Any adaptations that can keep a host disease-free will be favored by natural selection. Leaf-rolling caterpillars, for instance, fire their droppings out of an anal cannon, so that they don’t end up creating a fragrant pile of frass that attracts parasitic wasps.

Anal cannon! Is it childish that I find that funny?

One interesting advantage of my job is that I come across announcements and reviews of cool new books. Today, for example, I was indexing the latest issue of American Biology Teacher and saw an ad for a book called The Evolution Dialogues, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

(The AAAS publishes the journal Science, so this don’t look like no Discovery Institute bullshit or anything, pushing ID in science clothing.)

According to the AAAS’s press release for the book, it was written for use in adult Christian education programs. The idea seems to be, Let’s explain evolution, genetics, and natural selection in layperson’s terms; examine the various Christian responses to these concepts over the years; and correct common misunderstandings.

A book like this will succeed more with mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics than with hard-core fundamentalists, but I could see how moderate evangelicals might find it useful, to better understand the issues involved, whether they accept evolution or not. (Some evangelicals, in fact, do accept that evolution is true.)

I’m going to order a copy, give it a good read, and see what bloggers and critics think of it. I think directly engaging faith communities in a proactive way is a good thing, especially when poll after poll shows that Americans have little understanding of, and patience for, evolution and genetics.

The NY Times Magazine has a chilling excerpt, in which Ebadi finds a surprising name on a death warrant.

(I wonder whether this entry will spark another incoherent rant from the same anonymous commenter who trolled here previously.)

The first edition, Darwin: The Indelible Stamp, is from Running Press and is edited by James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix structure. W. W. Norton follows with From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin’s Four Great Books, edited by E. O. Wilson, the famous Harvard scientist who popularized sociobiological theories.

[via the NYTimes]

One hundred exquisite medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, dating from the 10th through the 16th centuries and ranging from miniature portable Bibles to oversized Gospel books, make up a new exhibition at The New York Public Library. The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library, on view from October 21, 2005 through February 12, 2006, is the first full-scale exhibition to highlight the incredible breadth of the Library’s collection of Western European illuminated manuscripts, among the largest in North America.

At the Humanities research library, at 42nd and 5th (the one with the lions), through February.

[Links: NYTimes; NYPL]

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

I’m not going to bother debating the merits of any book on the list, nor will I lament the absense of a particular book or author. What I will do is list the books that I’ve read and those I’d like to read. Here goes, in Time’s order (that is, alphabetical by book title).

Books I’ve read:

All the King’s Men
The Assistant (want to re-read)
Beloved
The Big Sleep (read at least twice)
Catch-22 (want to re-read)
The Catcher in the Rye (twice)
A Clockwork Orange (twice)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (want to re-read)
The Grape of Wrath
Great Gatsby (twice)
Lolita
Lord of the Flies (twice)
The Lord of the Rings (twice)
Neuromancer (twice)
1984 (twice)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (want to re-read)
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
Red Harvest
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Sun Also Rises (twice)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Watchmen (twice)

So, 24% of the full list.

Books I want to read soonish:

An American Tragedy
Animal Farm (how is it possible I’ve never read this?)
The Berlin Stories
Call It Sleep
Deliverance
Portnoy’s Complaint

I was out at St. Mark’s Bookshop tonight and I bought a couple issues of 2600, along with the paperback edition of Laurence Lessig’s latest book, The Future of Ideas. My interest in copyright and IP stuff went on hold while I moved, found a place to live, found a job, and so on, but now I can pay more attention to these things again.

Anyway, I started reading Lessig’s book tonight. I’m not far in yet, but it’s interesting. Remember the days, about six years ago, when everyone said the Internet would revolutionize communication and entertainment? “Watch out, big boys,” they all said. “When consumers can get music and movies and books over the Internet, why will they need cable or record stores or Borders, eh? It’s a new world, old media, so adapt or get the hell out of the way.”

So, it’s 2002, and where are we? Napster is dead. Audiogalaxy, dead. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act have double-teamed the American public, stifling innovation and keeping older works from entering the public domain. Someone “adapted” in the old vs. new media war, and it sure wasn’t old media.

These are the issues Lessig covers. And, really, I’ve been meaning to read his book for months. But it took until now. So, I sat and read about 30 pages tonight and then I got to thinking, “Hmmm. Anna Mojo has been discussing IP stuff off and on in her Web log also. I wonder whether she has anything new on this.”

Go have a peek and see what I saw when I got on her log. Maybe you’ll chuckle as I did.

It’s quite a brilliant book, really, and although I’ll be actually be rather up and in while in Paris and London, it seemed a perfect title to borrow for my log.

-Rainer Maria Rilke
“Letters to a Young Poet,” letter four