Professor Joe Felsenstein has been awarded the Mendel Medal of the Genetics Society in the UK. According to their website, “The Mendel Medal is awarded by the President of the Genetics Society, usually twice within the President’s term of office, to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to research in any field of genetics.” Professor Felsenstein is a de facto editor here at The Panda’s Thumb. The statement of the Genetics Society follows, below the fold.
Ramosomyia violiceps – violet-crowned hummingbird, Ramsey Canyon, Arizona. The photographer notes that feeders apparently encourage overwintering of some migratory birds such as this violet-crowned hummingbird, which was photographed on February 23 of this year. We see similar behavior among Canada geese (Branta canadensis) in Boulder, Colorado, where Dr. Dullien and I both live; she comments on "how new food sources can alter bird migration patterns causing some species to forgo migration."
Une photo de panda géant à River Wonders (Singapour). Photograph by Yann.fauche. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Yikes! A newish follower of PT, Robert Dullien, has just notified us that today is National Panda Day. You can celebrate it by following the link above to the World Wildlife Federation’s National Panda Day website. The WWF invites you as follows:
"ON THIS DAY WE CELEBRATE PANDAS!
"To coincide with National Panda Day, we’d like to invite you to get to know more about this amazing species. We've got some simple and fun ways to show your support; from learning more about pandas, to baking a panda cake!"
Activities include an article on how the panda was possibly saved from extinction, to a quiz, top 10 facts about pandas, a drawing by Andy Robert Davies to be colored by a child, young or old, and more.
Parallel design of 1955 Chrysler and Ford tailfins.
Both photos by CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, from Wikimedia Commons
Max Telford, who is Professor in the Department of
Genetics, Evolution, and Environment at University
College, London, has written an engaging book,
The Tree of Life: Solving Science’s Greatest Puzzle,
which has stirred up reactions at the Discovery Institute
site Science And Culture Today. (I have not yet read
Telford’s book, except to find a passage where he mentions
me, saying that when he attended a lecture by me years ago he found
me terrifying. Sorry about that.)
The conclusion that there is a treelike genealogy of life is about
250 years old, starting to gain acceptance even before Darwin’s work.
It is central to modern biology.
But this is not the impression you’d get if all you read
was the Discovery Institute’s website Science and Culture
Today. Instead you’d find Emily Reeves, who describes herself
as “a biochemist, metabolic nutritionist, and aspiring systems biologist”
questioning the conclusion that there is such a genealogy,
in two posts responding to Telford’s book. And even before
that, posts by Rob Stadler, a biomedical engineer, concluded that
the evidence from homology did not support the conclusion
that it came from common ancestry.
What is particularly interesting is that this seems to
signal the Discovery Institute’s shifting from arguing that
Intelligent Design is detectable in evolution, to arguing
that common ancestry is not detectable.
Drawing by one of Darwin's children, on the back of a manuscript page. Credit: Flashbak. Public domain.
Remarkable pictures of drawings made by some of Darwin’s children on the backs of discarded manuscript pages, presumably either drafts or material that had already been typeset, posted by the website Flashbak.
Flashbak describes itself as “a digital collection of thousands of wonderful pictures, stories, letters, sounds and movies from across the past, with one aim – to make the past come alive.” They also sell photographs and prints. They credit the Darwin Manuscripts Project at the American Museum of Natural History, which in turn credits a collaboration with the Cambridge University Library.
![[Chrysler Tailfin]](/uploads/2026/ChryslerTailfin1955.jpeg)
![[Ford Tailfin]](/uploads/2026/FordTailfin1955.jpg)
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