Stargazing made easy with freeware program

I research migratory birds. So, for the past month, I have been waking up before dawn to go birding. This has given me a chance to do some early morning star gazing. I have found the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky book to be very helpful. But recently, I have discovered a freeware program called Stellarium. It is an impressive piece of software that can show you the sky in real-time from any location you choose. The atmospheric effects and jaw-dropping realistic skylines make this the best star-gazing software I’ve seen yet. And it’s free! The interface is very simple and intuitive making it easy to learn the stars. It gives me a new appreciation for the early explorers who relied on the stars for navigation, without the aid of GPS, software or even laser pointers.

Monkeys and Typewriters

If an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually recreate the complete works of Shakespeare, then one monkey at a computer will surely produce only jibberish.

It has been written about before, but I'm not sure who started it. The idea that genetic mutations leading to adaptive changes in a species is a process that can happen more quickly than just by chance. Think about it. Some genetic changes are bad, producing disease or death. These changes are weeded out of the next generation. Whereas genetic changes that are beneficial are passed on. Positive selection. Speeding along the development of adaptive traits.

But I do NOT believe this is the primary contributing factor to the evolution of a species. Rather, I believe sybiotic relationships lead to acquired genomes and this can lead to profound changes in an organism's physiology and biochemistry. Lynn Margulis is a strong advocate of this paradigm. However, she is admittedly not a pioneer in the idea. Many Russian scientists before Darwin believed sybiosis was an important life-changing process. Unfortunately, much of their research has been lost in political turnovers, or is in need of translation into other languages. There are some monkeys currently at work on this. More later.