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Children's School of Science… we can’t wait!
“write and draw something you are looking forward to this summer”…🦀🐚
Due to the fact that we have a few remaining open slots in several classes, we are now allowing kids to register for 2 individual classes for this summer. In fairness to the rest of the community, please cap the number of classes at two. See you all in a few weeks!
Hi Children's School - Will you be creating a waiting list? We tried very hard to get my daughter and my niece registered for a Session A class last week, but after the app crashed a few times, all the classes for their age group appeared as "FULL" - I see they are still listed as FULL this evening. Thanks so much for all you do - we love your wonderful program and have greatly enjoyed it in prior years.
There are still spaces left in some classes due to people withdrawing or switching classes, and check out Ecology of the Bike Path and Chemical Oceanography, which both have room!
So don't despair!!!
All registered for Children's School of Science!!! Can't wait for our first year of Seashore Life!!!!!!!
Registration goes live tonight at 8PM, EDT. Follow the link below to register!!!!
app.campdoc.com/register/schoolofscience
Hello CSS Family!
It is with great pleasure that I am (finally!) able to announce that registration is ready to open. We have made a couple of small changes to the course schedule that we sent out earlier this spring so please review the updated brochure:
childrensschoolofscience.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CSS-2021-Brochure.pdf
Registration will open this coming Monday, April 26, at 8PM EDT. In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to aaron@childrensschoolofscience.org or on Facebook or Instagram!
Please remember that (for now!) we are only allowing one class per child. With our class sizes reduced we want to make sure as much of the community is able to sign up as possible.
Hello CSS community! Thank you all for being so patient waiting for registration. We are ironing out the final details relating to our students’ and staff’s safety and will send an email to everyone in our system prior to the official opening. We will also post here and on Instagram so stay tuned!!!
-CSS World Headquarters
Woods Hole Scientists Solve Century-Old Mystery: How Did Insects Get Their Wings?
By EVE ZUCKOFF • DEC 4, 2020
(Sorry, photos didn't transfer, but great story!)
(Shared from our wonderful WCAI radio station in Woods Hole!)
(How many of our students have taken Entomology at CSS?)
Heather Bruce dissecting crustacean embryos.
ERIN CHEN
How did insects get their wings?
After 100 years of debate, that is the mystery just solved by biologists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.
Until now, many scientists believed that insect wings were ”novel” structures that sprang up with no corresponding structure in the ancestor.
But postdoctoral researcher Heather Bruce and MBL Director Nipam Patel helped debunk that theory using gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. Their work revealed that insects share an ancestor with crustaceans.
Still, that discovery didn’t explain everything.
“You might notice that crustaceans don't fly,” she said. “So it's this question, like, where did wings come from? They seem to just kind of pop out of nowhere.”
The story starts about 300 million years ago, when a crustacean with long, flat, paddle-like legs evolved to live on land, and early insects began to make an evolutionary departure.
“When insects moved onto land, they had … to support more of their weight on their legs,” she explained.
Once on land, an outgrowth or “lobe” on early insects’ legs began to evolve.
“Crustaceans have two extra proximal leg segments like near their body wall that are sticking out,” Bruce said. “And in insects, those two leg segments got fused into the body wall.”
Over time, those lobes broadened, expanded, and moved up onto the backs of insects.
“Then those later turned into wings,” she concluded.
The study was published this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“Things like … insect wings don't pop out of nowhere,” she said. “They have a structure in the ancestor that they evolved from and that’s a really fun thing to realize about how evolution works and how evolution tinkers with structures,” she said.
Bruce’s discovery has given scientists a new model to learn more about evolution.
She’ll now be able to compare insect and crustacean legs to spider and millipede legs to develop a model of how all arthropod legs correspond to each other.
CSS is hiring assistants for Summer 2021. Interested parties must be at least 16 years old by the beginning of the first session (15 if you’re applying to be runner). Just send a message through Facebook messenger for more information!