OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE NEWS–DECEMBER 2020

1.  Pro-science education legislation in other states

2.  OU-led study focuses on evolutionary determinism and convergence in marine fishes

3.  Teaching climate crisis in classrooms critical for children, top educators say

4.  How Dinosaurs Thrived in the Snow

5.  Extreme flows in US streams are rising

6.  Fruit Flies Are Essential to Science. So Are the Workers Who Keep Them Alive

7.  Last month the hottest November on record8.  December videos

PRO-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES
Michigan–House Bill 6520, introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives on December 16, 2020, and referred to the House Committee on Education, would, if enacted, create a commission in the state department of education to examine climate change in K-12 instruction.
The commission, consisting mainly of scientific experts as well as a middle school teacher and a high school teacher appointed by the governor, would have a year in which to review the state education standards and offer recommendations with regard to climate change to the state board of education and the legislature. The board would then be required to update the standards within two years, with state assessments and local school districts expected to follow suit.  More at NCSE.
New York–No fewer than five bills in the New York legislature intended to support the teaching of climate change in the public schools are now apparently dead in committee.
Assembly Bill 9831 and the identical Senate Bill 6837 would have established a climate change education grant program to support outreach to young people and teacher professional development on climate change; Assembly Bill 9886 and the identical Senate Bill 7341 would have established a model climate change curriculum in all public elementary and secondary schools; and Senate Bill 6887 would have required “the commissioner of education to make recommendations to the board of regents relating to the adoption of instruction in climate science in senior high schools.”  More at NCSE.

OU-LED STUDY FOCUSES ON EVOLUTIONARY DETERMINISM AND CONVERGENCE IN MARINE FISHES

The stickleback is a well-studied system in freshwater lakes, but the evolution of convergent morphotypes that occupy different positions in the water column in marine environments is less clear. An international group of scientists led by researchers at the University of Oklahoma decided to test the extent to which independent transitions from bottom to midwater habitats in marine fish species from different oceanic basins resulted in the recurrent evolution of body shape morphologies, comparable to those documented in sticklebacks.
The motivation for this study was based on the book, Wonderful Life (ca. 1989), by noted Harvard University paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould.  More at EurekaAlert! and phys.org. Original paper at PNAS.

TEACHING CLIMATE CRISIS IN CLASSROOMS CRITICAL FOR CHILDREN, TOP EDUCATORS SAY

Joe Biden’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis need to extend to American classrooms with routine lessons on the threats posed by global heating, two former US education secretaries have urged.In a letter to the Democratic president-elect, the former top education officials – John King and Arne Duncan – said the education of more than 50 million children in US public schools provides a “critical opportunity” to prepare them for a world transformed by climate change, as well as the opportunities afforded by renewable energy and other potential solutions to the crisis.“Supporting students today in learning about climate change and providing the opportunity to explore and consider climate solutions will increase the resilience of our society as well as our competitiveness in a green economy,” states the letter.  More at the Guardian.

HOW DINOSAURS THRIVED IN THE SNOW

imagine a tyrannosaur striding through the snow, leaving three-toed footprints in the powder as flurries fall on the fuzz along the dinosaur’s back. The vision might seem fit for fantasy, vastly different than the steamy and plant-choked settings we typically think of dinosaurs inhabiting. Yet such scenes truly transpired millions of years ago, with an entire spiky, feathery and beaked menagerie of dinosaurs thriving in polar habitats marked by greater swings between the seasons and prolonged winter darkness.
The finds are coming fast and furious. A tiny jaw found in Alaska’s ancient rock record, and written about in July, indicates that dinosaurs nested in these places and stayed year-round. In 2018, paleontologists published a study describing how microscopic details of polar dinosaur bones show that some dinosaurs slowed their growth during harsh seasons to get by with less. The ongoing identification of new species, not found anywhere else, highlighted how some dinosaurs adapted to the cold. Each thread comes together to underscore how wonderfully flexible dinosaur species were, adapting to some of the harshest habitats of their time.  More at Smithsonian Magazine.

EXTREME FLOWS IN US STREAMS ARE RISING

Climate change involves direct consequences on the cycling of water through our environment. The warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, making intense rainstorms dump even more water than they used to. On the flip side, warmer air can suck even more moisture out of the ground through evaporation, worsening droughts. These things should obviously result in changes for streams. But the amount of water in streams varies wildly under normal conditions, and it can also be affected by more than just weather. Finding trends in that data has proven difficult.
A new study led by Evan Dethier at Dartmouth College set out to group streams into physically meaningful categories, to see if consistent patterns emerge once apples are separated from oranges. That analysis does reveal some trends—both in extremes of high flow and low flow.  More at Ars Technica.  Original paper at Science Advances.

FRUIT FLIES ARE ESSENTIAL TO SCIENCE.  SO ARE THE WORKERS THAT KEEP THEM ALIVE

Sustaining the world’s biggest Drosophila collection during the pandemic has been a challenge, but the people in Indiana who supply the insects to labs around the world stay dedicated to the task.  The rooms that make up the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at Indiana University are lined wall to wall with identical shelves. Each shelf is filled with uniform racks, and each rack with indistinguishable glass vials.The tens of thousands of fruit fly types within the vials, though, are each magnificently different. Some have eyes that fluoresce pink. Some jump when you shine a red light on them. Some have short bodies and iridescent curly wings, and look “like little ballerinas,” said Carol Sylvester, who helps care for them. Each variety doubles as a unique research tool, and it has taken decades to introduce the traits that make them useful. If left unattended, the flies would die in a matter of weeks, marooning entire scientific disciplinesThroughout the Covid-19 pandemic, workers across industries have held the world together, taking on great personal risk to care for sick patients, maintain supply chains and keep people fed. But other essential jobs are less well-known. At the Stock Center dozens of employees have come to work each day, through a lockdown and afterward, to minister to the flies that underpin scientific research.  More at New York Times.

LAST MONTH THE HOTTEST NOVEMBER ON RECORD

Last month was the hottest November on record as Europe basked in its highest Autumn temperatures in history, the European Union’s satellite monitoring service said.  The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) analysis of surface and air temperatures found that November 2020 was 0.8C warmer than the 30-year average of 1981-2010—more than 0.1C hotter than the previous record.  For boreal autumn (September-November) temperatures in Europe were 1.9C above the standard reference period, 0.4C higher than the average temperature in 2006, which was the previous warmest.  More at phys.org.  Original paper at Copernicus Climate Change Service.

DECEMBER VIDEOS

Welcome to the Tulsa Astronomical Observatory

Why TV Comedies Get Climate Change So Wrong

Barbara Forrest: The Trojan Horse at Dover