Celebrating 150 years of On the Origin of Species

Today marks the 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species.

It brings to an end a year of celebrations of Charles Darwin and his work, which began in February with the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth.

There's been a lot to celebrate and the Wellcome Trust has rolled out and supported a variety of different activities, many of which can be accessed online.

This includes, of course, this very website. If you hadn't already noticed, click on the links above to view the spectacular Tree of Life animation that formed the centrepiece of Sir David Attenborough’s BBC1 documentary. You can then experience it again as an interactive and explore our other educational and scientific resources.

Available elsewhere are the webisodes and minigames from the Routes series, developed in partnership with Channel 4 to engage young people in genetics and bioethics. This includes the ‘Sneeze’ minigame, which demonstrates how sneezing can spread colds and flu. It has been played over 14 million times.

The Trust’s free experiment kits for schools, the Great Plant Hunt and Survival Rivals, are also still available. This aims to provide a free Darwin-inspired experiment to every child in the country and has given out 23 000 Great Plant Hunt and 8700 Survival Rivals kits so far.

This year also saw the Trust provide £10 million to help build the Natural History Museum’s new Darwin Centre. Opened in September, the Centre houses millions of insect and plant specimens and offers members of the public a glimpse into the working lives of 200 scientists, demonstrating how discovering and collecting new species can help understand climate change and diseases like malaria.

For further details of the Wellcome Trust’s Darwin200 activities see www.wellcome.ac.uk/darwin200

In the Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Evolution

In a special guest post, artist Franziska Schenk explains the inspiration for her exhibition ‘In the Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Evolution’, which opened at the BIAD School of Art in Birmingham this week.

My solo exhibition ‘was specifically developed to mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’.

It responds to a seminal quote from the book where Darwin acknowledges that “to suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances … could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree”. Subsequently, the eye has been a contentious focus in evolutionary theory.

Twenty years on Darwin applied the same line of reasoning to eyespot development – notably drawing comparisons between evolutionary and artistic processes. In the ‘The Descent of Man’ he states “that these ornaments should have formed through the selection of many successive variations, not one of which was originally intended, … seems as incredible, as that one of Raphael’s Madonnas should have been formed by the selection of chance daubs of paint …” Of course Darwin then continues to, once again, reinforce his argument for natural selection.

With this in mind, and after careful consideration, I eventually pinpointed a rare and enigmatic moth (Erebus obscura) as inspiration – the moths outstanding, distinguishing feature being its astonishingly realistic eyespots. Mirroring the process of evolution I have employed innovative reproduction techniques to create successively modified versions – simultaneously magnifying, yet focusing in on, the subject. In an attempt to mimic the ephemeral quality of the colour, I have adapted and adopted novel bio-inspired iridescent nanoparticles. Depending on the light and viewing angle, an apparently dull brown moth transforms into a glitteringly iridescent beauty – before our very eyes.

Franziska Schenk is artist in residence at the Schools of Bioscience and Physics, University of Birmingham.

She will be giving a presentation about the exhibition at a special event at the BIAD School of Art on 24 November to coincide with the 150th anniversary.

New Scientist Origin Day competition

Tree of Life blog readers might be interested in entering this New Scientist competition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of On Origin of the Species on 24th November.

The prize is entry for two persons to the Origin Day events (a morning debate at the Royal Institution and evening party at 50 Albemarle Street), including travel expenses to and from London, two nights stay (23rd and 24th November) at Rocco Forte's five-star Brown's Hotel and subsistence costs.

Closing date for entries is 19 October.

The evolution of On the Origin of Species

Take a look at this lovely annotated (at least on the website itself) graphic showing how On the Origin of Species changed over the course of several editions.

As the website points out, the book we think of did not arrive with the first edition but changed with subsequent revisions and ideas added in later versions, including the addition of the phrase "survival of the fittest".

Using the six editions as a guide, we can see the unfolding and clarification of Darwin's ideas as he sought to further develop his theory during his lifetime.

The graphic itself plays through to show which bits were added in which edition, with the final piece bearing an uncanny resemblance to DNA sequencing lanes.

The project is the brainchild of Ben Fry, director of Seed Visualization and its Phyllotaxis Lab, a design laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts focused on understanding complex data.

Many thanks to @mocost for tipping us off to the link.

Darwin the musical at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

If you're lucky enough to be attending the Edinburgh Festival this month, you may wish to check out this Fringe offering: 'The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Survival of (R)evolutionary Theories in the Face of Scientific and Ecclesiastical Objections: Being a Musical Comedy About Charles Darwin (1809-1882)'.

As well as having an incredibly long title, this production from the Tangram Theatre Company is notable for being one of the only musicals about Charles Darwin and On the Origin of Species.

I'm told that it contains possibly the only musical song about barnacles, as well as some history of science and a condensed voyage of the Beagle.

The show lasts 58 minutes and is on at the Pleasance Courtyard. Times and tickets available from the Fringe website, as well as some audience reviews.