RIGHT NOW transformed and complicated the way the Hauser describes animals as having can use one tool for multiple purposes. primitive singular/plural relationship is “laser-beam” intelligence, in which each Hauser summarizes the distinguishing thought about and represented. cognitive capacity is locked into a characteristics of human thought under Songbirds o≠er a further illustration of specific function. Humans, by contrast, four broad capacities. These include: the both the connection and the gap between have “floodlight” intelligence, he says: ability to combine and recombine di≠er- animal and human faculties. Birds learn they can use a single system of thought in ent types of knowledge and information songs in much the same way that humans multiple ways and can translate informa- in order to gain new understanding; the acquire language. There’s a critical early tion from one context to another. “Ani- ability to apply the solution for one prob- window in which exposure to certain mals,” he elaborates, “live in a world in lem to a new and di≠erent situation; the stimuli is necessary; and, as with language, which the systems don’t talk to each ability to create and easily understand bird songs consist of highly structured other.” symbolic representation of computation sounds that are combined and recombined Take tool use, for example. In 1960, and sensory input; and the ability to de- to create new songs. Yet in the case of when Jane Goodall discovered a chim- tach modes of thought from raw sensory birds, di≠erent combinations of sounds panzee using a grass stalk to catch ter- and perceptual input. don’t change the song’s message. Individ- mites, a long-held theory about human Across the board, Hauser says, there are ual variations serve to distinguish one bird uniqueness fell apart. “But the signifi- signs that animal evolution passed along from another, like an accent, but the song cance of tool use doesn’t lie in the fact of some capabilities “and then something means only one thing (i.e., “I’m a territorial tools,” Hauser explains, “but rather in dramatic happened, a huge leap that en- male…if you’re a female and want to mate, how they’re conceived and used.” Ani- abled humans to break away. Once sym- come find me”). “It’s not that birds don’t mal tools consist of only one material and bolic representation happened, if the have thoughts about the world,” Hauser have only one functional part, while combinatorial capacity was there, things says. “They do. But the combinatorial abil- human tools have evolved over time to be just took o≠. Precisely how and when this ity doesn’t get mapped onto the ability to made of various materials and have mul- happened, we may never know.” create meaning, the way it does with lan- tiple functions. A knife can be used to cut ashley pettus guage—allowing humans to combine and food, open a box, or stab an intruder. recombine sounds constantly to create Forty years of research, he reports, have marc hauser e-mail address: di≠erent words and expressions.” not revealed any evidence that animals [email protected]

LIVING LIST World-Wide Web of Life

f the 23 types of salaman- der in the genus Thorius en- Odemic to Mexico, 21 are en- dangered: so rare that they live only on certain mountain ranges, or, in some cases, on a single mountaintop. James Hanken, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) and Agassiz professor of zoology, has studied these amphibians for years and thinks many of them may disappear. “We need to know a GARY M. STOLZ lot more about what we have if we’re ever going to inventory additional, unknown

species before they’re lost,” he says, “and if DOUG BACKLUND, SOUTH DAKOTA DEPT. OF GAME, FISH, AND PARKS we’re ever going to be able to save them.” Images from the Encyclopedia of Life include In an enormous e≠ort to collect what an American burying beetle, a cheetah, and a we know about Mexico’s salaman- smooth snake (Coronella austriaca). James do Hanken plans to allow amateur ecologists to ders—and about the rest of the 1.8 million upload their own photographs to the catalog. known species on the planet—Harvard JIRI DUCHON and other scientific institutions have come line with roughly 35,000 specimen pages, also built two dozen “exemplar pages”: together to create an on-line catalog of all culled from other digital resources such as detailed looks at everything from a the planet’s animals and plants, an Ency- FishBase (which explains why the ency- species’ life cycle to its role in the ecosys- clopedia of Life (EOL). clopedia initially had a ichthyologic bent). tem. But most of the site consists of a mil- In late February, the project went on Scientists associated with the project have lion blank place-holders—pages with lit-

12 November - December 2008 RIGHT NOW tle more than scientific names—waiting ian Institution, the Field Museum in Chi- teurs are judged knowledgeable enough for contributions from scientists and ama- cago, the Marine Biological Laboratory in to curate their own pages. He also notes teurs alike. The aim is to give every species Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the Mis- that because so little information exists an on-line profile within 10 years. souri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. (Han- about most species (typically the only Pellegrino University Professor emeri- ken chairs the EOL’s overall steering com- paper on a species is the one in which it is tus E.O. Wilson (see Open Book, page 26, mittee.) named), amateur naturalists will be as ca- and “Of Ants and Earth,” March-April But even the combined strength of the pable as professionals at keystroking sci- 2003, page 36) first called for the Encyclo- world’s finest scientific institutions, Han- entific literature into first-rate Web en- pedia of Life in a 2003 article in the schol- ken believes, would fail to corral the tries. arly journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution planet’s astonishing biodiversity. Early Hanken envisions the encyclopedia in next year, the EOL the tradition of Carolus Linnaeus, who in- will begin emulat- vented the modern taxonomic system, and ing Wikipedia and Louis and Alexander Agassiz, who allow ecology bu≠s founded the MCZ and revolutionized the DAVID BURDICK Above: A white tip reef shark. Right: A long-billed dowitcher (fondly known in the field as TREE). “I to upload informa- even encountered a bit of skepticism,” he tion about their fa-

recalls, when “a British scientist,…a former vorite species. “The TIM BOWMAN adviser to the prime minister and a friend, only way the Encyclopedia of Life can suc- way natural-history museums display called me to ask if I were out of my mind.” ceed is with the contributions of tens of their collections (by separating public ex- In 2003, he concedes, the idea was far- thousands, hundreds of thousands, of am- hibits from scientific labs). “I think the En- fetched. But now, aided by the Biodiver- ateurs,” says Jesse Ausubel ’73, a senior re- cyclopedia of Life is the equivalent in our sity Heritage Library—10 libraries (in- search associate at Rockefeller University age,” he says, “putting information about cluding two at Harvard) that are in the in New York City who helped the encyclo- biodiversity on line, making it accessible to process of digitizing 300 million pages of pedia obtain $50 million in grants from people, displaying it, constantly updating literature on comparative biology—it is the MacArthur and Sloan Foundations. it.” Already, visitors to its website can possible to aggregate everything written It won’t be a complete free-for-all. “To learn about more than a dozen of Hanken’s about a particular species into a rough maintain the support and participation of salamanders: modern technology helping draft of its Web page. the professional community,” says Han- to foster stewardship of life on earth. Harvard is only one of what Hanken ken, “we have to exert some kind of con- paul gleason calls the encyclopedia’s “cornerstones.” trol.” Each page will have a curator who Also involved, in contributing entries or checks and authenticates user contribu- encyclopedia of life website: managing the site itself, are the Smithson- tions. Fortunately, he says, certain ama- http://www.eol.org

WOEFUL WASTERS The Financial Cost of Feeling

n 1890, Harvard psychology profes- is invariably tied to these belongings. will they last through the season? will they sor William James sought to redefine Today, this may sound obvious—yet match my clothes?—before calmly making Ithe “self,” which, he wrote in The Prin- during the century that followed James’s a choice. The grief the purchaser happens ciples of Psychology, includes not only assertion, economic theories on spending to feel about a recent death in the family our bodies and “psychic powers,” but largely ignored emotion. Someone buying should have no bearing on what is spent. the clothes we wear, the house we live in, shoes, so traditional economics teaches, But Jennifer Lerner says it does. the horses we own, and the money we approaches the purchase with purpose, ra- “Emotions have a way of taking hold keep in the bank. How we feel, he said, tionally weighing a pair’s pros and cons— and directing behavior and carrying over

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