March of the Fossil Penguins

I just found out about this set of land and underwater webcams trained on the Blackfooted penguins in the California Academy of Sciences.  Check them out if you need a live penguin fix now that Happy Feet has left his enclosure in New Zealand.

http://www.calacademy.org/webcams/penguins/

The Radio In Vivo interview is now posted.  We cover a lot of ground, but there are some penguins in the last third.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wcom/podcast/mp3s/mp3s/RIV09142011.mp3

This video by Festo shows some amazing autonomous penguins – some swim and some fly. I was struck by one quote, noting that the swimming robot penguin does something living penguins cannot – back up.  Sure enough, I’ve never seen a swimming penguin move backwards except when tossed by a wave.   Thinking about the musculature of the penguin wing, the muscles and tendons are designed perfectly for transferring thrust from the wing back to the body, but only in one direction.  Adding a “reverse gear” seems like it would be possible, but it would involve extra mass near the front of the penguin, which would be costly.  Penguins seem to have foregone this solution, as they can just turn around in a rapid spin when they need to head in the other direction.

I enjoyed this video by Dyan deNapoli about the rescue of 40,000 penguins after an oil spill in South Africa.

If you’d like to listen to a Science podcast on Penguin Evolution, please visit Critical Wit Podcast.