Charles Darwin Movie in the Works at Disney

Naturalist Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England. The originator of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Darwin served as naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle from 1831-1836 during its scientific survey of South America and the South Pacific, using information gained from the voyage to fuel his numerous investigations. His best known work remains the 1859 book 'Origin of the Species', one of the most contentious scientific theories of the 19th century and beyond. (Credit Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

by Dave McNary

Disney has launched development on a Charles Darwin movie with Stephen Gaghan on board to direct from his own screenplay.

The studio acquired an untitled pitch from Gaghan, whose credits include writing the Oscar-winning “Traffic” and directing “Syriana” from his own script. Gaghan is in pre-production to direct Black Bear Pictures’ mining drama “Gold,” starring Matthew McConaughey.

Darwin, the English naturalist and geologist, established that all species of life have descended from common ancestors in his 1859 book “On the Origin of Species.”

Jeremy Thomas produced a Darwin movie, 2009’s “Creation,” starring real-life spouses Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany. That film, directed by Jon Amiel, focused on Darwin and his family as he struggled to finish “On the Origin of Species.”

---

Single-Celled Planktonic Organisms Have Animal-Like Eyes, Scientists Say

Light micrograph of a warnowiid dinoflagellate: double arrowhead points to the ocelloid, and arrow to the posterior cell extension. Scale bar – 10 μm. Image credit: Mona Hoppenrath et al., doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-9-116.

by Sci-News.com

According to a research team headed by Prof Brian Leander of the University of British Columbia’s Departments of Botany and Zoology, single-celled organisms called warnowiid dinoflagellates evolved a tiny version of a multi-cellular eye, possibly to help see their prey better.

It’s an amazingly complex structure for a single-celled organism to have evolved. It contains a collection of sub-cellular organelles that look very much like the lens, cornea, iris and retina of multicellular eyes found in humans and other larger animals,” said Gregory Gavelis, a PhD student at the University of British Columbia and first author on the study published online in the journal Nature.

In fact, the ocelloid (eye-like structure) within the planktonic predator looks so much like a complex eye that it was originally mistaken for the eye of an animal that the plankton had eaten.

Marine biologists still don’t know exactly how warnowiid dinoflagellates use the eye. These organisms use small harpoon-like structures to hunt prey cells in the plankton, many of which are transparent.

---

This time, Jerry Brown makes no mention of religion in vaccine signing

In this June 9, 2015 photo, Karman Willmer, left, and Shelby Messenger rally against SB 277, a California measure requiring schoolchildren to get vaccinated, outside the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli - AP

by David Siders

Three years ago, in a relatively mild precursor to this year’s school vaccination bill, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring parents to consult a health professional before declining vaccinations for their schoolchildren.

But he made a special case for people who objected on religious grounds.

In a signing statement at the time, Brown said he wanted the law administered in such a way that “parents are not overly burdened by its implementation,” and he directed his Department of Public Health to ensure “people whose religious beliefs preclude vaccinations” were exempt.

Three years later, the vaccine bill Brown signed Tuesday undoes that allowance and more, eliminating the state’s religious and personal belief exemptions altogether.

California will now have one of the strictest schoolchild vaccination laws in the country.

---

Isis ‘beheads two women in Syria for sorcery’ in first for self-styled caliphate

Getty Images

by Tom Brooks-Pollock

Two women have become the first to be beheaded by Isis after being accused of witchcraft, sorcery and working with elves by the Islamic extremist group, according to reports emerging from eastern Syria.

The executions, for a supposed breach of sharia law, were carried out on Sunday and Monday respectively, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said.

In separate executions, both women were put to death alongside their husbands in Deir ez-Zour province – the first in Deir ez-Zour city on Sunday, the second in Mayadin on Monday – after being accused of using un-Islamic medicine by the extremist group.

The group says that this would be the first time the self-styled caliphate has killed women in this way. Previous executions of women have involved stoning or firing squads, mostly for adultery.

---

Neuroscientists capture the moment a brain records an idea

This image illustrates how the study participants learned about the habitat and the diet of eight animals, such as the cytar (not its real zoological name). The set of habitat brain regions (A-green) and diet (B-red and blue) regions where the new knowledge was stored. (L refers to left hemisphere of the brain.) Image Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University

by Daniel Culpan

Cutting-edge brain imaging technology has offered the first glimpse into how new concepts develop in the human brain.

The research, carried out at Carnegie Mellon University and published in Human Brain Mapping, involved teaching people a new concept and observing how it was coded in the same areas of the brain through neural representations.

The “olinguito” — a largely fruit-eating carnivore species that lives in rainforest treetops, newly discovered in 2013 — was initially used as a concept. Marcel Just, a professor of cognitive neuroscience in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, commented: “When people learned that the olinguito eats mainly fruit instead of meat, a region of their left inferior frontal gyrus — as well as several other areas — stored the new information according to its own code.”

The findings revealed that this new knowledge of the olinguito was encoded in exactly the same parts of the brain by everyone who learned it, indicating that the brain may operate its own kind of universal filing system.

---

Self-healing aeroplane wings ‘to fix tiny cracks’

Jen Light/FlickrCC by SA 2.0

by Zoe Kleinman

Self-healing aeroplane wings could be introduced in the next five to 10 years, say UK researchers at the University of Bristol.

The team drew inspiration from the way the human body heals from a cut with blood that hardens into a scab.

They have developed tiny microspheres containing a liquid carbon-based “healing agent”, which are interspersed in the aeroplane wing itself.

The spheres burst when damaged, releasing the liquid, which hardens.

This hardening occurs when the liquid comes into contact with a catalyst substance, also present in the material of the modified wing. Temperature is an additional factor.

---

Don’t Believe In Evolution? Try Thinking Harder

iStockphoto

by Tania Lombrozo

The theory of evolution by natural selection is among the best established in science, yet also among the most controversial for subsets of the American public.

For decades we’ve known that beliefs about evolution are well-predicted by demographic factors, such as religious upbringing and political affiliation. There’s also enormous variation in the acceptance of evolution across different countries, all of which suggests an important role for cultural input in driving beliefs about evolution. A child raised by Buddhists in California is much more likely to accept evolution than one raised by evangelical Protestants in Kansas.

But in the last 20 years or so, research in psychology and the cognitive science of religion has increasingly focused on another factor that contributes to evolutionary disbelief: the very cognitive mechanisms underlying human cognition.

Researchers have argued that a variety of basic human tendencies conspire to make natural selection especially aversive and difficult to understand, and to make creationism a compelling alternative. For instance, people tend to prefer explanations that offer certainty and a sense of purpose when it comes to their lives and the design of the natural world and they have an easier time wrapping their heads around theories that involve biological categories with clear boundaries — all of which are challenged by natural selection.

---