Richard Dawkins spoke a couple of days ago at the New York Academy of sciences, discussing his new book “The Greatest Show on Earth”. Going through it chapter by chapter, he discussed it as a proof of evolution, and indeed it sounds like it makes an argument from modern and older evidence. The house was crowded and there were some interesting questions in the Q and A, including one young lady who asked how she could persuade her religious family to read the book.

There’s a full color plate in “The Greatest Show on Earth” of Darwinius masillae described in the legend as a “Superlink” that goes on to use one of my favorite underused words “preposterous” with respect to some of the hype, so I am interested to further hear his take on this and read the tome. Other interesting points were that Dawkins defended his description of evolution as a fact from Nicholas Wade’s review which discusses the use of the word fact vs. theory. Dawkins seemed to suggest that a theory is something more for those in the realms of philosophy of science. The argument being conveyed, I think, is that the idea that the earth is round and that evolution occurs will likely never be disproved, thus fact.

A pretty interesting range of topics discussed Thursday at the NN NY happy hour. Juan Carlos Lopez (Nature Medicine) and Richard Sever (editor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory press) covered their pasts, the present and the future of publishing, answering questions on a publishing career (and what got them into publishing), how to publish your paper and finally the fate of scientific publishing.

In the first case the main advice was to, as in any career, indicate practically that you’re interested through gaining experience, and blogging would be one avenue.

How to publish? One attendee suggested a workshop highlighting how to write papers and there are a couple around the city, but more would be helpful and there is clearly a hunger for demystifying the publication process. Lopez and Sever both agreed that when you come to submit a paper, you should be aware of the types of Articles a particular journal publishes. In other words target submissions appropriately.

Finally the future of publishing. It’s no news that print news has already had to deal with the reality of rapid dissemination of information through online sources. The panelists seemed to feel that “online” papers have yet to prove what they can bring to the table in terms of evolving scientific publishing and bringing their advantages to the fore.

And finally was superstar blogger GrrlScientist there? Parrots were not obviously present and I’m not sure what she really looks like (I confess I was too shy to ask random women) but the Beast was said to be sending an emissary….

September 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the day Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson and clapped eyes on our fair city, likely the first western explorer to do so. Of course he didn’t immediately finding himself dazzled by Streisand on Broadway and fighting tooth, claw and nail for a 300 ft sq junior one bedroom at $2400 a month in the Village where he’d be forced to use his oven as storage space. What he would have seen has long been lost in the mists of time and cement.

The “Mannahatta project” (Mannahatta being the Lenape native name, as recorded on the Hudson voyage) to work out what Manhattan looked like pre-building on every square inch and it’s fascinating. Why do basements along Minetta Lane sometimes flood? Well a river runs through it, or to be more precise underneath it- yes Minetta lane overlies an old brook. There are other bodies of water and old marsh below us and this is something that building planners have to deal with. Having trouble cycling into Harlem? There’s a geographical fault line that runs across Manhattan at 125th street, and Murray Hill was once, well, a ridge and major feature on the landscape.

While much excitement arose when a coyote was found in (and evicted from) Central Park in 2006, knowing which animals would once have thrived here is also a natural history mystery.

Find out more in this National Geographic article, the Mannahatta Project website and there is an exhibition at The Museum of the City of New York.

As temperatures ratchet up into another New York August, it can sometimes be hard to believe that the city can be a pleasant place to be. The garbage stinks if you’re unlucky enough to pass it before pick up and, while we haven’t yet hit the tarmac-softening highs I’ve seen in previous years, the oppressive air in the subway seems too unhealthy and heavy to breathe.

At times like this, it’s good to remember the initiatives that the city is taking in response to climate change and conservation in general. PlaNYC is a multi-pronged initiative to improve the city environment in multiple ways. Just last week the mayor unveiled a plan to increase energy efficiency (reduce electricity usage and carbon emissions, the aim for the latter is a reduction of 4,900 tons per year) in public housing in The Bronx.

A more literal oasis of green is the High Line. The High Line is an elevated train line that once ran freight into downtown Manhattan. Trains haven’t run on it since 1980, when the last train brought a car load of frozen turkeys into Chelsea. With the initial support and advocacy of friends of the High line and, in recent years, the city, these train tracks recently reopened as a sort of “park in the sky”. It stretches from Gansevoort to 20th Street, but will eventually run further north and has a nifty “track-like” design that makes use of the river views and the way the tracks tunnel through buildings. The plants look to me to be native New Yorkers- grasses, sumac, horsetails.

This is just a really amazing and innovative reinvention of a rusting skeleton from a different age as a cool oasis.

Only me! I didn’t take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and end up on the “New York Blog” by mistake, but will in fact be posting about New York science here now and again.

The satirical news show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is taped in New York and last night New York University Professor of Anthropology Todd Disotell had a star turn (you can see it as part of the August 5th episode at www.dailyshow.com and the show will be repeated at 8 pm EST on Comedy Central). Disotell works on primate evolution and was part of a special report-type piece discussing our nearest primate relatives. The piece poked fun at scientific discussion (paper followed by a counter-paper followed by another counter-paper, “and no one will read any of them” the interviewer, John Oliver, quipped (much to my chagrin)). Both scientists played the whole thing cool, with Disotell’s wry rapping skills, I think, pretty quick off the mark.

If you’re in New York you can get Daily Show tickets for free here (there are science guests actually fairly often and these have recently included Oliver Sacks, Steven Chu, Harold Varmus and Neil deGrasse Tyson). But since you have to get tickets far in advance, it’s a lottery as to who the guest will be and you may be unlucky ; ) (as I was when I went along a while ago) and see Jake Gyllenhaal as the live interview instead. I actually missed J. Craig Venter by one night on the sister comedy show The Colbert Report (also has science guests relatively often, have included Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins, Neil deGrasse Tyson), but Jon Stewart gave us a quick repartee on geneticists during the pre-taping warm up. Of course Disotell lectures at NYU and gives seminars there for a more serious look at his work (I once saw him give a talk in a Saturday series aimed at getting high school students interested in scientific research) and I’ll comment if there’s anything like that upcoming.