cannot be grown in the lab. In 2015, they found a species of archaea that had all the requisite qualifications at a site called Loki’s Castle, a hydrothermal vent under the Arctic. Researchers duly named this organism Lokiarchaea. (Mythology thus informed not only the nomenclature of geologic features on the ocean floor, but of microbes as well.)
But the three-domain tree of life taxonomy—like all other taxonomies—depends on the species used to build the tree, the genetic sequences chosen from those species, and the methods used to compare those sequences to each other. New thinking in the field is that the three domain model was made using a highly limited dataset—36 genes from 104 taxa—and is too simplistic. A two-domain model, in which eukaryotes are a branch of archaea, fits the data much better.
The 3-D camp counters that the genetic similarities between archaea and eukaryotes, upon which much of the 2-D argument relies, are due to contamination of archaea by eukaryotes and that only fast-evolving archaea were included in the analysis, thus skewing the results. 
So now a group of evolutionary biologists has undertaken a larger analysis, including over 3,000 gene families from 125 species analyzed using three different methods. Unlike the former study, this one incorporated many uncultivated microbes.
Regardless of which genomic data is used and the method by which it’s sliced and diced, the team concluded that a two-domain tree seems to fit it better. Eukaryotes seem to have arisen from the Asgard archaea branch, which has genes that were considered uniquely eukaryotic, not because they were contaminated by eukaryotic samples, but because they are the ancestral versions of the ones eukaryotes now have.  More at Ars Technica.  Original paper in Nature.

SAM NOBLE MUSEUM SEEKS EDUCATORS FOR AMPHIBIAN CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT

Have you ever wanted to be a scientist of help a scientist made new discoveries? Join the Herpetology Department of the Sam Noble Museum in their ongoing citizen science project, where YOU become the scientist collecting real-world data!  If you are an Oklahoma teacher or informal educator with easy access to a local pond or stream, we encourage you to participate with your students.  Go to http://cameronsiler.com/citizen-science to learn more information, download teacher materials, and to request a kit.  Deadline to apply: March 1, 2020.

GLOBE HAD 2ND-HOTTEST OCTOBER AND YEAR-TO-DATE ON RECORD
The global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average for October 2019 was the second highest for the month of October in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. The year-to-date temperature for 2019 was also the second warmest on record for the January–October period. 
The October temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.76°F above the 20th century average of 57.1°F and the second highest October temperature on record. This value was only 0.11°F shy of tying the record warm October set in 2015.  More at NOAA.

FAKE FROGS IN SCHOOL DISSECTIONS ELIMINATE GROSS-OUT-FACTOR

It’s a rite of passage in schools across the U.S.: frog dissection.
Sometimes it happens in middle school, sometimes in high school. Feelings about the lesson are generally summed up in one word: gross. The frogs are slimy and greenish-grey, and they stink because they’re pickled in formaldehyde.
One Florida high school recently tried to eliminate the gross-out factor by using fake, yet highly realistic, frogs. The school and the company that makes the synthetic frogs — not to mention animal rights groups like PETA — hope this will change how dissections are handled in classrooms across the country.
OESE Board member and president-elect of the National Science Teachers Association Beth Allen is quoted in the article.  More at Washington Post.  Story also picked up by Progressive Farmer.