OKLAHOMA EVOLUTION/CLIMATE NEWS–JUNE 2020

1.  Anti-science/pro-science education legislation in other states

2.  A new NCSE/Penn State survey finds impressive gains in evolution education

3.  These tube-shaped creatures may be the earliest known parasites

4.  Oklahoma Professor Begins Term as 2020-2021 President of the National Science Teaching Association

5.  A Siberian town hit 100 degrees, setting a new record for the Arctic Circle

6.  How to Make Your Day with Citizen Science!

7.  Bubble-blowing drones may one day aid artificial pollination

8.  Asteroid impact, not volcanism, caused the end-Cretaceous dinosaur extinction

9.  June video

ANTI-SCIENCE/PRO-SCIENCE EDUCATION LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES
Idaho–Idaho’s state science education standards are going to be revised again, according to Idaho Education News, which means that the treatment of climate change in the standards is likely again to be at risk.From 2016 to 2018, a group of legislators in Idaho’s House of Representatives attempted to block the adoption of new state science standards because of their treatment of climate change only failing in 2018. They renewed their efforts in 2020.
In the wake of that failure, though, the legislature called for the standards to be revised again, partly in order to “provide balance in standards that have been politicized,” including by discussing “positive and negative aspects” of energy sources.  More at NCSE.
New Jersey–The New Jersey State Board of Education adopted revisions to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards that incorporate climate change in a systematic and coordinated way throughout.
Climate change was already present in New Jersey’s science education standards, to be sure. The state adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, which include global climate change as one of four sub-ideas in the core idea of Earth and Human Activity at both the middle school and the high school level, in 2014. The new revision of the science standards emphasizes climate change even further, offering a few paragraphs of advice to science teachers and encouraging them to incorporate the topic throughout the curriculum.  More at NCSE here and here.

A NEW NCSE/PENN STATE SURVEY FINDS IMPRESSIVE GAINS IN EVOLUTION EDUCATION
Public high school biology teachers today are more likely to teach evolution — the conceptual core and organizing principle of the life sciences — as settled science than they were twelve years ago, according to a new rigorous national survey from NCSE and Penn State.
Conducted in 2019 among 752 public high school biology teachers by Eric Plutzer, a political scientist and polling expert at Penn State, the survey was designed to replicate a similar national survey that Plutzer and his colleagues conducted in 2007.  More at NCSE here and here.  Other coverage at Nature, Sensuous Curmudgeon,  and Biomed Central.  Survey published at Biomed Central.

THESE TUBE-SHAPED CREATURES MAY BE THE EARLIEST KNOWN PARASITES

Tube-dwelling creatures that spent their lives cemented to the shells of clamlike brachiopods over 500 million years ago may be the earliest known parasites.
“Parasitism is an integral part of life on Earth, but it’s been hard to determine when it emerged,” says Tommy Leung, a parasitologist at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. But, he says, it likely arose early, in part because today “practically every living thing has some kind of parasitic thing living on or in them, even down to parasites themselves.”
Now, a 512-million-year-old bed of tube-encrusted brachiopods in Yunnan, China offers compelling evidence of a parasite-host relationship,   More at Science News and Ars Technica.  Original paper in Nature Communications.

OKLAHOMA PROFESSOR BEGINS TERM AS 2020-2021 PRESIDENT OF NATION SCIENCE TEACHING ASSOCIATION
On June 1, OESE Board member Dr. Elizabeth “Beth” Allan, a professor of biology and coordinator of the secondary science education program at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma, became the 2020-21 President of the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), the largest professional organization in the world promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
“It’s an honor to be able to serve this year as the president of the National Science Teaching Association,” said Allan. “To be able to be part of an organization that provides resources, support, and advocacy for science teaching is a privilege and I look forward to working together to support teachers so that all students have access to high quality science instruction.”  Coverage on AP Businesswire, published at Olean Times Herald and elsewhere.

A SIBERIAN TOWN HIT 100 DEGRESS, SETTING A NEW RECORD FOR THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
The remote Siberian town of Verkhoyansk is known for its extreme cold: Winter temperatures often dip below –50° Celsius. But on June 20, temperatures in the town soared to a high of 38° C (100.4° Fahrenheit). If confirmed by the World Meteorological Association, that marks the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.
Verkhoyansk has experienced extreme heat before: On July 25, 1988, the town hit a then-record of 37.3° C (99.1° F). The new high, which smashes that 32-year record, comes on the heels of a historically hot May around the globe, and especially in Siberia, which is in the grips of an ongoing heat wave.  More at Science News.  More coverage at BBC, Slashdot, Gizmodo, Common Dreams, and Wired.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR DAY WITH CITIZEN SCIENCE!
OESE Board member Stanley Rice’s recent blog post starts:How can you make an ordinary hike into an odyssey of the mind? Do some citizen science, of course!
It was a nice day in early summer, so I decided to take a hike. In Tulsa, there is really only one place to do this: Turkey Mountain, so called because it is not a mountain and has no turkeys. I could have gone to Red Bud Valley, which is a really nice place northeast of Tulsa, but the only road into and out of it is one across which trains park for hours at a time, blocking access in and out. In contrast, Turkey Mountain is near my home and is accessible.  Read the rest of the post to find out how citizen science can be fun.

BUBBLE-BLOWING DRONES MAY ONE DAY AID ARTIFICIAL POLLINATION

Drones that blow pollen-laden bubbles onto blossoms could someday help farmers pollinate their crops.
Rather than relying on bees and other pollinating insects — which are dwindling worldwide as a result of climate change, pesticide use and other factors — farmers can spray or swab pollen onto crops themselves. But machine-blown plumes can waste many grains of pollen, and manually brushing pollen onto plants is labor-intensive.Materials chemist Eijiro Miyako of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Nomi imagines outsourcing pollination to automatous drones that deliver pollen grains to individual flowers. His original idea involved a pollen-coated drone rubbing grains onto flowers, but that treatment damaged the blossoms. Then, while blowing bubbles with his son, Miyako realized that bubbles might be a gentler means of delivery. 
To that end, Miyako and his colleague Xi Yang, an environmental scientist also at JAIST, devised a pollen-containing solution that a drone toting a bubble gun could blow onto crops. To test the viability of their pollen-loaded bubbles, the researchers used this technique to pollinate by hand pear trees in an orchard. Those trees bore about as much fruit as trees pollinated using a traditional method of hand pollination.  More at Science News.  Coverage at Slashdot.  Original paper at iScience.

ASTEROID IMPACT, NOT VOLCANISM, CAUSED THE END-CRETACEOUS DINOSAUR EXTINCTION
The mass extinction event that ended the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago has long generated a lively back-and-forth debate among geologists. Wild episodes of volcanism line up with earlier mass extinctions, and the end-Cretaceous saw the Deccan Traps eruptions, which covered much of what is now India in lava. The asteroid impact that formed the Chicxulub crater quite obviously goes in the “bad things for life” category, too. But the Deccan eruptions can’t be ignored, so debates on the relative contributions of these events have been unavoidable.
In the last few years, more precise dating techniques have made the timing of the eruptions clearer. It’s obvious where the asteroid impact fits into the timeline, as a layer of dust and soot appears in the rocks around the world, but tying in the eruptions has been more difficult. And the fossil evidence and climate indicators have also left some room for interpretation about the effects of the volcanism.
A new study led by Alessandro Chiarenza at Imperial College London and Alexander Farnsworth at the University of Bristol tries to get some answers through a slightly different approach—creating a dinosaur habitat model.  More at Ars Technica and Slashdot.  Original paper at PNAS.

JUNE VIDEO
Darwin thinks about Gorillas