Scott Edwards, Prof. of Zoology, Curator of Ornithology, Harvard University
Wednesday, 12 August 2015 from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Napier venue: National Aquarium of New Zealand, Marine Parade, Napier
BOOKINGS REQUIRED – CLICK HERE
NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE
The Hawke’s Bay Branch of the Royal Society is delighted to be included in the Allan Wilson Centre’s 2015 International Lecture Series.
In this lecture, Scott Edwards explains that birds are the living descendants of dinosaurs. This theory, based almost entirely on the size and shape of fossilized bones, is now the world view shared by most evolutionists. What is less well known is that the genomes of birds – comprised of over 1 billion DNA letters and thousands of genes – bear traces of their dinosaur ancestry as well.
Modern genomics reveals how bird genomes reflect their streamlined and high-energy lifestyles, epitomized by their ability to fly. Deciphering the language of DNA reveals the origin of birds’ unique traits, such as feathers, the mystery of evolutionary reversals, such as loss of flight, and provides clues to their stunning diversity and survival in the face of global environmental change.
Scott Edwards is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He moved to Harvard University in late 2003 as a Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology after serving as a faculty for 9 years in the Zoology Department and the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Scott‘s interest in ornithology and natural history began as a child growing up in Riverdale, Bronx, NYC, where he undertook his first job in environmental science working for an environmental institute called Wave Hill.He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard in 1986.
In New Guinea and Australia he researched ecology of birds-of-paradise and studied the genetics and population structure of a group of cooperatively breeding songbirds called babblers (Pomatostomus) found throughout Australia and New Guinea. He received his PhD in 1992 from the Department of Zoology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, in 1992. He conducted postdoctoral research in avian disease genetics at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He has conducted museum-based fieldwork throughout the U.S., Australia and the Pacific region and has interests in many aspects of avian biology, including evolutionary history and biogeography, disease ecology, population genetics and comparative genomics.
He has served on the National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration, the Senior Advisory Boards of the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), and on the Advisory Boards of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian. He oversees a program funded by the National Science Foundation to increase the diversity of undergraduates in evolutionary biology and biodiversity science. He is currently serving as Director of the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the Biology Directorate of the National Science Foundation.
6 – 8 PM, Tuesday 25 August 2015
Gary Sparks is President of the Hawke’s Bay Astronomical Society and Director of the Holt Planetarium in Napier.
Dr. Laura Wallace is a Research Scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Prior to joining the University of Texas, Laura was a research scientist at GNS Science in Lower Hutt for nearly a decade.
Jeffery Tallon CNZM, FRSNZ, HonFIPENZ is Professor of Physics at Robinson Research Institute, Victoria University of Wellington. He is internationally known for his research and discoveries in high-temperature superconductors (HTS), both fundamental and applied, leading eventually to commercialization through the company HTS-110 Ltd. His research has focused on the thermodynamics, magnetism, spectroscopy and electronic transport properties of superconductors.
Palaeontologist and writer Dr Phil Manning is Professor of Natural History at the University of Manchester and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Ancient Life. Phil has appeared in and presented many television documentaries for the BBC, Discovery and History Channels, and is currently filming two new documentaries to be released later this year.
Paleontology is the science of fossils. Like all science, it is concerned with discovery and interpretation of the world (and universe) around us. For paleontology, that discovery starts in the layers of rock exposed on mountainsides and in river beds, where we find fossils that have been preserved and hidden for millions to hundreds of millions of years. Fossils are an incredible source of knowledge and understanding: from them we learn about the unique history of life on this planet, the wonderful coincidence of conditions that makes life possible, and the terrifying events that have destroyed life. We also learn about climate change, sea-level rise, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the fossil fuels that sustain our society. In this talk I will try to convey the excitement (and hazards!) of initial fossil discovery, and then give a tour through the sorts of scientific discoveries that follow.