dest Rocks • Planet Parade ^i

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YOU HAVE lOO DAYS TO TRAVEL 3,924 KM ON FOOT. BY THE WAY, YOU'RE IN ANTARCTICA.

Alain Hubert did it in 99 days. He is not one to shy away from challenges. In fact, you might say he provokes them. In 1997-98, he traversed the entire continent of Antarctica on foot and skis with a powerkite. His list of accomplishments reads like a history book. Among others he was the first to climb the sheer wall of the Holtanna in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. He's crossed Greenland on skis. He's been to the geographic North Pole and has attempted Everest five times without oxygen. If anybody embodies the perpetual quest for adventure, Alain Hubert is that man.

mm>m._

ROLEX

OYSTER PERPETUAL EXPLORER II • WWW.ROLEX.COM JE:weLER call l-aoO-367-6S39. ROLEX « OYSTER PERPETUAL AND EX =!ER II ARE TRADEMARKS NEW YORK MAY 2 4 VOLUME 113 NUMBER 4

FEATURES

34 EGYPT'S YOUNG AND RESTLESS

Tlirough Islam and the Internet, a new generation seeks its fair share. MARY KNIGHT

40 A BIRTHSTONE FOR EARTH

The oldest terrestrial material is a crystal of zircon, the sometime diamond substitute that can be a geologist's bestfriend. EDMOND A. MATHEZ

COVER STORY 46 AUDUBON IN KENTUCKY The young painter and ornithophile conceived his life's work in a country so rich

in birds that their flocks blackened the sky. WILLIAM SOUDER

ON THE cover: John James Audubon, Roseate Spoonbill (Engraving and color print by Robert Havell), 1836

Visit our Web site at www.naturalhistorymag.com DEPARTMENTS

4 THE NATURAL MOMENT Bloom On Photograpli by Andrew Davoll

6 UP FRONT Editor's Notebook

8 CONTRIBUTORS

9 LETTERS

12 SAMPLINGS News from Nature

16 UNIVERSE The Planet Parade Neil deGrasse Tyson

21 FINDINGS Of Mice, Men, and Genes ^ '^^^ Robert M. Sapolsky

32 BIOMECHANICS How a Star Avoids the Limelight Adam Summers

53 REVIEW Brains and the Beast Frnns B.M. de Waal

58 BOOKSHELF Laurence A. Marscliall

63 nature.net Moving Mountains Robert Anderson

64 OUT THERE Too Many X Rays Charles Lin

65 THE SKY IN MAY Joe Rao

68 AT THE MUSEUM

72 ENDPAPER The Face of Extinction Hanna Rose Shell

CREDITS: Page 8 It's a Merchant ~ Ivory film on mopeds.

Beyond the ISlh centuryfortress. Through cobblestone streets. Past Parliament and manicured lawns. Lie pink sand, royal palms, and untamed beaches. Sip high lea or knock hack a rum swizzle. Dive into blue-green ivaters. And a history steeped in civility- Two hoursfrom the East Coast and Just this side of across the pond.

1 .800. bermuda x 153 ~ www.bermudatourisin.coni BERMUDA : >!^H

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. 1.

f-"*!***™^ -i 1,1 THE NATURAL MOMENT UP FRONT

Sec prcccdiiiii po^es Reality Check

couple of months ago, my friend Mary Knight, a visiting scholar at New York University and a consulting member of A our staff, made a return trip to Cairo, Egypt, a city where she has lived on and ofl" since 1994. What originally drew her to the Middle East was a scholarly interest in ancient Egypt, but while there

she played an active role in Egyptian intellectual life. Since her first For a drought-ridden conrinent arrival in Egypt, of course. Western attention to the Arab world has patched over with poor soil, lurched from casual neglect to riveted, hysterical dismay—with few Australia has a remarkable variety stops for cool dialogue in between.

of flowering plants. Tough, re- Knight made her return visit, in part, to give us all a reality check

silient stalks, bedded in gravel and (see "Egypt's Young and Restless," page 34). She visited elementary inured to the arid climate, repeat- schools, cafes, universities, research laboratories, and friends in low and

edly bear exotic blossoms, such as in high places. Guiding her inquiries were the big, central questions

the yellow flowers of Acacia glaii- about Egyptian society: What is it like nowadays to grow up among the

coptem, or flat wattle, pictured here. wave ofyoung adults who make up the elusive "Arab street"? Can Acacias are some of Australia's young men find gainfiol, challenging employment? Do women have ac-

hardiest plants. More than 900 dif- cess to education, or do traditional values still block their way to eco- ferent species have evolved there, nomic independence? To what extent are hberalizing forces taking colonizing even the inost desolate hold—forces such as education, scientific research, and competitive free regions of the country. markets? What drives some young people to embrace militant Islam?

Flat watde has found its niche Knight brought along her camera as well as her notebook, and our in a southwest pocket of the state pictures of Egyptian Ufe, by her and others, depict neither the rosy opti-

of Western Australia. Each year, mism of a society with a bead on its future, nor the grim, authoritarian around the tiine Aussies celebrate fanaticism of a populace determined to reject liberal. Western values. their colorflil acacias on National

Watde Day (September 1), pho- tographer Andrew Davoll visits Twenty-first-century Cairo may look like the neighborhood four A. glaticoptem bushes in John right around the corner, compared with the exotic world of the Forrest National Park, sixteen western Appalachians in eaiiy-nineteenth-century America. As a

miles east of Perth. He is drawn young man, the future artist and ardent bird naturalist John James

to their spring colors, but above all, Audubon took his family to what is now western Kentucky (see he likes to photograph the flowers. "Audubon in Kentucky," by William Souder, page 46). Now, 200

The golden spheres seen here years later, I walk in the woods whenever I can, and I know there are

projecting at ninety-degree angles stiU plenty of places to find solitude and serenity out-of-doors. But from the stem are made up of Souder's account of the Kentucky wilderness, based on Audubon's small, individual flowers. When acute observations, takes my breath away. The primeval abundance of

one of the small flowers is polli- the country must have seemed bottomless. The dimensions of Amer-

nated and fertilized, it goes to seed ican nature seem sheer Paul Bunyan, until a sober observer such as

and snakes outward in a fuchsia- Audubon assures you it really did take three days for a single flock of

colored curlicue. After five years passenger pigeons to fly past. That world is truly gone. of tenaciously returning to the same spot, Davoll finally saw the arrangement he had been hoping We are delighted to announce that Natural History has been for: a fiilly intact sphere of flowers nominated for a National Magazine Award for Essays, for (upper left) alongside balding Robert M. Sapolsky's "Findings" column, "The Pleasure (and Pain)

flower heads and seedpods, all the of 'Maybe'" (September 2003). The award is the most prestigious stages of bloom, decUne, and birth prize in magazine journalism; the winner will be announced on on a single stem. May 5. Sapolsky's latest essay, "Of Mice, Men, and Genes," appears —Erin Espelie on page 21. Congratulations, Robert! —Peter Brown

6 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 ANTARCTICA

ExpCriGnCG IVl9tlCirSBThere is no avoiding the word extrenne. Antarctica

spawns icebergs the size of Rhode Island. Its winds are at times fierce and unpredictable. Its

surrounding waters not well charted. Nowhere on earth is adventure greater and nowhere are

mistakes more costly. Our hard-won experience, dating back to 1966, gives us the confidence

to explore, to test limits and even kayak among giant icebergs. Our captains and expedition

leaders have hundreds of Antarctic expeditions to their credit. They might even guide you to

one of Antarctica's most spectacular coves, named after my father. It's a bold, magnificent

decision to explore Antarctica. If you make that

decision, do go with us. Nowhere on earth will Lindblad Cove 63°51'S, 59°27'W Cove, 5 km wide, between Almond Point and experience matter more. Auster Point in Ctiarcot Bay, TrinityPeninsula. Named by US-ACAN in 1995 in commemora- tion of Lars-Eric Lindblad (1927-94), pioneer

in Antarctic tourism. A noted conservationist, Sven/Olof Lindblad Mr. Lindblad operated the first cruise to Antarctica in 1966 and was a leader in the concept of expedition tourism as a means of environmental awareness.

July 12, 1996, U.S. Board (g_ on Geographic Names

1-800-EXPEDITION expeditions.com/nh

or see your travel agent

•./TTW ^jiflf^rm CONTRIBUTORS

After traveling to southern Australia each austral spring for five years to photograph the same cluster of acacia bushes, mm Andrew Davoll ("The Natural Moment," page 4) hit the Peter Brown Editor-w-Chief jackpot in his attempt to capture a stalk with both its flowers M.iry Beth Aberlin Elizabeth Merynian and its seedpods on display. A native of Great Britain, Davoll AliVhii^in^ Editor Alt Director now lives and works in Perth, and specializes in photograph- Board of Editors ing the rich flora of western Australia. When he is not plying T.J. Kelleher, Avis Lang. Vittorio Maestro his trade, he enjoys long-distance ocean swimming and marathon running. Michel DeMatteis Associate Mmiagitig Editor

Thomas Rosinski Associate Art Director Mary Knight's interest in the lives of contemporary Egyp- Erin M. EspeHe Special Projects Editor Graciela Flores Editorial Associate tians ("Egypt's Young and Restless," page 34) was sparked Hannah Black. Caitlm E. Cox, Aimee Cunningham. during her tenure as a Fulbright scholar in 1994—95, studying Joonii Kim, Adam Rathe Interns the geography of ancient Egypt at 'Ain Shams University in Coinrihntiiii; Editors Cairo. While pursuing that research, she also completed a Robert Anderson. Charles Liu, Laurence A. Marschall, study of the practice of female genital mutilation in antiquity, Richard Milner, Robert H. Mohlenbrock, Joe Rao, Stephan Reebs, Adam Summers, Neil deGrasse Tyson a project that led to discussions with modern Egyptians on

how the practice is viewed today. Knight is a visitmg scholar at New York Uni- Charles E. Harris Publisher versity, is co-editing a nudity in the ancient Mediterranean world. and book on Gale Page Consumer Marketing Director Maria Volpe Promotion Director A geologist and curator in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Edgar L. Harrison National Advertising Manager Sonia W. Paratore Senior Account Manager at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Edmond Donna M. Lemmon Production Manager A. Mathez ("A Birthstone for Earth," page 40) is an expert in the geo- Michael Shectman Fulfillment Manager chemistry of the volatile elements. His research interests in- Jennifer Evans Business Administrator clude the solidification of large magma bodies, the electri- Adi'eriisfiig Saks Representatives New lor/.—Metrocorp Marketing, 212-972-1 157, cal properties of rocks, and the early Earth. He was one of Duke International Media. 212-986-6098 the recovered the underwater hydrothermal team who Dcfmrf~Joe McHugli. Bre;iktlirough Media. 586-360-3980

vents known as black smokers, which support sulfur-loving Minneapolis—Kickcrt Media, Inc.. 612-920-0080 life-forms m the deep ocean, and which may resemble the West Coast—?PW Sales Group/Sue Todd. 415-543-5001 Tcnviio—American Publishers Representarives Ltd., 416-363-1388 structures that nurtured the first life on the planet. With his Atlanta and Miami—Rickles and Co., 770-664-4567 museum colleague James D. Webster, he co-authored The National Direct Response—Smyth Media Group,646-638-4985 Earth Machine: The Science of a Dynamic Planet, forthcoming this month from Columbia University Press. Todd Hapfer Vice President, Science Education Educational Aduisor)' Board

Myles Gordon American Museum Natural History Minnesota-based journaHst William Souder ("Audubon in of David Chesebrough Buffalo Museum of Science Kentucky," page 46) takes his inspiration from the living Stephanie Ratclifie Natural Histoiy Museum of the Adirondacks world. For his first book, A Plague of Frogs, Souder spent Ronen Mir SciTech Hands On Museum Carol Valenta St. several years slogging through swamps and sitting through Louis Science Center contentious scientific meetings to chronicle the environmen- Natural History Magazine, Inc. tal threat posed by crashes of amphibian populations. For Charles E. Harris President, Chief Executive Officer his new book, about John James Audubon, he explored the Charles Lalanne Chief Financial Officer Buller Manager quieter (and drier) confines of library archives in the United Judy General Charles Rodin Pubhshing Advisor States and abroad, poring over the letters and journals of one of America's Russell Cherami Publishing Advisor greatest ornithologists. Having written about both frogs and birds, Souder says

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8 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 —

LETTERS

Browbeaten Ancestors Noel Boaz and Russell I read "Headstrong similarities between gorilla In "Headstrong Ciochon give a number Hominids" with a profes- and H. erectus brow ridges.

Hominids" (2/04), Noel of possible explanations sional curiosity, because I Protection of the eye is T. Boaz and Russell L. for male-male violence work with the traumatically certainly an important fianc- Ciochon propose that the individual or group con- brain-injured. Whereas H. tion of the brow ridge, but

prominent brow ridges of flict resolution, competi- erectm\ injuries were in- we would ascribe its extra

Homo erectiis crania evolved tion for mates, competi- flicted by other club-wield- robustness in gorillas and to protect our contentious tion for dominance, and ing protagonists, my clients H. erectus to different causes.

large male ancestors who so on. Yet they cite a bear the scars mostly of The gorilla's brow ridge is a were clubbing each other study of Australian vehicular accidents. They bony response to chewing during combat. But large Aboriginal skulls that owe their survival to the forces transmitted up to the male gorillas also have found healed fractures in evolution of a thick, bony (thin-walled) skuU fi^om a heavy brow ridges, and "59 percent of the female mass that shielded the inner large face that supports huge

they rarely (if ever) use crania and in 37 percent cortex. I wonder if we will canine teeth. H. erectus has a clubs when altercations of male crania." If more evolve harder heads, better reduced face and relatively arise among them. Could women than men were suited for modern trafluc small teeth but a massive large brow ridges have first getting their heads bashed conditions. brow ridge connecting back evolved to protect large in, doesn't this suggest Arnold SoUnsky to a thick skuU. arboreal primates from that men were beating up Long Island Head Injury Henya Rachmiel's ques- damaging their brains by women—what we cur- Association tion brings up an intriguing accidentally banging their rently refer to as "domes- Comniack, New York impHcation of our hypothe-

heads while rapidly climb- tic violence"? sis of cranial bone thickness: ing trees? Henya Rachmiel Noel T. Boaz and Russell if women in general have

Juliati Kane Commerce Township, L. Ciochon reply: Julian thinner skulls than men, Great Neck, New York Michigan Kane points out apparent then they wiU be more

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susceptible to cranial frac- More Trash Talk visions, principally as a way to be designed for recy- ture when struck in the According to Charles to protect the critically en- cling, and those who make head. If we assume a 15 to Moore ("Trashed," dangered Hawaiian monk them should be prepared to 20 percent size difference 11/03), gyres have pulled seal from entanglement in take on that responsibility. between the sexes for H. our oceangoing plastic derelict fishing nets. In response to Allan J.

erectHs (about twice the detritus into localized Unfortunately, I do not Sander, I know of no difference between modern concentrations. Is there believe this action will bacteria that eat consumer human males and females), any reason the nations of stop the buildup of plastic plastics, but, in any case,

it is likely that H. crectiis the world couldn't orga- particulates, the photo- toxic chemicals are too males could have disabled or nize a cleanup at appro- degraded bits of plastic dispersed in the ocean to killed females more readily priate intervals? trash that now outweigh be addressed by the tech- than they could other Stei'e E. Hartiuan plankton in much of the niques that are used in

males. On the other hand, Saco, Maine ocean. Plastic particles, concentrated spills. one cannot assume that which are nearly the same

males dealt all the fractures. Charles Moore describes density as seawater, are To Persist in Error . . .

The Australian ethno- an appalling situation, but mixed into the entire I, too, noticed the substi- graphic data indicate that leaves some questions ocean. No cleanup of the tution of Cape Horn for 1.37 billion cubic kilome- the Cape of Good Hope

ters of seawater is possible. in Adam Summers's The only cleanup possible "Biomechanics" column

is to attack the problem at ("Like Water Off a Beetle's its source. Back," 2/04), and cor- In reply to Guy rectly guessed that people

Ottewell, the farther you would write in to point it

^-«'^\v-" get from civilization, the out. But I believe that sm more closely associated your published correction plastic debris in the ocean ("Amendment," 3/04) is

is with the fishing industry. not quite right either.

But 80 percent of the total It is true that the Cape

debris comes firom land- of Good Hope is the

based sources, not all of "milestone" " you have to 'Call it ci'olittion if you want. I say the kid needs a haircut. them near the coast (much get past in saiHng between

is carried to the ocean the Atlantic and Indian many of the cranial fractures unanswered. How does the from far inland, by rivers) Oceans, in terms of

in women resulted from dis- plastic get into the ocean? The plastic industry itself currents, weather, and its

putes with other women. How fast is it building up? accounts for millions of prominence as a geo-

Arnold Solinsky notes And what is being done preproduction plastic pel- graphical feature. But it is

that many cranial fractures or what should be done lets, as well as much plastic not, as you have it, "the result from motor vehicle about it? dust and sawdust from southern tip of Africa."

accidents these days. H. Guy Otteti'ell transfer, molding, and re- That, I believe, is Cape erectus, with its thick skull, Lyme Regis, England cycling operations—small Agulhas, off to the east a would undoubtedly have bits less than five millime- bit and something like half

fared better in this regard. I understand that some ters across that are hard to a degree farther south.

If the selective force of bacteria aid in cleaning up control. During the 1990s, (I must admit I was

motor vehicle accidents oceanic oil spiUs. Is there Haruo Ogi of Hokkaido encouraged to write this remains the same for many any such organism that can University found a tenfold note after reading Peter thousands of years, skull break down these oil-based increase of plastic particles Brown's excellent editorial thickness in Homo sapiens pollutants? in his trawls offJapan. on fact-checking in the might increase as an evolu- Allan J. Sander Currently the gyre has same issue.) tionary response, if not off- Trabuco Canyon, California an average of one particle Eric Wolman set by such disadvantageous per square meter in areas of Potomac, Maryland effects as increased head Charles Mooi\£ implies: high concentration. In

weight, poor scalp circula- Efforts are under way to windblown collections of Natural History k e-mail

tion, and neck musculo- accomplish something Hke debris, the surface is more address is nhnnag@natural skeletal pain. what Steve E. Hartman en- than covered. Plastics need historymag.com

10 I NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 Boston*

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SAMPLINGS

Cozy 1 BR, Forest Vu Like Mother, Like Son

Come springtime, birds everywhere common starlings and their atten- Thirty years ago Robert L. Trivers, an evolutionary

nesting and reproducing. dant floaters throughout the star- E. are busy biologist , and Dan Willard, a mathematician,

But not every bird gets to breed lings' breeding season, in May. The formulated a sage hypothesis: if strong, healthy

two investigators found that male mothers tend to bear strong sons, and if those floaters stay within specific areas, sons monopolize matings and tend to produce covering about one square mile, more young than strong daughters would, then

and often visit the nesting cavities stronger mothers should give birth to more male (tree holes) used by the breeders, than female offspring. The hypothesis has proved

particularly when the young are still true for certain insects and birds, but the verdict inside. Apparently the floaters are for mammals has been equivocal. checking out real estate that may Now two zoologists, Ben C. Sheldon of the become available the following year. University of Oxford and Stuart A. West of the Tobler and Smith also set up University of Edinburgh, have shown that the hy-

empty, nestworthy boxes in the fall, pothesis holds for a large group of mammals: the before the starlings migrated, so that ungulates (hoofed creatures such as deer and Male common starling the birds could visit them; the follow- pigs). They also found that a mother's overall in breeding plumage ing spring those boxes were occu- condition before conception can play a role in pro-

before you can raise a family you pied. Other, equivalent boxes were ducing sons, but that the mother's social standing

usually need a place to call home, installed in winter, when the starlings has a greater impact than do purely physical fac-

and young adults are often edged were gone. Yet despite the housing tors such as body weight. Motherhood is future-

out of the housing market. Those shortage, most of the unexplored oriented, they argue, and social dominance is

birds become floaters, sitting out boxes remained empty the following probably the better long-term indicator of a

the breeding season and presum- spring. Evidently the birds prefer ad- female's access to resources. The effect is mild,

ably moping. A recent study, how- vance planning. ("Specific floater but dominant females do give birth to sons slightly ever, suggests nonbreeders make home ranges and prospective behav- more often than to daughters. ("Maternal domi-

the best of a bad situation. iour in the European starling, Sturnus nance, maternal condition, and offspring sex ratio

Michael Tobler and Henrik G. vulgaris," Naturwissenschaften in ungulate mammals," American Naturalist Smith, both animal ecologists at 91:85-89, February 2004) 163:40-54, January 2004) —S.R.

Lund University in Sweden, watched —Stephan Reebs

AFTERMATH OF OCCUPATION

Scattered across the Canadian High bottom-dwelling diatom Fragilaha pinnata

Arctic are the remains of small groups as the pond's dominant flora.

of dwellings, sunken partway into the Douglas and her associates also

ground and built out of whale bones. found concentrations of nitrogen-1 5,

Nearby, generally, stands a freshwater an isotope characteristic of marine life,

pond, along with piles of decomposing to be higher than in similar ponds. The bones from whales and other animals investigators thus think nutrients from

hunted by the residents. The sites are the processed whale carcasses must

the abandoned villages of Thule Inuit have fertilized the pond. Even today, whalers who emigrated from Alaska as lingering whale bones continue to

about a thousand years ago, and leach phosphorus into the pond, its Thule Inuit dwelling (reconstructed) in Canada's High whose presence, activity, and refuse chemistry remains quite different from Arctic. The whale-bone roof frame would originally left an enduring mark in the region that of ponds not situated near his- have been covered with skins and sod. well before the arrival of Europeans. torical settlements. ("Prehistoric Inuit

Marianne S.V. Douglas, a paleoecologist from the early thirteenth century through the whalers affected Arctic freshwater eco-

at the University of Toronto, and a team of end of the sixteenth. They discovered that systems," Proceedings of the National colleagues studied sediments from a quarter- during the whalers' occupation, moss and an Academy of Sciences 101:1613-17,

mile-long pond in one Thule village, inhabited associated diatom proliferated, replacing the Februar/10, 2004) —S.R.

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Prions Make Amends

Because one kind of prion causes "mad speculate that when the neurons

cow disease," prions in general get a lot of are stimulated, the protein re-

bad press. The very word "prion" may con- folds itself and causes other,

jure horrific visions of saboteurs cascading neighboring proteins of the

through brain tissue. But not all prions are same kind to follow suit—much

deadly. Kausik Si, a neurobiologist at like the self-perpetuating pnons

Columbia University, and his colleagues of ill repute.

propose that at least one protein that acts Instead of wreaking havoc,

like a prion may do something positive: it however, the "domino effect"

may help store long-term memories in the ends up strengthening the

sea hare, Aplysia, a marine invertebrate synaptic connection. The shape

favored in neurological research because change in the prion-like pro-

of its large neurons. teins leads to the synthesis of Invertebrates have memories too. Memories seem to form when two stimu- other kinds of proteins that

lated neurons change the way they commu- help stabilize the connection. The net ef- regulates local protein synthesis and stabi-

nicate across a synapse, the gap between fect is that Aplysia's neurons retain memo- lizes synapse-specific long-term facilitation

them. The prion-like protein in Aplysia re- ries for several days instead of just a few in Aplysia," Ce/1 115:893-904, December

sides in the synapse. Si and his colleagues minutes. ("A neuronal isoform of CPEB 26, 2003) —Caitlin E. Cox

ROLE REVERSAL Seeing Red

MAN BITES dog; FROG FENDS OFF LION; PLANET HEATS STAR: silly Stroll into a pet shop, and you'll ther the walled or the wide-open

headlines from the tabloids, right? But stow your skepti- find a host of colorful cages arms of a cross-shaped maze.

cism about that last story: planets aren't always passive re- and toys for the rodent in your Results: no matter which

cipients of heat and light. Evgenya Shkolnik, an astronomer life. The colors, of course, are color their home cages had designed to appeal to (human) been painted, the animals spent

buyers, but it turns out that col- the least time in the red prefer- ors affect the animals as well. A ence cage. And the animals

recent study by Chris M. Sher- raised in red home cages spent

win and Elizabeth F. Glen, both the least amount of time in the

behavioral biologists at the Uni- open, unprotected arms of the

versity of Bristol in England, maze. Conclusion: red makes suggests that mice are discom- mice nervous. bobulated by red. You probably wouldn't feel

Sherwin and Glen raised mice too happy in a living room with

in "home cages" painted black, bright red walls, but Sherwin white, red, or green. Then they and Glen are surprised that

placed the mice in two test envi- mice have a similar reaction. Orbiting planet causes moving hot spot on host star ronments, each with a choice of One possible trigger for the

at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and her places to go, and clocked the mice's distress is that red is

colleagues have spotted a feisty, Jupiter-size planet some time the mice spent in each often displayed on the body of

ninety light-years from Earth whose strong magnetic field place. In one environment, the toxic species, as a warning to

and close-in orbit excites a hot spot on the surface of its mice could enter one of four leave them alone. ("Cage

host star. As the planet whizzes around the star, the hot "preference cages," each colour preferences and effects

spot faithfully tracks its orbit. ("Evidence for planet- painted the color of one of the of home cage colour on anxiety

induced chromo&pheric activity on HD 179949," Astro- home cages. In the second envi- in laboratory mice," Animal physicalJournal 597:'! 092-96, November 10, 2003) ronment, a standard test of anxi- Behaviour 66: 1085-92, Decem-

—Joomi Kim ety levels, they could enter ei- ber 2003) —S.R.

14 NATURAL HISTORY May 200'' — —

Different Stroke

EVIDENCE OF IMPACT In turbulent waters, fish tend to "go

Few scientists will disagree if you say that Trouble is, according to Gerta Keller, with the flow." They save energy by 65 million years ago, something killed off a geologist at Princeton University, and slaloming back and forth between the

a large fraction of Earth's inhabitants her colleagues, the core suggests the vortices, or whirlpools. Now biolo- including those most spectacular of crea- Chicxulub crater predates the K/T tures, the dinosaurs. But nowadays, if you boundary by 300,000 years.

contend that the ultimate killer was the The geologists base their view on huge meteorite whose impact created the several factors. For example, glass formed

even huger Chicxulub crater, centered on during the impact occurs lower—that is, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, some earth about 300,000 years earlier— in the core

scientists will tell you you're wrong. than does the familiar green clay that

Since the early 1990s, it has been marks the K/T boundary worldwide. widely accepted that the Chicxulub Additional signs that the impact predates

crater was formed 65 million years ago, a the K/T boundary are embedded in rock

date that coincides with the mass extinc- layers all over northeastern Mexico. What's more, Keller says, there's ample evidence that by the time the K/T Rainfaow trout surfing extinctions took place, the Earth's flora whirlpools and fauna were already struggling. Volcanic eruptions were probably ex- gists have determined that when

tensive and greenhouse warming se- they slalom, fish adopt a previously vere, and the biota may also have been unknown swimming style that enables exposed to a number of devastating them to maneuver more effectively. meteorite impacts. James C. Liao, a biologist at

Not everyone is convinced by the Harvard University, and his col-

new analysis. In spite of live and online leagues made high-speed movies of debates, Jan Smit, for instance, a geol- rainbow trout swimming side-to-side

ogist at the Free University Amsterdam in a pattern they call the "Karman Chicxu/ub crater (circle), excavated 65 m/Hion or and an original proponent of the con- gait" (for the daddy of aerodynamics, more?—^years ago by a massive meteorite impact nection the Theodore von Karman). The pattern, centered on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula between Chicxulub and K/T mass extinctions, remains uncon- adopted by the fish in an agitated

tions at the end of the Cretaceous pe- vinced. A single impact, he says, explains stream or within a fish school, calls

riod, often called the K/T boundary. To all the known data. ("Chicxulub impact on fewer muscles than does the un-

put that date to the test, a rock core predates the K-T boundary mass extinc- dulatory swimming pattern the fish measuring 4,950 vertical feet—dubbed tion," Proceedings of the National use in smooth-flowing water. Only the Yaxcopoil-1 core—was recently Academy of Sciences 101:3753-58, March certain muscles near the head are extracted from beneath the floor of the 16, 2004; www.geolsoc.org.uk/template. activated. The body flutters gently, crater so that geologists could examine cfm?name=NSG2349857238495) like a flag flapping in the breeze, the stratigraphic evidence. Fair enough. —Jordan Paul Amadio relaxed and ready to catch a boost from passing vortices.

Liao and his colleagues may have

big fish to fry when it comes to Cryptic Creatures applications of their work. Unmanned submarines, for instance, could

reduce energy costs by traveling in

a Karman gait. And the new under- standing might help engineers design innovative passageways to

help migrating fish bypass dams.

("Fish exploiting vortices decrease

muscle activity," Science 302:1566-69, Only three of these pictures are close-ups of the same animal. Which one doesn't belong? — (Answer on page 31) November 28, 2003) J. PA.

May 2004 N.\TUR.M HISTORY 15 —

UNIVERSE

The Planet Parade

For millennia, planets were just mysterious, wandering points of light in the night sky. Now they are destinations.

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

the study of the cos- the planets were, and sky, was to assert that the planets re- Inmos, its hard to come are, just points of light volve around the Sun, not the Earth. up with a better tale in the sky that happen Indeed, Galileo's observations strongly than the centuries-long to move. Not until supported the universe as envisioned history of attempts to un- the seventeenth cen- and theorized by Copernicus. derstand the planets tury, with the prolif- Jupiter's moons took the Coperni- those sky wanderers that eration of telescopes, can universe a step further: though Ga- make their rounds against did astronomers discover lileo's twenty-power telescope could the backdrop of stars. Of the that planets are orbs. Not not resolve the moons into anything eight objects in our solar system that until the twentieth century were larger than pinpoints of light, no one are indisputably planets, five are read- the planets scrutinized at close range, had ever seen a celestial object revolve

ily visible to the unaided eye and were with space probes. And around anything other the Earth. It known to the ancients, as well as to not until later in the was an honest, simple observation observant troglodytes. Each of the present century arc of the cosmos, but the Roman five—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, people likely to Catholic Church and "common

and Saturn—was endowed with the visit them. » sense" would have none of it. personality of the god for which it With the aid of his telescope, was named. Mercury, which moves umanity GaUleo discovered a contradic- the fastest against the background H had its first tion to the dogma that Earth oc- stars, was named for the Roman mes- telescopic en- '^, cupied the central position in the senger god—the fellow usually de- counter with the cosmos—the spot around which picted with sniall and aerodynami- celestial wanderers all objects revolve. In early 1610, in

cally useless wings on his heels or his during the winter of a short but seminal work he titled

hat. Mars, the only one of the classic 1609-10, when Galileo looking Sidereus Niiiicitis (Starry Messenger), wanderers (the Greek word plauete through an excellent telescope of his Galileo reported his persuasive findings. means "wanderer") with a reddish own design and manufacture, saw the hue, was named for the Roman god planets as spheres—perhaps even other nee of war and bloodshed. Earth, of worlds. One of them, brilliant Venus, o Coper- course, is also visible to the unaided went through phases just like the nican model eye. Just look down. But terra firma Moon's: crescent Venus, gibbous had become was not identified as one of the gang Venus, full Venus. Another planet, widely ac-

of planets until after 1543, when Jupiter, had moons all its own, and cepted, the Nicolaus Copernicus advanced his Galileo discovered the four largest: arrangement Sun-centered model of the universe. Ganymede, Callisto, lo, and Europa, of the heav-

To the telescopically challenged. all named for assorted characters in ens could legit-

the life and times of Jupiter's Greek imately be called The images on tin's and the opposite page are counterpart, Zeus. a solar system, and Earth Roman gods as depicted by the Italian Renais- its as sance painter Pietrc Perugino, paired with The simplest way to explain the could take proper place one photographs of the planets named after them. phases of Venus, as well as other fea- among six known planets. Nobody Left to right: Mercury, Venus, and Mars. tures of the planet's motion against the imagined there could be more than

16 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 —

SLx. Not even the English astronomer rance lurks, so too do the frontiers of sported a network of massive, mosriy Sir William Herschel, who discovered discovery and imagination. radial spokes—more canali—emanat- a seventh in 1781. ing from a central hub. The spokes he Actually, the credit for the first Consider the case of Percival Low- saw remained a puzzle until quite re- recorded sighting of the seventh planet ell, the highly imaginative and cently, when a retired optometrist goes to the EngUsh astronomer John wealthy American businessman and named Sherman Schultz, from Saint Flamsteed. But in 1690, when Flam- astronomer, whose exploits took place Paul, Minnesota, wrote a letter in re-

steed noted the object, he didn't see it at the end of the nineteenth century sponse to an article on the spokes by

move. He assumed it was just another and the early years of the twentieth. William Slieehan and Thomas Dob-

star in the sky, and named it 34 Tauri. Lowell's name is linked with the Low- bins in the July 2002 issue of Sky and When Herschel saw Flamsteed's "star" ell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Telescope magazine. drift against the background stars, he the "canals" of Mars, the "spokes" of Schultz pointed announced—operating under the un- Venus, and the search for Planet X. out that the witting assumption that planets were Like so many other astrophiles around optical setup not on the Hst of things one might dis- the world, Lowell picked up on the Lowell pre- cover—that he had discovered a proposition by the Italian astronomer ferred for comet. Herschel planned to call the Giovanni Schiaparelli that linear viewing the newfound object Georgium Sidus markings visible on the Martian sur- Venutian sur- ("Star of George"), after his benefac- face were canali. face was sim-

tor. King George III of England. If the The problem was that the word ilar to the giz- astronomical community had re- means "channels," but Lowell and many mo used to exam- spected Herschel's wishes, the roster of of his contemporaries chose to translate ine the interior of

our solar system would now include it as "canals," because the patients' eyes. After seeking a couple Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, markings were thought of second opinions, the article's au- Saturn, and George. In a blow to to be similar in scale thors established that what Lowell sycophancy, however, the object was to major public- seemed to see on Venus was in- ultimately called Uranus, in keeping works projects stead the network of shadows

with its classically named brethren under way on 0^' cast on Lowell's own retina by though some French and American Earth. Lowell his own ocular blood vessels.

astronomers kept calling it "Her- dedicated himself When you compare Lowell's schel's planet" until 1850, just several to the observarion diagram of the spokes with a years after the eighth planet, Neptune, and mapping of the diagram of the eye, the two

was discovered [see "Jlie Rise and Fall Red Planet's network match up, canal for blood vessel. of Planet X," by Neil deGrasse Tyson, of waterways, surely (or And when you combine the unfor- June 2003]. so he fervently contended) constructed tunate fact that Lowell suffered from Over time, tele- by technologically advanced Martians. hypertension—which often shows scopes kept get- He believed that the cities of Mars, up in the vessels of the eyeballs—with ting bigger and having exhausted their local water his will to beheve, it's no surprise that sharper, but the supply, had had to dig canals to he had Venus as well as Mars teem- planetary de- transport water fi^om the planet's ing with intelligent, technologically

tails astrono- polar ice caps to the more popu- capable inhabitants. mers could dis- ous, equatorial zones. Alas, Lowell fared only slightly bet- cern did not Another object of Lowell's atten- ter with his search for Planet X, a much improve. tions was Venus, whose ever-present planet thought to He beyond Neptune.

Because every tele- and highly reflective clouds make it one Planet X does not exist, as the astron-

scope, no inatter the size, of the brightest objects in the sky. Venus omer E. Myles Standish Jr. decisively viewed the planets through Earth's tur- orbits relatively near the Sun, and so as demonstrated a decade ago. But Pluto, bulent atmosphere, the best pictures soon as the Sun sets—or just before the discovered at the Lowell Obser^'atory were still a bit fuzzy. Nevertheless, in- Sun rises—there's Venus, hanging glo- in February 1930, some thirteen years trepid observers managed to discover riously in the twilight. And because the after Lowell's death, did serv-e as a tair features such as Jupiter's Great Red twilight sky can be quite colorful, approximation for a while. Spot, Saturn's rings, Mars's polar ice there's no end of 9-1-1 calls reporting a Within weeks of the obsei-\'ators''s caps, and dozens of planetary moons. glowing, colorful UFO hovering on big announcement, though, some Human knowledge of the planets was the horizon. astronomers had begun debating

still meager, though, and where igno- Lowell maintained that Venus whether or not Pluto should be classi-

M ay 2004 NATUR..\L HISTORY 17 —

Britain,

Scandinavia & fied as the ninth planet. Given the de- which traps infrared energy. So even Russia cision several years ago by my home in- though the tops of Venus's clouds re- stitution to represent Pluto as a comet flect most of the Sun's incoming visi- rather than as a planet, I've been drawn ble light, the rocks and soils on the

into that debate myself, and I can assure surface absorb the little bit that makes

you, it hasn't let up yet. Asteroid, plan- its way through. That terrain then etoid, planetesimal, large planetesimal, re-radiates the visible light as in- icy planetesimal, minor planet, giant frared, which builds and builds, even- comet, Kuiper Belt object, trans-Nep- tually creating—and now sustaining tunian object, methane snowball, a remarkable pizza oven. Mickey Mouse's' dim-witted blood- hound—anything but number nine, The rest of the solar system contin- we naysayers argue. Pluto is just too ues to become more fimiliar by

small, too lightweight, too icy, too ec- the day. The first spacecraft to fly past

centric in its orbit, too weird. And by Mars was Mariner 4, in 1965, and it the way, we can say the same about sent back the first-ever close-ups of the the most recent high-profile contender Red Planet. Lowell's lunacies noD,vith- for tenth place, the ruddy object standing, before 1965 nobody knew 10- to 19 -day CruiseTours"' Sedna, with which Pluto may have what the Martian surface looked like,

more in common than either object other than that it was reddish, had polar from Zg'^JLJj has with the planets in our solar system. ice caps, and showed darker and lighter

patches. Nobody knew it had moun- Navigote through Norway's majestic fjords. Time and technology moved on. tains, or a canyon system vastly wider, Explore lands of Viking chiefs, Scottish lairds and Come the 1950s, radio-wave deeper, and longer than the Grand Celtic legends. Discover the legacies of czars and observations and better photography Canyon. Nobody knew it had volca- kings in great Baltic cities like St. Petersburg, began to bring fascinating facts about noes vastly bigger than the largest vol- Riga and Tallinn. Orient Lines' unique CruiseTours the planets to light. By the 1960s, cano on Earth, Mauna Kea in Hawai'i.

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just by holding it in the air. (Yes, I did happen on Earth, too? Our species is the math.) Such extreme conditions currently turning row upon row of en- pose great challenges to space explo- vironmental knobs, without much re- ration, because practically anything gard to long-term consequences. Who you can imagine sending to Venus even knew to question those practices

' will, vi^ithin a moment or two, get before the study of Mars and Venus, Orient LINES crushed, melted, or vaporized. So our nearest neighbors in space, forced THE DESTINATION CRUISE SPECIALISTS

www.orienllines.(om you'd better be heatproof or just plain us to look back on ourselves? quick if you're collecting data from for reservations, see your travel agent, the surface of this forsaken place. o get a better view of the more for brochures, call 1-800-333-7300. It's no accident, by the way, that T distant planets requires space Venus is hot. It suffers from a run- probes. The first spacecraft to leave effect, solar were Pioneer 10, 'Fire ihown in US. dolLin lor CfUUcToiif only, per pcwin, bjicd on tli'nbic oocupjOLV. away greenhouse induced the system

lor J minimum <3[cgor\' imidc iiiicniimi, appliablcon kIcci sjilingi uiilv. Air f^rc it by its atmospheric carbon dioxide, launched in 1972, and its twin, Pio- ^ddiiton^l fo CfniscToiif fjfc ind a^-jilablc liom iticci U.S. citin. Gniuicicj i[c noi

indudcd. All ofFcfi jrc bised on ivjilabilin; apscity rontrollcd. not (ombin.iWt wiili olhcrofTcn, subjccc [o change wiihout notice and may be wiihdtawn at any time. Oticni

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iiccr I /, launched daughter probe named Huygens too far. No doubt life as we know it re-

in 1973. Both (designed by the European quires liquid water, but it was just an passed by Jupi- Space Agency) into the atmos- assumption that life also requires

ter within two phere of Saturn's largest satel- starUght as its ultimate source of energy. years, executing ite. Titan, the only moon in Then came the discovery that some a grand tour ®y the solar system known to have objects in the outer solar system, such along the way. a dense atmosphere. Another as Jupiter's moons lo and Europa, are Today they're nearl complex NASA mission now being heated by energy sources other than

8 billion miles from planned is the Jupiter Icy Moons the Sun. In both cases, the stress of Earth—more than twice the distance Orbiter—JIMO for short. Instead of Jupiter's tides on the solid moons to Pluto. executing a flyby, the JIMO probe pumps energy to their interiors, melt- When they were launched, how- will carry enough fuel to slow down ing ice and giving rise to environ-

ever. Pioneers 10 and 11 when it reaches Jupiter and enter a ments that might sustain life indepen- weren't supplied with series of loop orbits, enabling a dent of solar energy. enough energy to go sustained study of the planet's Even right here on Earth, new cat- much beyond Jupi- sixty-plus moons. egories of organisms, collectively ter. How do you get called extremophiles, thrive in condi- a spacecraft to go n 1584, in his book On tions inimical to human beings. The

farther than its en- i:the Infinite Universe and concept of a habitable zone incorpo- ergy supply will Worlds, the Italian monk rateci an initial bias that room tem-

carry it? You aim it, and philosopher Giordano perature is just right for life. But som.e fire the rockets, and Bruno proposed the existence organisms thrive at several hundred

then just let it coast to its of "innumerable suns" and "in- degrees Fahrenheit, and find room destination, falling along the numerable Earths [that] revolve about temperature downright hostile. To streams of gravitational forces set up these suns." Moreover, working from them, we are the extremophiles. by everything in the solar system. Or- the premise of a Creator both glori- So, armed with the knowledge that

bital dynamicists have gotten so good ous and oinnipotent, he claimed that life can appear in places vastly more at these "gravity assists" that they each of those Earths has liv- diverse than previously imagined, make billiard sharks jealous. ing inhabitants. For astrobiologists are broadening the Pioneers 10 and 11 sent back these and related earlier, and more restricted, concept better pictures of Jupiter and blasphemies, the of a habitable zone. And, just as Saturn than had ever been pos- Catholic Church Bruno and others had suspected, the sible, even with the best equip- burned him at roster of confirmed exosolar planets ment on Earth. But the twin the stake. continues to grow by leaps and

spacecraft Voyagers 1 and 2 Yet Bruno bounds. Their number has now risen launched in 1977 and equipped was neither the past a hundred—all discovered in the with a suite of scientific experi first nor the last past decade. ments and imagers—were what person to posit Once again we res- turned the outer planets into icons some version of urrect the idea that

Voyagers 1 and 2 brought the solar sys- those ideas. Others who es- life might be tem into the living rooms of an entire poused the concept of multi- everywhere, just generation of world citizens. And one ple inhabited worlds range as our ancestors of the windtalls of those journeys was from the fifth century B.C. had imagined. the revelation that the moons of the Greek philosopher Democri- But today we do outer planets are just as different from tus to the nineteenth-century so without risk one another, and just as fascinating, as French novelist Honore de of being immo- the planets themselves. Balzac. Bruno was just unlucky to lated, and with the

As I write, a NASA orbiter named be born at a time when you could get newfound knowledge

Cassini is hoining in on Saturn, having executed for such thoughts. that life is hardy, and that the habit- reached the Ringed Planet's neigh- During the twentieth century, as- able zone may be as large as the

borhood after a four-cushion gravity tronomers figured that life could exist universe itself.

assist. Soon Cassini will deploy a on other planets, as it does on Earth, only if those planets orbited their host More paired images of Roman godi paimed Astrophysicisi Neil deGrasse Tyson is by Perugino, and the planets named aher star within the "habitable zone"— tlic Frederick P. Rose Director of tlie Haydeii tliem. Top to bottom; Jupiter and Saturn. swath of space neither too close nor Planetarium in New York City.

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FINDINGS

Of Mice, Men, w. and Genes

The best-laid plans o' DNA gang aft agley.

By Robert M. Sapolsky

Beatrix Potter: Hunca Munca {from The Tale of Two Bad Mice), T904

Don't you love urban legends, idea that genes are the be-all and end- evance, it means that though genes can those outrageous stories ev- all? The tendency is particularly bad (indirectly) instruct cells, organs, and eryone believes? There are right now. Not only has the human organisms about how to function in academicians who study urban legends genome recently been (mostly) se- the environment, the environment can for a living; they catalogue them, track quenced, but we've also just come off also regulate which genes become ac- their origins in Norse mythology, get the golden anniversary of the discov- tive at particular times. Of greatest rel-

into arguments at conferences about ery of the structure of DNA. The cel- evance here, though, is that the thing

them. But amid all that inteUectualiz- ebrations have been replete with reli- a particular gene most proximally

ing, it's just plain fascinating to hear gious imagery about the genetic code produces—a particular protein—can some of the made-up stuff that lots of as holy grail, the Code of Codes. And function quite differently in different

people fall for. There's the endlessly re- this imagery even gets trotted out by environments. So, in theory, you peated one about the poodle stuffed biologists, people who get paid to might have a gene that in one environ- into a microwave to get dried off, or know better. ment causes you to grow antlers and, the classic about the scuba diver who And biologists really should know in another, causes you to fly south for gets scooped up along with a lot of better, because they've had the sober- the winter.

water into the giant bucket of a fire- ing concept of "gene-environment in- For folks who still want to fight the

fighting plane, then is dropped onto a teraction" hammered into their heads nature-nurture wars, the question up

forest fire. And there's the one about for much of their lives. (In fact, "gene- for debate becomes: OK, just how

the woman who leaves groceries in environment interaction" is probably powerful are these gene-emdronment her car on a sweltering day: a tube of one of the first utterances most biolo- interactions? At one extreme are those cookie dough explodes from the heat gists made as infants, along with "dog- who scoff at contrasts as gaping as the

just as she gets back in, splattering the gie, doggie come.") The trouble is, it is one between growing antlers and fly-

back of her head, and she's convinced a phrase so often repeated that it has ing south. In their view, a gene does

she's been shot and the dough is her become as reflexive and ingrained something or other, and the environ- splattered brains. and, ultimately, ignored—as the words ment perhaps alters how fast or how- And then there's the one about a to "Elmo's Song." strong or how long the gene does that bunch of scientists who sequenced something or other. But none of those the human genome: they can explain The idea that genes and environ- enviromnental influences lead to dra- everything about you; all they have to ment interact can mean a number inatically different efiects. Framed in

do is look it up in the sequence of of things. At the least, it means that the context of genes and disease, it's

your genes. But it just ain't so: we're people who get into black-and-white like saying, Yeah, how windy it is may back in the domain of urban legend. arguments about nature versus nurture alter the precise speed with which the Why are people such suckers for the are a century out of date. Of more rel- anvil drops from a ten-stoiy buUding

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 21 ' —

and lands on your toe, but who cares environmental influence; score one for about that environmental interaction nature over nurture. But are cross-fos-

with the anvil? And at the other ex- tering experiments the last word? treme are those who assert that inter- That's where one of the new stud- actions can be of huge consequence ies comes in. Carried out by Darlene

say, if what is dropping is a feather and Francis, a neurobiologist at Emory not an anvil. University in Atlanta, and her col-

And so the scientists happily argue leagues, it was pubUshed in the presti- and experiment away, squandering gious journal Nature Neuroscience. The tax dollars that could otherwise go for investigators looked at two mouse Halliburton contracts. Amid these strains that diflTer across an array of

debates, it's useful to be reminded just behavior patterns. To simpHfy a bit,

how powerful gene-environment in- one strain is more anxious and skittish teractions can be. Two recent studies than the other. Compared with the provide some terrific examples. more "relaxed" strain, the "timid"

strain is slower to enter a scary or The first study investigated the ef- novel environment, and timid-strain fects of one of the subdest, least mice have more trouble learning dur- appreciated environments: the prenatal ing a stressful task than relaxed-strain one. For many years, strains of labora- mice do. tory rodents have been bred for various Geneticists who study mice had traits—one strain gets a type of dia- known about those differences for a betes, another strain gets hypertension. long time. They had also confirmed.

Environmental influences don't begin at birth: the prenatal environment also interacts with genes.

and so on. Each strain is developed by apparently, that the differences were inbreeding generation after generation largely governed by genetics. True,

of animals with some trait, until all the there was some evidence that relaxed- members of the strain are as close as strain mothers are more nurturing possible to being genetically identi- than timid-strain moms, licking and cal—^Uke clones of one another. If all grooming their pups more. That evi- the members of that strain show the dence had raised the possibiHty that

trait, regardless of which laboratory mothering style caused the differences they're raised in, there's some reason to between the two strains. But then the think that the animals are subject to a acid test had been performed: relaxed- strong genetic influence. strain mice that were raised from birth

All the inbreeding is then followed by timid-strain moms grew up to be by an experiment known as a "cross- just as relaxed as any other member of

Gorilla Glue Is thfe versatilPo fostering study," regarded as critical for their strain. interior/exterior adhesive detecting a genetic influence. Suppose ideal for most household all the mice of the Coke strain grow Francis and her team went a fixes and building projects; But furniture repair, crafis, up preferring Coke to Pepsi, and all step further. With the same kind woodworking, and general the mice of the Pepsi strain grow up of technology used by clinics per- repairs around the house. displaying the opposite persuasion. forming in vitro fertilization, the in- Bonds wood, stone, Take some Coke-strain mice at birth vestigators cross-fostered mice as em- metal, ceramic & more! let raise Specifically, they implanted Incredibly strong iirid and Pepsi-strain moms them bryos. 100% waterproof. in a Pepsi-strain colony. If the Coke- fertihzed eggs from relaxed-strain par- strain mice stiU grow up craving Coke, ents into timid-strain females, which

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FINDINGS (Contiiuied from page 24)

covered that it has something to do and nearly four times the risk of suicide with possessing a certain variant of a or suicidal thoughts, as those with the gene. That's a nice finding, of course, "best" profile. But those who were but what makes it really exciting is that spared a history of major stresses were

the gene in question is not just any no worse off for having a "bad" random gene. It has akeady been im- 5-HTT profile. (Completing this pic- plicated in biochemical theories about ture is work by a group at the Univer- depression, coding for a protein that sity of Wurzburg, in Germany, show- helps regulate how much serotonin ing that stress hormones regulate the

gets into neurons. Serotonin is a neu- activity of the 5-HTT gene, and do so

rotransmitter, one of scores of differ- differently, according to its flavor.) ent kinds of neurotransmitter in the brain, but it is the one responsive to What lessons lurk here? Obvi- antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, ously, beware of simple ex-

Paxil, and Zoloft (collectively known planations; it is rare that nature is

as "selective serotonin re-uptake in- parsimonious. hibitors"—SSRIs). And keep genes in their proper The serotonin-regulating gene place. Sometimes genetics is about in- which for reasons not worth going evitability. If you have the mutation into is called 5-HTT—comes in two for Huntington's Disease, for in- different "flavors." Both flavors code stance, there's a 100 percent chance a great time to observe for the same kind of protein, but the you're going to have this awful neuro- What two flavors differ in how much of the logical disease by middle age: no two wildlife. Explore thousands of

protein gets produced. Individuals can ways about it. But genes are more miles of rivers, marshes and

have two copies of either flavor (one often about vulnerabilities and poten- lagoons. Visit Maya villages and or one copy of tials than they are about destiny. from each parent) ancient temple sites. Seek out the both. At least some nonhuman pri- What all this highfalutin molecular elusive Jaguar, if you can. Snorltel mates can as well. Studies had already biology should teach us is that we can't on the longest barrier reef in the shown that a rhesus monkey's 5-HTT just throw up our hands and say: "His Western Hemisphere. All in a makeup affects how readily the animal genes made him do it." We aU have a relaxing, peaceful country where deals with stress. responsibility to create environments So Caspi and his colleagues tabu- that interact benignly with our genes. the people are as warm and lated the two 5-HTT gene flavors and friendly as the climate. Experience Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of bio- how they correlated with the inci- the diversity of Belize, your logical sciences and neurology at Stanford Uni- depression in their pool of dence of English-speaking neighbor on the versity. He is the author ofA Primate's Mem- New Zealand subjects. And what oir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Caribbean coast of they discovered is worth stating care- Life the Baboons. His most recent ar- among Central America, fully. they demonstrate that genes Did ticle for Natural History, "The Pleasure (and only 2 hours of a certain flavor actually cause de- Pain) of 'Maybe'" (September 2003), has been the U.S. pression? No. Did they show that nominated for the 2004 National Magazine from having a certain 5-HTT makeup sig- Awardfor Essays. nificantly increases a person's risk of Your Caribbean Gateway depression? Not really. to Central America What they showed was that the 5- Call 1-800-624-0686 or visit our website: genes you inherit greatly increase HTT Answer to "Cryptic www.travelbelize.org your risk of depression, but only in a Creatures" puzzle

certain environment. What kind of en- (page 1 5): b vironment? One with a history of major stressful events and traumas in childhood or early adulthood (such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a serious illness). Those in their study with a "bad" 5-HTT profile, who also suffered major stressful events, had almost twice the risk of depression.

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 31 —

BIOMECHANICS

How a Star Avoids the Limelight

Some echinoderms have thousands of eyes on their backs. When the Ughts come on, they switch to wearing shades.

By Adam Summers ~ Illustrations by Roberto Osti

day, gaudy reef fishes domi- Spiny lobsters march on parade. And have no obvious eyes. Nevertheless,

nate the scene at a coral reef, night is the time to get a good look they can detect light, and a team of Bybut by night, invertebrates at one of the shiest of all the reet investigators has now figured out how steal the show. Coral polyps—at least dwellers: the brittle star. they do it. It turns out the dorsal side the ones that can't depend on nutri- Only at night does the britde star of the britde star is covered with mi-

ents provided by photosynthesizing venture out of its hiding place to croscopic lenses embedded in its symbiotic partners—extend their snake across the surface of the reef in skeleton, making the entire back of tentacles in the darkness to feed. search of food. But divers looking for the creature into a compound eye.

Feather stars spread their arms, each one should be careful with their grooved to direct the flow of hghts, because shining a light on an rittle stars are echinoderms f'l^j relatives sea stars sea ^ ^.^ food to the mouth outstretched limb might just cause the B; of and animal to hide. urchins—and can be distinguished The reaction from the other groups by their long, has always in- thin, highly flexible arms and their

trigued me, be- small central disk. But, like all cause brittle stars echinoderms, they have a hard internal skeleton made up of small calcite plates, held together by catch

connective tissue [see "Catch and Release," by Adam Summers,

November 2003] . It has been known for decades that some of these animals can sense light. In the 1980s Gordon Hendler, a zoologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and Maria Byrne, a developmental biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, pointed out that members of one brittle star species change from their nighttime color scheme of banded gray and black to deep brown in the daytime. —

Responding to light does not re- they don't have the blurriness charac- of the britde star arm. In other quire an eye. A sea snake in the sub- teristic of spherical lenses. By mea- words, each tiny, embedded bump family Hydrophiinae, for instance, can suring the shape and size of the acts as a directional light sensor, re-

perceive its tail being exposed as the bumps, the investigators calculated sponding most strongly to light com-

snake forages on the reef, and inove it that they would focus light between ing from a particular direction. The

out of the Hght. But that response four and seven micrometers (just a bump is thus a rudimentary lens. would merely require the tail to have few ten-thousandths of an inch) be- If the brittle star had just one such

sensory neurons that respond to yond their inner surface. lens on each arm, it could look light—or to heat, the by-product of Maria Byrne had previously exam- around by waving an arm and assess- hght on a dark surface. Some brittle ined a plate and surrounding tissue ing the patterns of light and dark. But

stars, though, have responses to hght with a transmission electron micro- the resolving power of a brittle star

that do seem to require an eye. When scope and found a bundle of nerves at lens is extremely limited: relying on placed in bright sunhght, members of the appropriate distance—at the cal- one would be a bit like looking those species will make for a shad- culated focal point—from each bump. through a peephole covered with tis- owed area as fast as their five httle Cells containing pigment reside sue paper. Because the dorsal surface arms can carry them. Such behavior alongside and below each bump. of the brittle star is covered with suggests they can detect shelter at a During the day, however, the pig- thousands of tiny "eyes," though, and distance and even form an image of mented cells migrate to the upper sur- each eye receives light from a sHghtly their surroundings. different direction and angle, Joanna Aizenberg, a materi- the entire surface can act as

als scientist at Bell Labora- one large compound eye. That tories in Murray Hill, New compounding makes it pos- Jersey; Alexei Tkachenko, a sible, in some sense, for the physicist now at the Univer- brittle star to take in the sity of Michigan in Ann whole scene. A computer Arbor; and Stephen Weiner monitor is a useful analogy. A and Lia Addadi, both struc- single pixel holds information tural biologists at the Weiz- about the color and brightness mann Institute of Science in of a single part of an image. Ophiocoma wendtii, a brittle star (opposite page), prefers the Rehovot, Israel, teamed up But an entire array of pixels dark. But the entire dorsal side of the animal is covered with a with Hendler to examine the yields a coherent picture. matrix of calcite crystals (above left) shaped into bumps that act The brittle star's eye is a hidden eye of the brittle star. as lenses (above right). The lenses (supported by a layer of irregu-

The investigators used a scan- lar calcite, shown in gray in the schematic diagram) focus incoming wonderful example of how ning electron inicroscope to light on a network of nerves (yellow). Alongside each lens are basic science—in this case pigment-bearing cells that migrate above the lens layer by day, look at skeletal calcite plates Hendler and Byrne's natural- acting as echinoderm sunglasses. Together, the lenses and nerves from the upper surface of a historical observations—can turn the animal's back side into a body-size compound eye. member of the Hght-sensitive give appUed scientists insight brittle star species Ophiocoma into a problem with clear wendtii. What they saw was an face of the calcite ossicles, where they commercial impact. Investigators at unusual pattern of densely packed, shield the top of the lens from the Lucent Technologies (of which Bell crystal-clear bumps, each thinner bright sun and, incidentally, darken Labs is a part) are excited because the than a human hair. Similar plates the animal. The color change is not a brittle star makes better, smaller lenses from a non-light-sensitive species camouflage response; rather, it is the than they do. They hope to learn the (O. pumila) had no such bumps, and echinoderm version of sunglasses. secret of depositing a well-patterned neither did plates from the underside crystalHne matrix, so they can then of the arms of O. wendtii. Following up this work, Aizen- shrink fiber-optic junctions and ad- Might the bumps serve as lenses to berg exposed a sheet of film to vance toward the goal of building a focus light? Aizenberg and her col- Hght passing through the presumed completely optical computer. As for leagues established good theoretical array of lenses. Her results were me, I know I'll never again look at a reasons for thinking they could. The striking. A small spot of Hght hit the britde star in quite the same \\'ay

calcite crystal that makes up a bump film under each bump. The size of now that I know they're looking back!

is ahgned so as to conduct Hght from each spot varied with the size of the

the outside surface of the plate to the bump, and the brightness of the spot Adam Summers ([email protected]) is an

inside surface. Furthermore, because depended on the incident angle ot iissistiiiit profcsscr of ecolcgy '""^ evolutionary the bumps are not perfect spheres, the Hght with respect to the surface biology at the Uiiipersily 0/ California, Irvine.

t^/lay 2004 NATUR.M HISTORY | 33 t^

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Zoology laboratory at Cairo University, part of the Egyptian national educational system. Males

and females are treated equally when it comes to education, and many urban families encourage their daughters to pursue advanced studies rather than rush into marriage. Egypt's %uni and Restless

Through Islam and the Internet, a new generation seeks its fair share.

By Mary Knight

34 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 MAY 2 004

sama 'Abd al- who are actively seeking a job, and part-time work- Raheem studies ers are considered employed. o engineering at Unemployment, though, is only one way to un- Helwan University, in the derstand the plight of the young people in this large

southern suburbs of Cairo. Arab country. Another set of critical issues is the He is committed to his distribution of power—which in Egypt largely co- studies, and, hke most incides with the distribution of wealth—and the

young adults, he aspires to perception that the distribution is unjust. The class

marry, to find a decent job difference is rarely discussed as such, but it is cer-

that puts his hard-won tainly noticed, and it plays a major role in gaining skills to good use, to hve a fulfilhng life with his access to such basic social services as technical train- family, his friends, his culture, his country. But he ing. Social gaps everywhere—between rich and looks with envy on those who are fifteen or poor, young and old, educated and iUiterate, urban- twenty years older, who were able to buy homes ite and farmer—reinforce the corrosive perception and furnish them during the long-vanished days of that the society does not reward its citizens on merit easy money. When we talked, he expressed his alone. The resounding cries by youth of "it's unfair" frustration: "If a young man takes a job in Egypt, often turn on income disparity. his salary wiU be about 500 Egyptian pounds [less Among those whose voices are raised are the than $100] per month, so he wiU have to work ten Islamic militants, many of whom are men from years to get married; if he goes abroad, he can get relatively privileged backgrounds, familiar with married much sooner." Western ways. What often incites their anger is

The disadvantage Osama must live with is that seeing their parents operate on principles other going abroad today is not the solution it was for than those of idealistic fairness. And when these young men twenty or more years ago. In the 1970s young men meet other, less privileged people and 1980s, when the prospects at home were Uttle who have substantial talents and abilities that are better than they are today, Egyptian laborers, passed over by the Hkes of their parents, their out- mostly male, traveled to the oil-rich Gulf states and rage may grow to conspiratorial proportions. nearby Libya for work. The income they brought or sent back home enhanced living standards for Last fall I traveled to many families. Overall, in fact, poverty declined. Cairo, a city where Then, with the coUapse of OPEC's power and I've Hved and worked the crisis brought on by the 1991 Gulf War, many on and off since 1994. would-be Egyptian migrants had little choice but Because I have many to stay home. For men, the blow was particularly friends and contacts harsh: often they could find no work in their fields there and am reason- of study, and what httle money they did earn was ably fluent in the lan- not enough for the down payment on an apart- guage, I was in a good ment, a prerequisite for marriage. For Osama, the position to take the foreign safety valve has closed shut. pulse of the so-called Many young Americans can probably empathize Arab street. My aim with Osama's pHght. Ambitious, highly educated was to sketch how or- graduates are often thrust, when they first enter the dinary hves are lived in workforce, into low-paying and exhausting dead- a culture that Ameri- end jobs, just to make ends meet. But the situation cans have largely ig- in Egypt is far more desperate than it is in the nored—ignored, that United States. With 72 million people, Egypt is the is, until they "learned" most populous of the twenty-two Arab states. Offi- recently to regard vir- cially the nation's unemployment rate is only about tually all Arab culture 9 percent. Studies that specifically track youth with fear and suspicion. Girls take part in a science class taught in unemployment, however—in a nation where the The immediate ques- English, at al-Nozha Language School, an Islamic of tions that fel- median age is twenty—estimate that 25 percent dog my school on the outskirts of Cairo. Such schools are men and 59 percent of women are without work. low Americans—Why generally better equipped than the state schools, As in the U.S., these studies include only people do they hate us? What but their numbers are limited.

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 35 do they think of our poUcies?—were not my first his friends told me that as many as sixty students priority, though. My focus was to understand typically crowd around their professor as he performs

Egyptian concerns; to learn how Egyptians were experiments for the class. The reason is that nearly all

facing up to universal questions about access to of the aging equipment is broken. "The classes are

hi,gh-quality education, women's evolving social crowded," he says, "so it's hard for the students to roles, and career development; and to find out how understand. So we just memorize the lessons."

their deeply held reHgious beHefs affect their inter- Memorization is still the preferred method of learn-

action with the world at large. ing in all disciplines, but in the sciences, the near At the root of Egypt's dismal unemployment total lack of hands-on experimental work suppresses

statistics are the nation's weakness in the production the critical and creative skills needed to excel. and dissemination of knowledge and the govern- Painfully aware that their futures rest on the suc- ment's inadequate commitment to science and tech- cessful use of mouse and keyboard, Egyptian young

nology. Yet there is tremendous energy and enthusi- people seek out the new technology. Cybercafes asm for learning among Egyptian students. Every and computer training institutes now abound

throughout Cairo, though all charge relatively high fees. Industrious youths save up the 2,000 to 3,000 Egyptian pounds (between $400 and $600) needed for a computer, then add peripherals, often secondhand, as their budgets permit. In the past few years, Egypt's relatively open society has helped the country surpass most of the rich Gulf states in factors that measure computer-related growth. Internet connections, for instance, are now free, though the phone charges, which are based on the amount of time spent online, are rel- atively expensive. That said, the per-

centage of all Egyptians who have ever accessed the Internet remains in the single digits.

mong those energetically devot- A bride, left, sports her wedding hairdo the night before the ceremony. A:ing themselves to improving Solemnization of the union is performed at a mosque, but the bride's family the lot of young people are what usually puts on a wedding reception. The groom is responsible for supporting are coming to be called the "new himself and his bride, and—because a large deposit is required to establish their new residence—he must have accumulated considerable savings. Islamists"—Muslims who believe their primary duty is to Hve exem-

young person I spoke with acknowledged the need plary lives and thereby iinprove the community. (By

for job-related computer skills and for better access contrast, militants strive first to rid the world of dis- to information in a country where libraries are only believers, condoning violence in the process.) now becoming more widely accessible. Hosam Muhammad, a sturdily built twenty-nine- The Ministry of Education likewise recognizes year-old, and his colleague Hisham Muhammad, a

the need for computer skills, and so it has provided fme-boned, quiet-mannered twenty-three-year-old, every public school in Egypt with at least one both teach EngUsh in al-Nozha Language School, a computer, and occasionally more than one. But clean and orderly Islamic school on the northeastern school enrollments usually number in the hun- outskirts of Cairo. The school serves about a thou- dreds, and the presence of one or two computers sand students, from kindergarten through high normally restricts usage to demonstrations by school. Both men use the Internet to enhance their

teachers at the front of the class. knowledge and to make friends with English speak-

Perhaps even more detrimental is the lack of func- ers around the world, particularly in the U.S. tioning, up-to-date laboratory apparatus in science In their jackets and ties, dress slacks, and pol- education. Osama 'Abd al-Raheem and several of ished shoes, the two Arabs, one clean-shaven and

36 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 the other wearing a neatly trimmed beard, look how humble (or how high) their origins. While like refmed, educated young professionals any- they are in school, they don't have to compete for where. Pohte and modest, they laugh readily and jobs that are unlikely to be offered to them anyway. banter charmingly, in English or in Arabic. And And if they enjoy studies, they have the chance to both strongly maintain that Islam has a transforma- learn more than any of their predecessors and to be tive, restorative power for their society. In the respected for their achievements. classroom they teach values through example, as a The social barriers to women in Egypt are by no way to complement their curriculum of intensive means as stringent as they are in Muslim countries language training. Their ultimate jihad is to push that impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law. their students along the path to a better future, Some Egyptian women even initiate divorce. both economically and morally. Mai Mostafa, a tall, slender thirty-two-year-old

Another "new Islamist" is 'Abd al-Hafiz al- designer and artist, elaborated on the hazards of Sayyid Muhammad, the imam, or chief religious poor mate selection and divorce: "For every leader, at Omar Makram Mosque in downtovv'n woman who lives in the East, marriage is very im- Cairo. In 1995, recognizing the need for knowledge and the traditional role of the mosque in education, 'Abd al- Hafiz initiated computer courses in rooms above the prayer hall, diverting some of the mosque's funding to the purchase of computers. (Literacy classes were already in place, for men and women.) Students—more than a thou- sand a year—flocked to the innovative program, not only to learn computer skills but also to learn English and a variety of vocational skills.

Women like Nermeen 'Abd al- Tawab, a vivacious twenty- eight-year-old at the University of Cairo's Faculty of Agriculture, exem- plify another vibrant part of Egypt's young generation. Her specialization, agricultural research, is one of the few A cafe, serving tea, light meals, and other refreshments, offers a place for bright spots in Egyptian science, per- young men to socialize. For some, though, the cafe is the introduction to a Egyptian haps because 44 percent of life of permanent idleness. Unemployment is high in the outsize generation workers are employed in agriculture. of young adults, and the opportunities that once existed for work in the She studies the fungal infection white Gulf states and nearby Libya have been closed off. rot in garhc. White rot has important economic consequences, because it often devas- portant. We've been brought up prepared to be- tates the bulbs as the garlic goes to market. As part come wives later. We have a saying that the woman of her doctoral research, Nermeen is applying the who dares to ask for a divorce helps the house col- tools of biotechnology to develop garUc that is re- lapse." Mai's father encouraged her to complete her sistant to the virus. Thus occupied, she is postpon- education and to work for a few years, to become ing marriage untU she finds someone she loves and independent-minded and self-reliant. He did not respects. Her family supports her plan completely. exactly approve of her marriage partner, but assured Compared with urbanites, girls from rural areas her of his confidence in any choice she made. After are apt to find less family support for their educa- the marriage failed, Mai was grateful that, again, tion, particularly when one or both of their parents her father supported her decision to get divorced. are illiterate. Rural parents encourage their daugh- ters to marry at earher ages, even if that means mar- In spite of the recognition of the need, attempts rying a first cousin (usually not a girl's preference). to estabhsh world-class research and educational

But in Cairo education is a lifeline for many fe- institutes in Egypt have foundered. Alimed Zewail males, giving them hope and freedom no matter of the Cahfornia Institute of Technology in Pasa-

May 2004 N.\TURAL HISTORY dena, the Egyptian-American who won the 1999 ample, on the basis of their grade on the thaiiawiyya Nobel Prize in Cheinistry, convinced the govern- 'amma, a single national test given at the end of sec- ment to build a state-of-the-art university for sci- ondary school, young people are assigned a profes- ence and technology. More than four years after the sion, such as physician, accountant, tour guide, and gipund-breaking ceremony, however, his dream has so on. High scorers have the right to choose a yet to be realized. "lesser" profession than the one they qualify for, but

For most young people, then, the only option is they normally don't, because of the social stigma to leave the country, a choice that simply exacer- attached. Nor do they have the option of taking a bates the already pernicious brain drain. One stu- year off to think about career choices. Young people

dent I met in Egypt two years ago, who received a entitled to go on to higher education are assigned to grant to study in a computer sciences department at a university, which often involves a two-hour daily

commute in each direction (and studying is nearly impossible on the overcrowded buses or trains). None of these problems exist, of course, for the tiny minority of people who have money. The in-

fluence of wealth only begins at school; it extends

to the upper echelons in all walks of Ufe, a fact that has provoked widespread concern. In particular, the unfairness of the yawning gulf between the haves and the have-nots has engendered the out- rage that has led Islamic militants to pursue their restrictive interpretation of reUgious law. But in conversations with militants fi^om both modest and

privileged backgrounds, I have heard a common theme: many militants would rehnquish their arms if the laws already in existence were applied fairly and equally. A comparison to the U.S. youth movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s—when, similarly, super- size cohorts of impatient, ideaHsric young people felt Transit workers besiege their union headquarters, simply to largely left out of the political process—is tempting. press bureaucrats into processing their papers and No, Egyptian youth are not staging sit-ins and crash- applications for routine benefits such as medical care, life ing the gates of the political arena. But the reason insurance, credit, pensions, and discounts on housing. they aren't may have more to do with the class bar- a U.S. university in the Midwest, assured me he rier and the skewed demographics of sitting poHti- would return to Egypt after completing his Ph.D. cians than any lack of political will. A substantial

program. When I spoke with him more recently, number of Egyptian ministers are more than sixty- he was equally fervent in his insistence that he has five years old, belonging to an age group that makes no plans to return. The reason? In the U.S. he can up just 2.2 percent of the population. Most youths do research that builds on the latest developments cannot visualize themselves in positions of power.

and can produce work others will draw on. He'll What they hope for is that someone they trust,

stay in the loop, rather than outside it. whether judge or religious leader or someone else in tune with their needs, will demand and achieve for According to the 2003 Arab Human Develop- them the fairness that, in principle, the law asserts. ment Report of the United Nations Devel- opment Programme, the uneven distribution of Although the government seems litde moved by income is a critical obstacle to reform and progress. the youth crisis, there are promising signs of Estimates of extreme poverty in Egypt range from reform through the youth committee of the ruling

30 to 40 percent of the population, much of it con- National Democratic Party (NDP). The commit-

centrated in the rural areas, where about 55 percent tee's head, Mohamed M. Kamal, is especially en-

ot the people live. In Cairo, perhaps 20 percent are couraged that though nearly 70 percent of the pop-

truly poor; the vast majority of people are of mod- ulation is under thirty, qualified people are finding est means and must rely on free social services and work in the private sector.

education to improve their lot in life. Leading citizens have also initiated projects not But their options are severely restricted. For ex- only through Islamic institutions but also through

38 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 governmental and nongovernmental organizations vision, long dominated by the monotonous recita- (NGOs), and many of these reform efforts target the tion of news briefs and a parade of sleepy soap op- young. Approximately 16,000 NGOs now respond eras, faces a challenge in attracting the youth, who to the needs of civil society in Egypt. "We have have turned to the satellite channel al-Jazeera, based proven as Egyptians, as Arabs, as Muslims that we in Qatar. Hussein 'Abd el-Ghani, Bureau Chief of can be very successful," asserts Hesham Dinana, a al-Jazeera's Cairo office, boasts that the satellite hard-driving thirty-nine-year-old engineer oversee- channel "is the first rehable source of news for the ing construction of a new children's cancer hospital young," and it is now the most-watched station in Cairo (it is dubbed Hospital 57357, after the among the youth of Egypt, according to the results number of the bank account that takes donations). of a recent survey. Young people told me they hke

Hesham spent more than a dozen years climbing the its edgy style, its fast pace, and its no-sacred-cows corporate ladder in the U. S. before returning to approach to topics and people. Not only advertisers

Egypt to contribute to this "people's project." With should be pleased by the numbers, because it's get- donations from across the classes, the cancer hospi- ting young people to think about politics, talk tal, probably the largest NGO in Egypt, is proof that openly and critically about national and interna- the Egyptian people are willing to share the burden tional events, and reaUze they deserve a place in to reduce the epidemic of childhood cancers. shaping their nation's future. Although provocative Many young people do express hope for the fu- for the region, al-Jazeera helps release some of the ture. Perhaps the most unusual source of optimism frustration felt by Egyptian youth. And it affirms for the young is the media. Egyptian national tele- their identity as young, strong, and Arab. D

Professor, left, teaches a class at the Women's Medical Faculty of Cairo's al-Azhar University. Because such state-run facilities generally face a shortage of modern laboratory equipment, instruction emphasizes lectures and demonstrations instead of hands-on learning.

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 39 A Birthstone for Earth

The oldest terrestrial material is a crystal of zircon, the sometime diamond substitute that can be

a geologist's bestfriend.

By Edmond A. Mathez

With a wave, we bade good-bye to our Stresses acting on the rocks helicopter and watched as it disap- caused the newly formed miner-

peared over the horizon. In the sud- als to realign, completely de- den stillness, the seven of us stood at the edge of stroying the original layering. Greenland's ice cap, in a remote corner of the The original rocks changed com- world, cut off from the rest of humanity by many position as they reacted deep miles of impassable lakes, glaciers, and fjords. in the Earth with passing fluids.

Perhaps some people would be unnerved by the After such a beating, it is the rare

isolation, the stark surroundings, the cold wind rock that is recognizable in the blowing off the ice cap, and the prospect of living field, even to the most expert in tents in unpredictable weather. But we seven eye, as having once been a lava

geologists were a happy crew. Some of us had been or a sediment at all. friends for years; others were new to the area and Given the destruction of the

the people. But all of us shared the excitement of original evidence, what basis at last reaching this remote place. We had come to do geologists have for claiming

Greenland in search of the oldest rocks known to that the Isua belt is 3.8 billion have originally formed on Earth's surface, de- years old, or that the rocks have posited some 3.8 biUion years ago. And now we been metamorphosed multiple

shared a sense of anticipation that on this trip we times? The evidence, in part, is zircon. Zircon? The might get lucky enough to satisfy our curiosity mineral best known as a jeweler's low-budget sub- about conditions on Earth long ago. stitute for diamonds and other precious stones? The rocks we sought are embedded in a bow- But zircon turns out to be so durable in nature shaped band known as the Isua supracrustal belt. that, for students of the ancient Earth, it too is a The band runs about twenty-five miles long and a symbol of "forever." few miles wide, inland from and high above the spectacular fjords of southwestern Greenland. Orig- he name "zircon" comes from the Arabic inally the rocks of the Isua belt were mostly lavas T zarqilii, which itself comes from two Persian between which were sandwiched a few sedimentary words meaning "gold color"; thanks to trace quan-

beds. In the billions of years since their deposition, tities of iron, most zircon crystals are yellowish they have been buried as deep as twelve miles, brown or gold in hue. (Most of the zircon used for

heated to temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees jewelry is heated to render the crystals pale blue.)

Fahrenheit, simmered in chemically reactive fluids, The ideal chemical formula is ZrSi04, or zirco- folded, and faulted. What's more, the process has nium silicate. Zircon occurs widely in rocks—par- taken place not once, but three times. ticularly granites, which are rocks comprised

That tortured history, all part of what is com- mainly of the minerals quartz and feldspar and monly called metamorphism, has resulted in the cre- which make up a large portion of the continental

ation of a completely new set of minerals made from crust. But zircon is rarely present in large quantities

the chemical components of the original ones. in any one rock, making it what geologists call an

40 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 Rock constituting Greenland's Isua supracrustal belt was originally made up of lava sandwiched among a few sedimentary beds. After deep burial, chemical change, and uplift, the rock was substantially altered. But minuscule crystals of zircon, embedded in the rock, resisted the changes and so can help geologists reconstruct the process. A 208-carat zircon gemstone is pictured at the upper left of the opposite page. accessory mineral: a mineral present in such meager granite that has soUdified twelve miles below Earth's quantities that geologists usually pay it little heed. surface. With time, the granite happens to be up- But zircon has some important properties that to- lifted to the surface, perhaps even pushed high gether conspire to rescue it from obscurity and into a mountain range at the edges of two colliding make it one of the most important tools geologists tectonic places. Once exposed to air and water, have for studying the long distant past. though, the granite erodes, but the zircon within it

Zircon's first important property is its resistance usually survives. As the mountains gradually wear to weathering. It measures 7.5 on the Mohs hard- away, the zircon is washed down mountain streams ness scale. By comparison, talc, the softest known and becomes part of the sediment accumulating in mineral, has a hardness of 1; diamond, the hardest river beds or deltas, or along a coastUne. known mineral, rates a 10; and in between are ma- The second important property ot zircon is that terials such as glass (5.5) and the hardened steel used it resists chemical attack. As sandy sediment builds in making files (6.5). To appreciate the importance up, any zircon crystals in it are buried, and the sed- of that property, suppose a zircon crystal, one-ten- iment is compressed into brittle sedimentary rock. thousandth of an inch long, forms in a chunk of With deep burial, the rock is cooked by heat and

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 41 RIFTING BE6IMS and accreting a second, younger overgrowth. The conclusion of the story

is simple yet jawdropping. Each

overgrowth is analogous to a tree ring—except that instead of recording annual episodes of growth, the rims on zircon crys-

tals record multiple geologic cy- cles. Each cycle begins with uplift and mountain-building, contin- ues with the erosion of towering mountain ranges, and concludes with the burial of the erosion- derived sediments as the moun- tains wear down to plains, setting

Plates collide the stage for the cycle to begin RAPID UPLIFTiNS FORMS MOUNTAIN again. And each cycle commonly RANGES lasts hundreds of iruUions of years.

Episodes of mountain building commonly follow the so-called Wilson cycle. Continental ' he fact that such cycles crust (V begins to rift under pressure from the mantle (2). The rifting splits the continent, t:exist—let alone that they and the upwelling magma creates an ocean basin (3). Eventually, the ocean basis begins are recorded by such tiny, seem- to close again, forcing the denser oceanic lithosphere to subduct, or slide under, the more buoyant continental crust. The subducting lithosphere and overlying mantle partially melt, ingly innocuous, crystals—may and the molten rocks punch upward through the overlying continental crust to create a sound incredible, and so a brief

chain of volcanoes in (4), such as those found the Andes of South America and the digression is in order. The moun- Cascades of North America. The ocean basin continues to close until the two (5) tain-building stages of these cy- converging continents collide (6). Such collisions force rock upward along the continental- cles, as I suggested earlier, result plate boundaries, creating massive, nonvolcanic mountain chains, such as the Himalaya. from plate tectonics, the primary As the new mountains erode and shed their sediment into flanking basins (7), buried rock, no longer so weighed down, rises to the surface. The process begins anew when the force shaping the surface of our

continent is split apart by slow but unceasing motions of the underlying mantle. planet. Like an egg, Earth pos- sesses a relatively rigid outer shell, pressure into a hard, crystalline, metamorphic rock. known as the lithosphere. Driven by the slow but Indeed, the rock may partially melt if the tempera- inexorable convective motion of hot rock in the

ture is high enough. In any case, at least part, and mantle below, the lithosphere breaks into plates that

possibly all, of the original zircon grains, because of constantly move away from, coUide with, and grind their chemical durability, usually survive. against each other. In the process the plates are con-

The next stage in the process is critical to geolo- tinually destroyed and reformed. The lithospheric gists' fascination with zircons today. At some point plates themselves are about sixty iniles thick, and in the metamorphic process, a coating—a slow- the lighter rock that makes up the continents, typi- growing rind that geologists call a rim—com- cally twenty-five miles thick, floats on top of them. monly grows around the original crystal. The new As the continental masses are carried about on metamorphic rock, therefore, contains a znron the surface by the motion of the underlying plates,

crystal with both a core that is older than the rock those masses, too, are continually crunching to- itselt and a zircon overgrowth that formed at the gether and combining into large "supercontinents,"

same time as the new rock formed. It is not hard to then separating into smaller continents, and even- imagine what happens when the new metamor- tually recombining in some new arrangement.

phic rock is exposed at the surface by uphft and Great rifts open up where continents puU apart,

then becomes eroded. That same zircon crystal, and eventually seawater pours in to fdl the rift; a

with its old core and younger rim, inay again rise good example is the Red Sea. Mountains rise along

into jagged mountains, and again get washed away the margins of continents as material is squeezed

as those mountains erode. Continuing to retrace its upward where the plates coUide. The Himalaya, for

earher history, the zircon may then become incor- instance, are still rising at local rates of nearly half an

porated into sediment and, once more, find itself inch a year as the Indian subcontinent grinds its deeply buried in even younger metamorphic rock. way northward into Asia.

42 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 Rapid uplift is generally accompanied by rapid uranium. The isotope uranium-238, with a half- erosion, as well as the formation of flanking sedi- life of 4.468 billion years, decays to lead-206, while mentary basins. There the eroded material, includ- uranium-235, with a half-life of 703.8 million ing zircon, accumulates. When the converging plate years, decays to lead-207. (The half-life is the time motion ceases, the mountains stop growing, and it takes for half the original "parent" isotope—ura- erosion eventually wears them down. The Alps are nium, in this case—to decay to the "daughter" iso- an active mountain belt today that was created by a tope—^lead. In one half-life, half the parent isotope collision between the Eurasian and African plates. remains; in two half-lives, a half of a half, or one The Appalachians were once much like the Alps. quarter, remains; and so on. Age is calculated by Should the Adantic Ocean begin to close in a hun- measuring the amounts of parent and daughter iso- dred million years or so, the Appalachians will again topes present.) Thus in zircon, two difierent clocks become an active, growing mountain chain, and the are ticking away at different rates, and comparing deep, basement rock that supports them will be up- the ages ineasured from both clocks is a cross-check lifted and exposed to the surface. The cycle is des- on each of them. If the two ages are mutually con- tined to continue. sistent, the dating is probably accurate; if they are not, the zircon has lost or gained uranium or lead This story of dynamic but cycHc change would some time since its formation, and so neither date be nothing more than empty hypothesis it can be trusted.

rocks left no record of their ages. But zircon has a third important property that satisfies the need for second compUcation for dating zircon is that only in a zircon over- evidence: it can accommodate atoms of certain ra- A analyzing isotope ratios dioactive elements into its crystalline structure, and growth or only in a core is not so easy. The reason

those elements can act as long-running clocks from is that those features are usually just a few ten-thou- which the age of the zircon can be read. The most sandths of an inch across, and the layers of over-

important of those elements is uranium, which growth are not always visible in cross section, even readily substitutes for zirconium in the crystal under a high-power microscope. Yet to get an accu- structure because the ions of both elements have rate picture of the history of a zircon, distinguishing the same charge (+4) and roughly the same size. one region from another is critical. Analyzuig a zir- The radioactive uranium locked up in the zircon con made up partly of material from the 3.5-billion- decays to lead at a fixed year-old core and partly

rate. By measuring the rela- fr-om the bUHon-year-old tive abundance of those overgrowth would give a two elements in the zircon meaningless age. today, one can determine Fortunately, there are

how long ago it formed. now a few techniques, Perhaps unsurprisingly, fairly simple (at least in the reality of dating a principle), for imaging the

zircon is less simple than different growth zones of the foregoing explana- zircon. One is to view the tion might suggest. One mineral in cathodolumi-

complication is that when nescence [see photomicro-

zircon is heated during graph on next page] . When burial, some of the lead the zircon is bombarded that had accumulated from by high-energy electrons, radioactive decay can dif- It emits visible light. Be- fuse out of the crystal. The cause of subtle variations composi- loss of that lead changes ^OrmeD^^^ in the zircon's the ratio of lead to ura- tion, the brightness of is not nium, and so the new ratio, Zircon follows its own cycle, closely intertwined with the the emitted light if measured, would give a Wilson cycle. A zircon grain may first form in solicfifying uniform, thus revealing molten rock such as granite. When the granitic body, spurious age. (1), the zircon's core and its with its enclosed zircon, is uplifted and exposed at the Fortunately, there is a growth zones in a photo- surface (2), erosion and deposition lead to zircon-bearing way around that problem. micrograph. sedimentary rocks (3), which are buried and "cooked" To determine the con- To date zircon geologists into metamorphic rock (4). More zircon precipitates onto the uranimn rely on two isotopes of the existing crystals (1), and the process begins again. centrations of

IVlay 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 43 and lead isotopes in micro- riming of the differentiation scopic regions in the zircon, of the crust from the man- geologists rely on a tech- tle can be coaxed from the nique known as secondary detailed geochemistry of iori mass spectrometry. An Isua lavas. But to make instrument known as an sense of the geochemistry, ion probe bombards the geologists need to become polished surface of a zircon more certain about the age with a beam of narrowly of the rock. focused high-energy oxy- More accurate dating of gen ions. The ions erode the Isua belt may help tlU the surface, a process that in more than just the geo-

creates a shallow pit and logical history of Earth; it causes secondary ions to can also give a better sense emanate from the zircon. of when life originated. The secondary ions are Direct evidence indicates accelerated oif the sample that life was present on by an electric field and the planet at least 2.7 bil- directed into a mass spectro- lion years ago and possibly meter, an instrument that as long ago as 3.5 billion

collects, sorts, and counts years (though the fossil ev- Photomicrograph of zircon crystal (top) is not particularly the ejected ions according for the informative for a geologist hoping to date a roc(t that idence earUer date

to their masses. The instru- contains such a crystal. But if the crystal is bombarded is controversial). But cer-

ment's ability to precisely with electrons, it emits light known as cathodo- tain Isua rocks indirectly analyze and date specific, luminescence, revealing a layered internal structure suggest that Hfe existed be- (middle photomicrograph and lower diagram). Each layer identifiable microscopic re- fore then. is like a tree ring, representing one cycle in the process of gions of a crystal is what The evidence comes deposition of zirconium silicate around an original seed makes zircon dating such a crystal. Once the layer boundaries have been determined, from yet another isotopic powerful geologic tool. geologists can sample and date each one. For the layers ratio. Carbon, which is a

shown here, zones 1 and 2 are both 3.7 billion years old major part of all living (zone 2 looks different because of corrosion): zone 3 is Our team had come tissue, occurs naturally in 3.6 billion years old; and zone 4 is 2.6 billion years old. to Greenland to ex- two stable isotopes, car- plore Isua further and to bon-12 and carbon-13. seek more precise information than had been avail- And carbon incorporated in living tissue by photo- able before about the age of the belt. Our long- synthesis presents an exception to a general rule of term ambitions were to read those ancient rocks chemistry: that two isotopes of the same element closely enough to gain an understanding of the are chemically indistinguishable. In fact, atoms of conditions on the surface of the early Earth and carbon- 12 and carbon-13 bond with slightly differ- how and when the first continental crust was ent strengths to other elements. Photosynthesis cre-

formed. Long ago, in our planet's earUest days, it ates a characteristic ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13

became differentiated into distinct layers: a dense, in the organic carbon molecules it produces; the

metallic core, a silicate mantle, a less dense silicate ratio differs from the ratio that occurs in inorganic crust, a water ocean, and an atmosphere. That dif- sources of carbon. Hence if a rock contains carbon

ferentiation remains one of the most significant at all, a geologist will often measure the ratio of events in the planet's history. The resulting archi- carbon-12 to carbon-13 to determine whether the

tecture determined much of Earth's later develop- source of the carbon is organic or inorganic.

ment, and is one of the reasons we human beings and other animal life emerged here. The Isua rocks, it turns out, contain carbon, ap- The ancient Hneage of the rocks in the Isua belt parently mostly in the form of graphite, which

makes them crucial in developing a picture of Earth's is a pure form of the element. The ratio of the two early history. Fortunately, zircons occur in many old carbon isotopes in the graphite suggests that the car- crustal rocks, and the distribution of their ages sug- bon came from an organic source rather than from,

gests that only small bits of incipient crust existed at say, the ocean or the deep Earth. But we have the time the Isua rocks formed, and that the crust learned from experience that nothing about the Isua grew rapidly thereafter. Hints about the extent and rocks can be taken for granted. The same metamor-

44 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 phic processes that changed the rocks may also have Northwest Territories. The oldest rock in the Acasta changed the ratios of the two carbon isotopes. gneiss, based on the age of its zircon crystals, solidi-

Still, the carbon-isotope data are the only evi- fied slightly more than 4 billion years ago. dence so far for the possibiHty of life during Isua It probably won't come as a surprise that the old- time. Fragile as the evidence is, geologists are keen est known terrestrial material is a zircon. The crys- to know as precisely as possible when that time was. tal in question is a fragment just a few thousandths

Daring the Isua belt is not simple, though, and of an inch across. It and many other old zircons we do not know the ages of all its rocks as precisely come from metamorphosed sediments deposited in as we'd like. The belt rests on a substrate of meta- river deltas some 3 billion years ago in what is now morphic rocks of different ages. Those rocks con- southwestern Australia. The rocks contain a variety tain zircons and so are readily dated, but the zircons of old zircons, and several percent of them are older indicate that the substrate rocks are younger than than 3.9 billion years. At the corner of one of these the Isua rocks (which, according to uranium-lead crystals was the record-setting fragment, aged 4.404 dating methods, first metamorphosed roughly 3.8 billion years. Earth itself had formed less than 150 billion years ago). That inversion of the principle of million years earlier. stratigraphic dating—that older rocks should be The oldest zircons offer tantaUzing hints about below younger ones—implies that a fault separates the state of that early Earth. The ratios of oxygen the Isua belt from the underlying metamorphic isotopes in some of the zircons are unlike the ratios rocks, and so the latter say nothing about the belt's in the mantle but similar to those occurring in con- age. Another problem is that the Isua belt appears to be made up of at least two, possibly unrelated successions of rock layers that were brought into contact by movement along faults. The most clear-cut way of dating such complex rock sequences is to find either zircon-bearing ash layers, formed during volcanic eruptions, or struc- tures known as dikes, where magma intruded % along a crack in the rocks. Ash layers are generally interleaved with beds of lava and sediment, and so %^i# a rock that contains such a layer was formed at ap- proximately the time of the ash deposition. A granite dike, on the other hand, can give only a minimum age for the rock that the dike cuts across.

(After all, the granite magma must have had some- thing to intrude into.) The Isua rocks have been so severely modified that it is almost impossible to tell Zircon crystals, here magnified WO diameters, are typically a if a particular unit was an ash layer or a dike that few thousandths of an inch long. just happens to run parallel to the other beds. Some dikes and possible ash layers have been found tinental crust that formed in the presence of water. in the Isua belt, and they are the main source of That finding has led to speculations that the zircons current chronological knowledge. But in some formed in magmas derived from continental crust, parts of the belt these features are rare, so our team and that water was somewhere present. Water is in Greenland was looking for previously unnoticed essential for Ufe, and so in principle life could have dikes and ash layers that could be dated. begun on Earth earlier than 3.8 billion years ago. But the period from the birth of the Earth, 4.6 Our expedition to Greenland was a fine ad- billion years ago, until 3.8 biUion years ago was a venture and, incrementally, a scientific suc- violent time, richly deserving its name, the Hadean cess. We did find more old dikes, and returned to era (from "Hades"). At that time our planet was warmer climes with more zircon-bearing rocks. constantly bombarded by meteors. Perhaps the When we began our expedition, all of us knew bombardment accounts for the absence of rocks that the Isua rocks are by no means the oldest known older than about 4 billion years. Litde from the rocks on Earth, let alone the oldest terrestrial mater- Hadean other than zircons—hard, chemically

ial. The oldest rock discovered so far is from the so- durable, subject to growth, and datable—has sur- called Acasta gneiss, a body made up of a variety of vived for us to behold with wonder; they are our granitic rocks of various ages, located in Canada's main windows into that distant era. D

May 2004 N.'iTURAL HISTORY 45 John James Audubon ('1785-185 1) is best known, Henderson, Kentucky, and began to conceive the plan for

of course, for his exhaustively documented, life-size the paintings that woidd become his life's work. Hie time renderings of North American birds. But Audubon seems almost as distant now as the America that Shake- recorded his meticulous observations in notes and speare's Miranda, in The Tempest, called a "brave new

journals as well as in his art. His writings show'in world. " In his new book, Under a Wild Sky, Williatn

vivid detail that, less than 200 years ago, the American Souder helps us re-imagine the setting, bhssfully pastoral

wilderness was inescapable fact, and that Audubon was yet at times overwhelmingly violent. Most of the images very much a man of his times: frontiersman, husband, that accompany this article are reproductions of paintings father of two boys, and, yes, hunter of birds. by Audubon, depicting some of the birds Souder In 1811 he became the proprietor of a general store in mentions in the text. —The Editors

Audubon in Kentucky

The young painter and ornithophile conceived his Ufe's work in a country so rich in birds that theirflocks blackened the sky.

By William Souder

Once, as John James Audubon stalked the paid to the behavior and traits of every species he woods of Kentucky, he found a very encountered. He thought goldfinches and purple

young turkey cock separated from its finches among the smartest birds. Somehow they

brood-mates, and brought it home. The bird be- had learned a trick for escaping from "bird lime," a came tame and popular with the people of Hen- sticky substance commonly used to capture small

derson, following anyone who spoke to it. The birds. When a goldfinch landed on a twig turkey grew large, but refused to commune with Audubon had coated with bird lime, he saw that

Audubon's domestic turkeys. Every evening it the bird recognized its predicament at once. In- could be seen silhouetted against the sky on the stead of struggling, the bird pressed its wings

ridgetop of the Audubon house, the only place it against its body and fell backward, causing itself to would deign to roost. hang upside down. Gradually the glue began to Occasionally, the bird would retreat to the forest. give, stretching into a long strand, like the filament

During one of its disappearances Audubon was out of a spider's web, until the goldfinch realized it was hunting, and happened on the animal. He would about to break. Then, with a flap of its wings, the

have shot it had his dog not recognized the bird, bird flew off. which remained unperturbed while the two Another of Audubon's favorites was the Ameri-

hunters, man and dog, walked up to it. His wife, can white pelican, which congregated around

Lucy, later tied a red ribbon around the bird's neck Henderson in the fall. Audubon observed the pel-

to alert local hunters that it was not a member of the icans in large flocks, sitting on low islands or

wild flock. Nevertheless, it was eventually killed by swimming in the river shallows, often packed to- a hunter who didn't see the ribbon untU he picked gether so densely that he could kill several at a time up the dead bird. The man apologetically brought with a single discharge of his gun. Although

the turkey to Audubon, who probably ate it. Audubon found all birds beautiful, he considered the white pelican unusually handsome, in part be- Audubon's determination, however vaguely cause of the bird's meticulous grooming habits. He formed in 1811, to survey the natural history was impressed at how different the bird was from

of American birds was apparent in the attention he its cousin, the brown pelican, in the way it fished.

46 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 Wild turkey, perhaps similar to the one Audubon once kept as a pet

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 47 The white peHcan, he noted, never dives on its But he relied on memory, too. However far he

prey from the air; instead, it swims after the fish traveled from Kentucky, his days there in its lush

and sweeps them up by extending its neck and forests went with him. He could recall how white thrusting its head underwater. a pelican appeared in the afternoon sun, and how

Sometimes a flock hunted together in a well- cool he felt in the shade of a towering sycamore as

choreographed effort. One Indian summer after- he leaned against its smooth trunk. He took with noon, as the sun lowered in the westerh sky, him the feel of his gun pounding into his shoulder,

Audubon watched a flock of white pelicans lazing its stock pressed against his cheek. He remembered about on a sandbar in the Ohio River. Suddenly a how the stillness of a pallid dawn was split by the

commotion started up in a smaU bay a little way whistle of wings cutting through the air, some- off, and the flock instantly went on alert. The birds times like a gentle breeze, other times like the

waddled into the water, where the ungainliness of sound of silk tearing. Long after he left, Audubon

their land movements ceased, and they began to could still hear the calls and songs that rang through the trees, mixing with the sounds of rivers and storms and horses. He could feel the puU of a swamp against his shins and call to mind the tor- ment of mosquitoes and withering heat spells and terrible winters when life seemed to stop. Much of what Audubon saw and remembered now survives

only in remnants, and some of it is gone.

In the fall of 1813, while traveling on horseback from Henderson to Louisville, Audubon saw a

low smudge in the sky. It resembled a dark cloud at

first, but it pulsed with movement at the edges and rapidly grew larger. He heard a rumble, and at once the smudge became a surging mass of dark points in the sky. A flock of passenger pigeons was flying directly toward him. The passenger pigeon was a darkly beautiful, medium-size bird that looked like a slightly larger version of the rock dove—the bird better known Passenger pigeons in flocks could number in the billions, today as the common city pigeon—only more according to Audubon's personal observation. Hunting them richly colored. Its shoulders, back, and sleek, to extinction seemed as likely as emptying the ocean by rounded head were slate blue. That coloration the spoonful. blended into a deep reddish brown on its chest. glide forward across the current in a surging mass, Seen at a glance, the bird looked purple.

toward the place where a school of small fish had Today, of course, the passenger pigeon is extinct begun thrashing the surface. The fish, Audubon [see "The Face of Extinction," by Hanna Rose Shell,

said, seemed at play. They made the water sparkle. page 72] . In its day, though, it was almost certainly As the pelicans approached, the splashing contin- one of the most abundant bird species that ever ued. The birds swam closer together and, nearing lived. From the moment European settlers arrived the shoal, spread out their wings so that they in North America, they were awestruck by the in- formed a solid wall pushing forward. Now the pel- credible numbers of "wild pigeons" that traveled

icans propelled themselves faster still, sending the in immense groups, ceaselessly traversing the fish fleeing ahead, into ever shallower water, herd- continent in search of food. So huge were the

ing the school toward its demise. When the fish flocks that they acted more like storm systems than were at last trapped against the shore, the peHcans assemblages of birds, and they moved with the moved in, heads lowering, and devoured them by speed and power of hurricanes. the thousands. The flock coming toward Audubon seemed to Years later, when he was writing about North include a great many birds, even by passenger- American birds, Audubon consulted his records pigeon standards. As he dismounted his horse, he

for the behavioral traits and the descriptions of began to count what at first seemed to be succes- each species, sometimes in conjunction with an sions of discrete flocks. But he soon lost track, as examination of more recently killed specimens. the flocks merged into an endless, indistinguish-

48 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 Passenger pigeons (female, top, and male, above) became extinct in the wild in 1900.

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 49 able black column across the sky, stretching from square yard, Audubon concluded that the number

horizon to horizon. Mounting his horse again and of birds in his 1 SO-square-mile "layer" of pigeons moving on, Audubon found the pigeon numbers was roughly 1.1 billion. If Audubon's estimates

increasing. Although it was midday, the sky dark- were even close to the truth, the big flock he ob-

ened—as if, he later recalled, the sun had been served to take three days passing over Kentucky eclipsed. Pigeon droppings fell like snow. The might have numbered more than 25 billion birds. sound of rushing wings overhead luUed him into The passenger pigeon seems to have been a force something Hke a trance. of nature that even the sometimes imaginative He rode on, surprised that not a single bird Audubon was unable to exaggerate. When a flock landed or even strayed near the earth. Once he tried of passenger pigeons dropped out of the sky to

a rifle shot into the flock, which was far out of feed, great havoc ensued. The birds denuded and range of his fowling gun. To his amazement, he destroyed large sections of forest, and when a flock's could not hit a single pigeon or even startle the presence was discovered, people would travel firom flock with the gun's report. When he reached far away to harvest the birds by the thousands. Louisville at the end of the day, the pigeons were stiU flying, their ranks undiminished. Near the Ohio Once, near the Green River in Kentucky, River the pigeons descended, not alighting but Audubon happened upon such a killing

merely flying low. Audubon found the riverbanks at field. It was in a stand of old forest, with little un- Louisville "crowded with men and boys incessantly derstory, where a flock of pigeons had come to shooting." The entire population was "all in arms," roost each night after foraging in the area by day. he said, destroying pigeons by the "multitudes." Audubon arrived on the scene about two weeks When he went to bed that night the pigeons were after the birds' first appearance. He found a section

still flying, the arc of the great flock spanning the of forest three miles wide and nearly forty miles

sky. The next morning, they were still passing over- long, littered with broken branches and Umbs that

head. So it went for three consecutive days, with no had sheared ofl" beneath the weight of the birds. pause as the birds streamed past. Nobody in Some trees as wide as two feet in diameter were Louisville could talk of anything else. Everyone ate broken ofi'just above ground level.

pigeon meat all day. The air smeUed of pigeons. Dispersed across this devastated landscape was a band of hunters and farmers armed with guns and Some years after seeing the big flock in Kentucky, long poles. Wagons were parked in Unes, waiting to Audubon made a series of ingenious observa- carry away the spoils of the imminent hunt; some of tions about passenger pigeons that probably consti- the farmers had brought their hogs to feast on

tute as good a description of the species as anyone freshly killed birds. As the afternoon wore on, de- will ever have. Audubon, who sometimes dissected bris was piled into pyres, to be set afire after dark. birds and sketched their internal organs, determined The piles were augmented with smudge pots fJled that passenger pigeons completely digested their with sulfur, and torches made from tarry pine knots. food in about twelve hours. He also learned that pi- The sun set and the sky went black. At last geons killed in New York were sometimes full of Audubon heard the cry: "Here they come!" With a undigested rice. Because rice grew only as far north deafening roar of wings, a torrent of pigeons poured as the Carohnas, Audubon was able to make a rough into the forest, searching for places to alight. Soon calculation of the birds' sustained speed. To arrive in what remained of the trees filled with birds. The New York with rice stiU in their crops, he figured, flock was so thick they seemed to land on top of the pigeons would have to maintain an average one another, their dark forms congealing into speed of about a rrdle a minute. throbbing masses that rocked precariously above the Audubon could now estimate how many birds earth until the Hmbs beneath them splintered, gave might assemble into a "typical" flock. If you knew way, and came crashing dovwi. Everything below how fast they flew, he reasoned, you could figure was swept away, and the forest floor became car- the size of the flock. Imagine a column of passen- peted with a tangle of fallen and crushed birds. ger pigeons one rrdle wide—a modest premise, he The fires and torches were lit. An evil hght fdled said. Now assume the flock passes overhead in three the woods. The air was acrid and thick with hours: that, too, would be conservative. If the birds smoke; pigeons flew in all directions, passing and were flying at sixty miles an hour, the entire flock repassing through their own shadows. People could be visualized as occupying a rectangular area flayed at the birds with poles, knocking them a mile wide and three-times-sixty miles long: 180 down by the hundreds. As men began firing into square miles. Assuming a density of two birds per the flock, the chaos was so overwhelming that

50 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 American white pelican was one of the handsomest of birds, according to Audubon, not least because of its fastidious grooming habits.

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 51 — —a

Audubon could not even hear the reports of their by hunters seeking to supply a market hungry for guns. Appalled yet transfixed by the scene, he re- the Carolina parakeet's extravagant feathers, and by minded himself that the populations of these birds farmers trying to save their crops from marauding could quadruple in a single breeding season. flocks—devastated a magnificent species that many In fact, Audubon thought it inconceivable that regarded as a pest. Audubon, whose published hunting—even the kind of slaughter he had wit- drawing of the Carolina parakeet was done firom nessed at the Green River—could diminish the specimens he shot in Louisiana, wrote that these numbers of passenger pigeons. Only the continued birds were fond of cockleburs, the small, spiny fruit clearing of the North American forest, he thought, that is found plentifully—perhaps, as a prickly could threaten this remarkable bird, which seemed Audubon noted, "much too plentifully"—across to him a mobile but permanent part of the Ameri- the eastern and southern parts of America. can landscape. The problem for the parakeet, Audubon said,

was that it also loved nearly every kind of fruit and Populations of animals that go extinct typically grain "indiscriminately." Corn was just about the shrink to very small numbers before vanishing, only farm crop it wouldn't eat. A flock of CaroHna as isolated groups and then individuals are wiped parakeets—think of a roiling, deep-green ocean out one by one. Usually the falling out of the sky

process is a natural one. A could lay waste to a large typical species persists about area of cropland. When a million years on earth, and feeding, the birds were many more species have al- oblivious to their sur- ready gone extinct than exist roundings and easily ap- today. But the passenger proached. Even after being pigeon lived in huge num- shot at, they remained easy

bers right up to the time it targets. Younger parakeets, went very suddenly extinct. Audubon reported, were Ornithologists now think "tolerable" table fare. But the species was adapted to mainly the birds were shot survive and breed only in just to get rid of them. massive flocks of iTuUions Carolina parakeets issued upon millions of individuals. a sharp, screeching call— Even when many remained, "scream" to Audubon's there were not enough. ears—that was hard to abide Another American icon at close range. Although of Audubon's day, the Car- they could be tamed by olina parakeet—or parrot, being repeatedly dunked as it was also known—met in water—a lamentable much the same fate. The practice with which Audu- Carolina parakeet was al- bon was evidently famil- ready in decline when iar—they could not mimic Audubon began observing human speech and never Carolina parakeet, a pest to farmers and an easy it in Kentucky, its gave up their own call. To though target for hunters, became extinct in the wild in

numbers were still so great 1905, a victim of the gun and the loss of its home. the man who made a pet in the early nineteenth of a turkey and became century that the bird was seen in immense flocks virtually the American patron saint of all things across much of eastern North America. Yet, like ornithological, Carolina parakeets were still "so the passenger pigeon, the CaroHna parakeet would disagreeable as to render them at best very in- be gone in less than a century—disappearing in different companions." The bird was wild and defiance of the usual precondition for extinction, destined to stay that way, but, like Audubon's

which is rarity. The last time anyone saw a passen- recollections of his younger years in the back- ger pigeon in the wild was in 1900. The Carolina woods, only as a memory. D parakeet disappeared from the wild five years later. Aiiapted from Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the The very last individuals of both species died in Making of The Birds of America, by Willium Souder, to be published zoos not long thereafter. in June by North Point Press, a division ofFarrnr, Straus and Giroux, Loss of habitat and a great continuing slaughter LLC. Copyright ©2004 by William Soiider All rights reserved.

52 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 REVIEW

Stephan Balkenhol, Hybrids, 1995

Brains and the Beast

Can the hehaviorist's insistence on distinguishing animal from human cognition he reconciled with evolutionary continuity?

By Frans B. M. de Waal

your dog drops a tennis ball in even existed, remained a black box. In afraid of a tame white rat. But atter Iffront of you and looks up at you the early days, the behaviorists applied Watson paired each appearance of the with tail wagging, do you figure their doctrine m equal measure to rat with sharp noises right behind poor she wants to play? How naive! Who people and other animals. Watson, tor Albert's head, fear of rats was the in- says dogs have desires and intentions? instance, to demonstrate the power of evitable outcome. Even human speech

Her behavior is merely the product ot his methods, intentionally created a was thought to be the product of sim- reinforcement: she has been rewarded phobia for furry objects in a human ple reinforcement learning.

for it in the past. baby. Initially "little Albert" was un- The behaviorists' goal of unifying Many scientists have grown up with the science of behavior was a noble the so-called law of effect, the idea that one—but alas, outside academia the

all behavior is conditioned by reward Do Animals Think? masses resisted. They stubbornly re- and punishment. This principle ot by Clii'c D.L. Wynne fused to accept that their own beha\'ior learning was advocated by a dominant Princeton University Press, 2004; could be explained without consider- school of twentieth-century psycho- $26.95 ing thoughts, feelings, and intentions. logical thought known as American Don't we all have mental Uves, don't Intelligence Apes behaviorism. The school's founders, of we look into the future, aren't we ra- and Other Rational Beings John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, were tional beings? Eventually, the behaidor- by Duane M. Rwnbaugh happy to explain all conceivable be- ists caved in and exempted the bipedal and David A. Washburn havior within the narrow confines of ape from their theors' of e\'er\'thing. Yale University Press, 2003; S3 5. 00 what Skinner called "operant condi- That was the beginning of the tioning." The mind, if such a thing problem for other animals. Once cog-

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 53 nitive complexity was admitted in This story sets the tone of doubt and people, the rest of the animal king- reserve that permeates the book. dom became the sole standard-bearer Wynne includes numerous insightful of behaviorism. Animals were ex- accounts of remarkable animal be- pected to follow the law of effect to havior, but he invariably concludes on the letter, and anyone who thought a note ot caution: one should not ditTerently was just being anthropo- infer too much fi-om these accounts.

morphic. From a unified science, be- He is not so radical a behaviorist that

haviorism had become a dichotomous he excludes all forms of reasoning by one, with two separate languages: one animals, but he takes greater pleasure for human behavior, another for ani- in explaining what animals cannot mal behavior. Human rationality and do—^monkeys fail to understand rela- superiority are not really the issue, tions bet\veen cause and effect, apes however—one only needs to read the can sign but lack the syntax that defines latest Darwin Awards to notice that human language—than in describing our species can be less rational than what they avi do. Capacities unique to

advertised. The issue is the dividing a particular species, such as echoloca-

line between us and the rest of nature. tion in bats, get Wynnes fLJl admira- Radical behaviorists adamantly insist tion. But anything that seems to elevate

on this Hne, and look across it with en- other animals close to the lofty cogni-

8x32 Venturer LX Fifty years ago a female macaque began washing sweet potatoes eating them; The Nikon Venturer LX before now her entire group has picked up the practice. 8x42 & 8x32 series C!2004 Nikon Inc.

• 1 00% waterproof/fogproof tirely different eyes than the ones they tive level of humankind he regards with • Phase-con-ected BaK4 reserve for their fellow human beings. utmost skepticism. He seems to take high-index prisms They speak about animals as "them" delight in animals, and possesses great • Durable, lightweight and compare "them" with "us," as knowledge about them, yet he prefers magnesium-alloy construction CHve D. L. Wynne does at the begin- them at arm's length. The constant • Rubber annor for a sure grip J ning of Dd Animals Tliink? ("What are message is that animals are not people. • Nikon Inc. 25 year animals really? What should we That much is obvious. But it is limited warranty included — make of them?"). Other behaviorists, equally true that people are animals.

however, intentionally blur the line. The dichotomy Wynne advocates is They apply the same well-tested be- outdated, lending his book a pre- haviorist methodology to reconnect Darwinian flavor. Take the case of an- human and animal behavior, daring to imal culture, currently one of the mention the words "animal" and hottest areas in the study of animal "cognition" in the same breath. They behavior. The idea goes back to the write books such as Duane M. Rum- pioneering work of Kinji Imanishi, Authorized Nikon Dealer www.nikonusa.com baugh and David A. Washburn's Intelli- who proposed in 1952 that if individ- gence of Apes and Other Rational Beings. uals learn from one another, their be- havior may grow so different from Of the two, Wynnes book is by far behavior in other groups of the same the more readable. Wynne has a species that they seem to have their pleasant writing style and a knack for own culture. Imanishi thus reduced

engaging the reader. He begins with the idea of culture to its most basic the story of a mad animal-rights activist feature: the social rather than the ge- who threatened the Uves of people on netic transmission of behavior. the Isle of Wight, where Wynne grew Many examples of animal culture up. The man was convinced that ani- have been documented. The classic EAGLE OPTICS mals are sentient beings, a certainty case emerged among wild macaques (800)289:1132 Wynne says he wishes he could share. on Japan's Koshima Island. During www.eagleoptics.com EVOLVING their fieldwork with the monkeys Wynne invariably fwors interpre- there, investigators provisioned them tations that widen the assumed cogni- with sweet potatoes, which a juvenile tive gap between human and animal. NATURE female named Imo soon began wash- For example, he uncritically accepts ing; she would bring her potatoes to a the uniqueness claim dn jour: that small river and clean them off before only human beings possess a theory ot eating them. Imo's washing behavior mind (ToM), or the cognitive ability spread first to her mother and then to to understand that others, too, have her age peers, before atTecting the rest mental states such as thoughts and of the group. Later Imo moved her knowledge. Ironically—given Wynne's operation to the shoreline, washing dismissal of an ape ToM—the concept the potatoes in the ocean, and, again, got its start with a 1970s study of the other monkeys followed. chimpanzees. A female showed she Some psychologists have objected had grasped the intentions of others to this example, pointing out that it by, for example, selecting a key from is uncertain whether the monkeys among several tools if she saw a person learned their skill by copying others or struggling to open a locked door. by discovering the behavior individu- Evidence for a theory of mind in ally, without anyone's help. Wynne apes has gone through its ups and supports the second view. But instead downs ever since. Some experiments of basing his opinion on the actual have failed spectacularly, leading the data published by a team of Japanese proponents of one school of thought primatologists, who have worked on to contend that apes simply lack the the problem for fifty years, he relies on capacity. Negative results are incon- the word of a skeptical Westerner who clusive, though: as the saying goes, ab- has never set foot on the island. This sence of evidence is not evidence of scientist, a speciahst in rat behavior, absence. Furthermore, the perform- suggested that potato washing spread ance of apes is often assessed by com- because performers were selectively paring it with that of children. Be- rewarded by the people who handed cause the experimenter is invariably out the potatoes. human, however, only the apes face a species barrier. When an ingenious few years ago I went to Koshima experiment conducted at Emory Uni- EVOLUTION'S RAINBOW A Island to verify the idea of selec- versity's Yerkes National Primate Re- Diversity, Gender, and Sexualit)' tive rewarding. I talked with some of search Center in Atlanta got around in Nature and People the people who had actually witnessed that problem, the evidence for an ape by Joan Roughgarden Imo cleaning her first spud. They told ToM was more positive; chimpanzees "An entrancing tale of sexual ambiguit)- that initially the monkeys were fed seemed to realize that if a member of me in animals and people, but also that their species seen hidden food, far away from any water, so there was had rarest of literary beasts—a science book no question of rewarding any washing this individual knew where the food written from the heart." behavior. Imo herself came up with the was, as opposed to one who had not —Stevi Jones, author of Danvin's Ghost

idea of transporting the potatoes to the seen it. That finding threw the ques- river for cleaning. They also pointed tion of a ToM in nonhuman animals BEASTS OF EDEN out that one cannot feed a group of wide open again. Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, monkeys any way one wishes. The In an unexpected twist (because and Other Enigmas of

dominant males have to be fed first, the debate has focused on humans Mammal Evolution

the females second, and the little ones versus apes), a capuchin monkey in a by David Rains Wallace

last; changing the order sparks blood- laboratory at Kyoto University in "A wondrous journey tlirough the shed. Thus, except for Imo's mother, Japan recently passed a series of see- vanished worlds of e.\-tinct mammals. Exciting, insightful, and accurate, it is the monkeys that learned the behavior ing-knowing tasks with flying colors. eveiytlring that good science writing first, the juveniles, were the last to be The least one can conclude is that it is should be." —Tim Fiannery, author of rewarded. In fact, the only monkeys premature to settle on ToM capabili- T7it; Etemai Frontier on the island that never learned potato ties as the ultimate Rubicon. At bookstores or order washing were the adult males; pre- In spite of Wynne's dismissal of an (800) 822-6657 * www.ucpress.edu cisely the best-rewarded group. ape ToM, his book offers many in- UNIVERSITY OF

May 2004 NATURAL HISTORY 55 CALIFORNIA PRESS sightful descriptions of animal behav- the reader how the questions one asks sulting in an "emergent" solution. ior. A wonderful chapter on the role tend to constrain the answers one gets. The classic example is the chimpanzee of messenger pigeons during the Fn-st Indeed, some testing paradigms in a room with a few sticks and boxes World War includes a picture of the positively suppress the phenomena in one corner and, for the first time in stuffed body of .Cher Ami, a genuine being tested. When Rumbaugh re- the chimp's experience, a banana war hero. The pigeon kept flying placed the WGTA with an innovative hanging from the ceiling. The solu-

after its leg had been shot off, deliv- testing setup in which the monkeys tion emerges as the old bits of previ-

ering its message and thus rescuing an move a joystick to select stimuH on ous knowledge combine until, as if a entire battalion. a computer screen, their performance lightbulb suddenly goes on in the improved dramatically. Rumbaugh's chimpanzee's head, he cHmbs on top Rumbaugh and Washburn are work on the connection between of the boxes and reaches for the ba- considerably more open-minded method and outcome should be re- nana with a stick. about the mental accomplishments of quired reading for anyone who attaches The two authors rightly speak of

animals than Wynne is. Their book significance to negative evidence. reasoning and rationaUty, and so adopt

celebrates Rumbaugh s lifetime of re- a terminology that is anathema to search on monkeys and apes. In fact, One learning paradigm discussed radical behaviorism. They discuss the what fascinates me the most about by Rumbaugh and Washburn behaviorist view at length but choose Intelligence of Apes and Other Rational has special interest. Some animals learn to deviate from it, stressing continuity Beings is its historical overview of how to learn—that is, once they have between animal and human. For the experimental work with pri- reader, though, it is firustrating

mates, first with the Wisconsin that they focus almost entirely General Testing Apparatus on apes and other primates, (WGTA) and later with joy- without examining how the sticks and computers. concept of emergents could The WGTA was developed at apply equally well to other an- the University of Wisconsin in imals. Crows, dolphins, ele-

the 1940s, and is still being used phants, and parrots have been today. In this set-up, a primate credited with creative problem- subject in a cage faces an experi- solving as well. menter across a platform, on which differently shaped or col- There will always be tension ored stimuli are arrayed. Both between those who view experimenter and primate can animals as only slightly more reach the stimuli; the experi- flexible than machines and those menter baits them with rewards, who see them as only slighdy less and the primate selects among rational than human beings. The

them. I remember working with Steph an Balkenhol, Man with Lions, 1994 views discussed in these two such an apparatus as a student, books are by no means as far

testing chimpanzees to see if they could mastered a particular task, they can apart as they could be; both, after all, discriminate shapes by touch alone. more quickly learn future tasks that come out of the same tradition of ex- The task was so incredibly simple and have the same design but rely on dif- perimental psychology. Throw in a few repetirive that the apes invariably got ferent stimuli. Trial-and-error learning naturalists and neuroscientists, and the tired of the whole thing five ininutes cannot explain improved performance debate gets even more complex. That into the testing. In fact, they got so in reaction to new stimuU, hence the said, however, the two books range bored that they performed worse than level of learning must be higher. But widely enough across the spectrum of

macaques tested on the same stimuli. generalization across tasks is precisely views to make a powerful case that

I mention this episode because test what the founders of behaviorism there is still plenty to be discovered,

performance is often taken as a mea- thought animals could not do. and that human uniqueness is largely in sure of intelligence, even though at- Rumbaugh and Washburn discuss the eye of the beholder. tention and motivation are equally many forms of advanced problem- important to the outcome. As a result, solving, which they classify as "emer- Frans B.M. de Waal is C.H. Candler failure is to interpretation. gents." is sHghtly open The term awkward, Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory Uni- Rumbaugh and Washburn understand but the authors apply it to cases in I'crsily in Atlanta and the director of the Liv-

these points better than most scien- which animals flexibly apply accumu- ing Links Center at the iifiii'ersity's Yerkes

tists, and they are at pains to remind lated knowledge to new situations, re- National Primate Research Center

56 NATURAL HISTORY t^ ay 2004 The trees are free. The benefits are priceless.

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BOOKSHELF By Laurence A. Marschall

sometimes it seems as if the rats' departure cari-y infectious diseases such as plague. Rats: Observations on the History is a courtesy extended by the rats. ... I Yet unless people find a way to steam- think of all the rats that have crawled and Habitat of the City's clean each crevice of the city every through this alley before, the history of this Most Unwanted Inhabitants day, rats will continue to cohabit with alley's previous inhabitants. Oh, to by Robert Sullivan us in uneasy harmony. "If you killed know—to really know—this pelHcle of Bloonishury, 2004; $23.95 every rat in New York City," Ann Li rat-infested ground. remarks, "you would have created new Such deadpan effusiveness over housing for 60 million rats." In his memorable 1998 book The creatures commonly regarded as loath- Mcadou'lands, about the New Jersey some may border on sick humor, but

wetlands just west of the Lincoln Tun- elegies to Rattus norveg^kiis make up Running ivith Reindeer: nel, Robert Sullivan emerged as the only a small part of SuUivan's book. Encounters in Russian Lapland Thoreau of blighted ecosystems. Trav- There are many stories about the by Roger Took eling by canoe along oil-slicked bayous, ethology, natural history, and social Westuiew Press, 2004; $27.50 Sullivan uncovered treasures of both importance of rats, and, overaD, plenty natural and industrial history no passing of evidence that people and rats have a commuter would have suspected. lot more in common than most people Few places in Europe are as far off Now Sullivan has crossed the Hud- would Uke to admit. the beaten track as the Kola son River and relocated his eclectic Sullivan cites Martin W. Schein, for Peninsula, a potato-shaped carbuncle wanderings to the back alleys of lower instance, the co-author of a 1953 of land at the top of the Scandinavian paper on the eating habits of rats Peninsula, east of Finland. Russian

captured on Baltimore backstreets. Lapland, as the Kola is also known, has Schein conducted laboratory studies one large city (Murmansk), a few sub- using authentic garbage from the al- sidiary industrial centers and mining leys where the rats were trapped. He towns, and a scattering of isolated vil-

learned that rats hate raw beets (I lages in the hinterlands. One passable sympathize) and that scrambled eggs highway runs through the province. and macaroni and cheese are popular But beyond that right-of-way, for rat comfort foods, just as they are for hundreds of kilometers in every direc- human Baltimoreans. In Edens Alley, tion, the hardy traveler encounters according to Sullivan, the rats also nothing but tundra, taiga (boreal for-

to like chicken pie. est), shoreline. Rattus norvegicus: urban success story seem pot and vacant In spite of some strong dislikes, Roger Took is just such a hardy Manhattan, where the dumpsters of though, rats are not picky eaters. By traveler—perhaps even a foolhardy Chinese noodle joints, Irish pubs, and and large, they are omnivorous and one. When he arrived in the Russian Salvadoran chicken takeouts are the highly adaptable—the same traits that nortliland in the early 1990s, the en- real happening places for urban wild- make people so successful—and they tire country was teetering on the edge life. Happening, that is, if you're a rat. show uncanny cleverness in finding of anarchy, and it was not clear which "Four seasons spent among vermin" food and avoiding peril. Ann Li, an disaffected group a lone Englishman

is how Sullivan describes his sojourn. epidemiologist with the New York should be more afraid of suspicious His Walden Pond was Edens Alley, a City Department of Health, takes Sami tribesmen, the mihtary attached narrow defile a few blocks from WaU Sullivan on a rat-trapping expedition to the remnants of the Russian

Street. Equipped with both binoculars to Brooklyn, and tells him she thinks Northern Fleet, or the legendary and a night-vision monocular, he ar- rats are "so underappreciated." Even Russian Mafia. Just in case. Took rived in the evenings after dark to the exterminators who show Sullivan offhandedly notes, he learned how to watch the rats as they emerged to feed how to outsmart the rodents express a fire, strip, and reassemble a nine-mil- and, in the notebook he'd brought grudging admiration for their prey. limeter semiautomatic pistol before he along, to wax lyrical about nature, civ- As much as he shares the roden- left London.

ilization, and the nieamng of hfe. A tophilia of his informants, Sullivan is We never learn whether Took ever typical entry from his winter journal: unsparing when he recounts the mis- fired the pistol, but readers can be ery rats cause. Sometimes they attack grateful that he survived, met many 5:44—The rats retreat suddenly. The rea- son: three men enter the alley, though directly: in 1979 a large pack sur- hiscinating characters, and kept com-

when I see the men I wonder which crea- rounded a woman on a street in down- ing back, year after year, for more than

ture left the allev for which creature town Manhattan. And of course they a decade. The Kola, he discovered, is a

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Sami School (Lapland): Everyday life of the Sami people, nineteenth century TASMANIAN TIGER cause the Kola Peninsula's best harbors, THE TRAGIC TALE OF HOW THE WORLD LOST warmed by the northernmost hook of ITS MOST MYSTERIOUS PREDATOR the Gulf Stream, are more or less ice- free throughout the year. DAVID OWEN Only after the Russian Revolution to read a book did the area begin to take on its current "Why would anyone want look of emptiness. In a procrustean at- about ttie thylacine, an extinct Australian tempt to collectivize the Sami econ- marsupial carnivore? Because it is one of omy, Stalin had villagers herded into the most fascinating and mysterious hastily built urban areas and industrial creatures that ever lived." farms. Much of the coastline was de- RICHARD ELLIS clared off-limits. The discovery of rich author of The Extiiiaioii Scenario mineral resources in the Khibiny "The thylacine. or as it is commonly mountain range, near the center of the known, the Tasmanian tiger, is not just an peninsula, only made matters worse; extinct animal. Tliis book tells how it has soon "special settlers" were being also become a mythical story about shipped from various parts of the So- humanity's relentless arrogance in the face viet Union to provide forced labor. of a world of wonder, the tragic fate of For the most part, today's inhabi- which is a warning for us all." tants huddle in charmless concrete RICHARD FLANAGAN apartment blocks, largely ignorant of author ot Gciihl's Book Fisli the region's rich history and remark- of

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Took reports signs of a new life for the trees; a favorite subject was the Russian Lapland. Environmentalists in Grizzly Giant, a tree in Yosemite Na- Russia and Scandinavia have begun to tional Park whose trunk soared straight throw their weight behind efforts to clean up the damage caused by the nuclear fleet. Shops in Murmansk now display the latest fashions. And Published to accompany foreign sportsmen have begun to dis- a major exhibition at the cover that some of the world's greatest National Gallery of Art salmon streams run through the Kola's and California Palace of remote countryside. Russian Lapland the of Legion Honor may not come off as a vacation par-

$50.00 cloth adise, but Took's book is a marvelous

304 pages / illustrated introduction to a region of rich but almost forgotten heritage.

Sequoia:Tlie Heralded Tree in American Art and Culture by Lori Veiinaas Siiiitlisonian Books, 2003; $39.95

Just as Lebanon is famous for its cedars, so North America is known Coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) tor its are »,SusAN ToBV Evans redwoods. Not only they AUCIEMT among the largest and most stately skyward but whose upper branches MEXICO & trees on earth, but they thrive in set- seemed painfully gnarled, like the CENTRAL AMERICA tings of surpassing scenic beauty. rheumatic joints of an old man. Strolling beneath a towering canopy of Sequoia sempervirens, the most common To a nation still smarting from the A comprehensive new redwood along the northern coast of horrible conflict between the survey of Mesoamerica, California, one experiences a world of states, the redwoods, far removed fi-om from Paleoindian times subde twiUght just a few steps from the the scene of battle, seemed serene, im- glare of a sunlit, rocky shoreline. The passive, and impervious to harm. They to the 16th! century : rarer Sequoiadeudron gigiinteiiiii, whose epitomized the part of the nation that

#i[);00 cloth : ; ponderous trunks make their coastal had remained intact and functional de- 608 pages/ illustrated cousins seem almost willowy, grow spite the fires of war and social tur- farther inland, in sheltered groves in moil. Huge paintings of sequoias by *^ Thames & Hucl^on Yosemite and other isolated valleys. such landscape artists as Albert Bier-

thamesandhudsonu^alcom It is no wonder, then, that the giant stadt were all the rage (oversize land-

Hi —

scape paintings being the functional nature.net equivalents of IMAX films). shapes of the ocean basins for vari- Yet few envisioned the giant trees as ous periods of geological time. Se- symbols of an endangered environ- Mountains lect "Earth History" from the menu ment. Toward the end of the nine- Moving at the left on the home page. There teenth century, logging them was even you'll find full-color maps depicting seen as an example of humankind's By Robert Anderson details such as mountain ranges, ability to bend nature to its will. shorelines, and active plate bound- Woodsmen were "no puny imperson- Cahfornia's Santa Monica Moun- aries during those same periods ations of men," but men who swung tains, where I Uve, are a mere beginning with the breakup of the "heavy, keen-edged axes as though 5 million years old. Like most first supercontinent, Rodinia, and they were mere trifles." Logging teams mountains, they are comprised of extending through the present and were typically photographed in the rocks formed during complex and into the future for 250 million yawning notches of trees they were repeated sequences of uplift, sedi- years, when the supercontinent about to topple. In one particularly mentation, and volcanism [see "A Pangea Ultima will trap what is striking print, an entire troop ot U.S. Birthstone for Earth," by Edinond A. now the Atlantic Ocean in a small, cavalrymen, mounted on horseback, Mathez, page 40] . In the case of the inland basin. stand Uke conquering gladiators atop Santa Monica range, the process and along the length of the trunk ot a began about 200 million years ago, Antonio Schettino, a geologist fallen giant. when the first dinosaurs were roam- in Milan, Italy, worked with Exuberantly expansive, the Ameri- ing the planet. Scotese to re-create plate motions in can imagination invoked sequoias as a A summary of the processes that the Mediterranean region (www. natural treasure, but a treasure to be make mountains rise can be found at itis-molinari.mi.it/lntro-Med.html). expropriated and spent. Even John www.physicalgeography.net, a Web site The accompanying QuickTime a provides excellent Muir, one of the nation's first conser- created by Michael J. Pidwirny, animation an vationists, waxed enthusiastic over the geographer at Okanagan University graphic explanation of how the Alps use of redwood lumber in construc- College in Kelowna, British Colum- arose. A similar presentation of tec- tion. Redwood housing was "almost bia. (On the home page click on tonic processes shows the ancient absolutely unperishable." "Fundamentals: Online Textbook" mountain chains in greater regional The onslaught of logging opera- from the menu bar at the top; in detail (www4.nau.edu/geology). CHck tions, among other abuses of the era, "Chapter 10: Introduction to the on "Popular Departmental Links" sparked the modern environmental Lithosphere," click on "Mountain and look at the three items created movement, and redwoods came to be Building.") For an overall view of by Ronald C. Blakey, a geologist at seen as treasures to preserve. Although how colliding tectonic plates trans- Northern Arizona University. The groves of redwoods are continually form the planet, go to "Dynamic site www.jamestown-ri.info/northern_ threatened, the trees still stand, and Earth" (earth.leeds.ac.uk/dynamic appalachians.htm provides a rundown pictoriaUsts in the tradition of Ansel earth), developed by Robert Butler, a of the northern Appalachian chain's Adams have continued to use the geologist at the University of Leeds. geological history, which stretches image of the redwood as an emblem Illustrations of the way tectonics back a biUion years. of strength and endurance. Vermaas has changed the distribution of land Geologists can now watch helps us understand the symbolism of and sea can also be found at a Web mountains grow, thanks to new- sequoias, but even she must admit that site run by Christopher R. Scotese, satellite and radar technologies the best way to appreciate them is on a geologist at the University of that measure minute movements foot and close-up. "No one has ever Texas at Arlington. For thirty years, of the Earth's crust and slight successfuDy painted or photographed Scotese and his collaborators have changes in the stresses that cause a redwood tree," wrote John Stein- been working on a series of paleo- earthquakes. Go to the "Active beck in 1962. "The feeUng they pro- geographic atlases. The latest of Tectonics" site, run by a group duce is not transferable." them, the Global Plate Tectonic from the University of Calitornia,

Model, is available at "PALEOMAP Berkeley (www.seismo.berkeley.edu/ Project" (www.scotese.com). From the -burgmann/EDUCATION/inSAR.html), Laurence A. Marschall, author of The hoine page you can choose 3-D for more information. Supernova Story, is the W.K.T. Salmi pro- movable paleoglobes and paleogeo- fessor of physics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, and director of Project CLEA, graphic animations that show the Robert Anderson is a freelance science which produces widely used sinuilation soft- positions of the continents and the writer living in Los Angeles.

ware for education in astronomy.

tVlay 2004 NATUR.^L HISTORY 63 —

OUT THERE Too Many X Rays

In a sky visible onlyfrom outer space, astronomers may have

found the first example of an intermediate-size black hole.

By Charles Liu

possess X-ray vi- such as a black hole whose mass is Astronomers Artist's conception of proposed mechanics of sion, even tliough none of roughly the mass of a star, it doesn't an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULXj. An inter- my colleagues, to my knowl- fall directly onto the object's surface. mediate-mass black hole (black dot at center edge, hails from the planet Krypton. Instead, the matter collects into a ro- of image) acts as a gravitational sink. Matter falls into the hole from the surrounding accre- Telescopes designed to collect and tating disk of gas around the black tion disk, here exaggerated in size because of focus X rays from space provide that hole, before it spirals downward into the angle of view. The star in the background vision. X rays are highly energetic the hole, like water swirling into a supplies the matter that fuels the accretion

that's why they so readily penetrate bathtub drain. disk at a rate of 10 trillion tons a second. matter—and so an X-ray telescope The disk of swirling gas releases offers the chance to observe cosmic gravitational potential energy as it falls the surprise in the 1980s when as-

phenomena powerful enough to gen- inward. That energy is dispersed into tronomers started to find X-ray erate highly energetic radiation. rapid, random motions of the particles sources with far greater luminosity In the past four decades a succes- that make up the gas, superheating the than that. For such sources at the cen-

sion of orbiting X-ray telescopes has falling gas. As its temperature rises to ters of distant galaxies, the X-ray emis- opened up the high-energy X-ray millions of degrees, the gas glows like sions could be explained only by the window on the universe to eager as- the filament inside an incandescent existence of a supermassive black hole, tronomers. Today, two X-ray obser- lightbulb—except that, unlike the fil- millions or billions of times the mass of vatories shoulder most of the load: ament, which emits visible light, the the Sun [see "Peering at the Edge of Chandra, run primarily by NASA; disk of gas emits mostly X rays. Time," by Fuhno Meliojiiiie 2003]. But

. and XMM-Newton, managed by the for objects on the outer fringes of European Space Agency. Plausible as it may sound, that galaxies—which presumably are star- Among the most puzzHng denizens mechanism still has trouble ac- size and not supermassive—these Ed- of the X-ray sky are the so-called ultra- counting for the torrent of X rays from dington-busting ultraluminous sources luminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. ULXs. The puzzle arises because an have remained a mystery. The objects generate so much X-ray object powered by the accretion of Zampieri and his colleagues have flux that they seem to violate the laws matter can theoretically emit energy joined the discussion on the side of a of physics. They don't, of course—so only up to the so-called Eddington recently proposed hypothesis. Some what is it that supercharges then- X-ray limit, named for the English astro- ULXs, they maintain, are not stellar- power? A recent study led by Luca physicist Arthur Eddington, who first mass objects that exceed the Edding- Zampieri of the Astronomical Observ- studied the problem. An object whose ton luminosity. They are bright be-

atory in Padua, Italy, suggests an in- energy output exceeds this Umit would cause they are much more massive triguing candidate: a black hole several push away any infalling matter, cutting than any typical star. Such a ULX

hundred times the mass of the Sun that off the fuel supply that generates its lu- would be powered by a black hole of drags matter from an orbiting star and minosity in the first place. So its intermediate size—perhaps a few then converts that matter into energy. brightness, including its X-ray output, hundred times the mass of the Sun,

Ordinary stars almost never emit should top out at the Eddington Hmit. rather than millions or billions. The many X rays. Another, more powerful The Eddington limit for any object hypothetical model requires the com-

mechanism is needed to generate that is directly proportional to its mass; panion star that supplies the infaUing kind of high-energy radiation—grav- for a black hole the mass of a few solar matter to be nearby. ity. When matter from an orbiting star masses, it's about 50,000 times the Zampieri's group supports this falls toward a massive, compact object. luminosirv of the Sun. Imagine, then. model with their analysis of a ULX in

64 NATURAL HISTORY May 2004 —

the spiral galaxy NGC 1313. They hole is between 100 and 700 times the jects are truly associated. Nor can the combined data from the XMM-New- mass of the Sun. observations rule out other proposed ton telescope with data from past X- physical models for ULXs that do not ray telescope observations to measure That result, if it stands up to require the presence of an intermedi- the X-ray luminosity of the ULX. scrutiny, would be tremendously ate-mass black hole. The X rays, for Then, with data from Chandra, they exciting—and not just to X-ray as- instance, could be generated by fo- determined the precise position of the tronomers. Intermediate-mass black cused jets of matter shooting toward X-ray source and matched that posi- holes have long escaped detection, and Earth, duping us into thinking the tion with visible-light observations. definitively confirming the existence ULX is more luminous than it actually

Thus they identified a star that corre- of even one would be a major advance. is. The jury on the real identity of the sponds to the position oi the ULX But interpreting these data is tricky. ULX, alas, is stiU out. a visible star corresponds thereby specifying the fuel source for Just because Charles Liu is a professor ofastrophysics at the the black hole. According to their cal- with the telescopic position of an X- City University of New York and an associate at culations, the mass of the unseen black ray source doesn't inean the two ob- the American Museum of Natural History.

THE SKY IN MAY By Joe Rao

Mercury reaches its greatest western elongation, Saturn, in the constellation Gemini, starts the 26 degrees from the Sun, on May 14. The planet month well up in the northwestern sky at dusk, nonetheless presents a crummy apparition this and sets just after midnight. By month's end, month for viewers at mid-northern latitudes, be- however, it sets by around 10:30 P.M. local day-

cause it rises less than an hour before the Sun. light time. Mars, much dimmer than the ringed The farther south you are, the better your planet, passes less than 2 degrees north of Sat- chances of seeing Mercury. urn on the evening of the 24th.

Venus is the first "star" to appear at dusk, and by late twi- The Moon waxes full on the 4th at 4:33 p.m. There is a

Hght it is truly dazzhng. On the 2nd Venus reaches its total lunar eclipse that day, not visible from North Amer- greatest brilliancy for this apparition: magnitude -4.5. ica, though part or all of the eclipse can be seen in

The planet is so bright it can easily be seen with the Africa, Antarctica, most of Asia (including the Middle naked eye in a deep-blue, haze-free afternoon sky. After East), Europe, and South America. Our satellite wanes to

nightfall at a very dark site, the planet's Hght can cast last quarter on the 1 1th at 7:04 a.m. It becomes new on Venus-shadows. Venus begins the month more than 35 the 19th at 12:52 a.m. and waxes to first quarter on the degrees above the western horizon at sunset and doesn't 27th at 3:57 a.m.

set for another three hours; by month's end, though, it plummets to a sunset altitude of less than 10 degrees and In the first week of May, early risers might get a glimpse

sets only an hour later. This month is an exciting time to of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) just above the eastern hori-

foUow Venus with a telescope; it's a beautiful crescent that zon, about an hour before sunrise. Thereafter, the comet grows bigger and (somewhat counterintuitively) thinner moves too far south for observers to see it fi'om the week after week. northern hemisphere. On the 5th, about an hour after sunset. Comet C/2001

Dim Mars is low in the west-northwestern sky at dusk Q4 (NEAT) should be hovering about 10 degrees to the left and sets in the northwest between 11 P.M. and 11:30 P.M. of Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. (Your clenched local dayhght time. fist, held at arm's length, spans roughly 10 degrees.) Look low in the southwest for blue white Sirius, the dog star; it's

After Venus, Jupiter is the brightest starlike object in the the brightest star in the night sky. On the following nights sky, shining this month high in the south-southwest at the comet cUmbs progressively higher in the southwestern

dusk. It overpowers the first-magnitude star Regulus, 9 sky and becomes correspondingly easier to see. or 10 degrees to the planet's west. Examine the two after Both comets could reach fii-st magnimde or brighter. But

it gets dark enough to compare their colors: Regulus both also seem to be making their first approach to the shines with a bluish hue, whereas Jupiter appears silvery vicinity of the Sun, and past experience has showTi that "fii-st white. The Moon can be found to the right of Jupiter timers" usually fall far short of brightness expectations. on the 26th, and above and to the left of the planet the following night. Unless otherwise noted, all times are given in Eastern Daylight Time.

t^ay 2004 N.^TUR.^L HISTORY 65 ""fw "^^«^

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Museum Scientist Takes On Bugs of the Southern Hemisphere

Leads team aiming to study 5,000 species of plant-eating bugs

Bugs "down under" will The project's goal is to take center stage in a new create a world taxonomy and

collaborative five-year database for these bugs that project between scientists at feed by sucking the juices from the American Museum of host plants. Because the bio-

Natural History and colleagues diversity of all life is generally at other prominent research better known in the Northern institutions. Funded by the Hemisphere than in the South-

National Science Foundation ern, this project will focus on

(NSF), the $3 million initiative the tremendous plant and will involve collecting and insect biodiversity concen- compiling global biodiversity trated in the Southern Hemi- information on plant-feeding sphere, especially in Australia insects of the family and South Africa.

Miridae, with a focus "Australia's insect on the Australian biota is virtually un- / and South African known to many Randall Schuh in Central Australia, October 2001 species of these / entomologists outside bugs. Randall T. that country," said Dr. make a spectacular contribu- entists from Canada, Colom-

Schuh, Curator and Schuh. "To understand tion to the international under- bia, Germany, Russia, and the

Chair of the Museum's the world's insect standing of biodiversity "The United States, will consist of Division of Invertebrate biota, you have to un- Miridae, a family of sap-suck- about 550,000 specimens

Zoology, is coleading the derstand Australia's in- ing insects, is one of the most already in museums and project with Gerry sect biota. Prior to 1995, diverse groups of life on the another 100,000 speci- Cassis, head of one might have planet," he says. "These mens—mainly of the relatively the Centre for Aurantiocoris cuneotinctus concluded that bugs—some barely bigger unknown insect biota of . feeds on manzanita. ^ i- 1 j Biodiversity and Australia had a than a pinhead—were here be- Southern Hemisphere loca- Conservation Research at very limited fauna. But with fore the dinosaurs, and have tions like Australia, Chile, the Australian Museum. the collecting that Dr. Cassis not only survived, but have South Africa, and parts of

Teams of entomologists led by and I have done in the past flourished to the point where Asia—to be acquired through

Drs. Schuh and Cassis will seven years, we are finally get- you find them everywhere." 15 to 20 field expeditions such oversee this multipronged ting a decent representation Insects are estimated to as the 2002 Constantine S. effort to Aus- together with Thomas ]. of these creatures. Now, with comprise 75 percent of Earth's Niarchos Expedition Henry of the U.S. Department this grant project, the broad biodiversity at the species tralia. The investigators plan of Agriculture's Systematic outlines of the Australian and level. Plant bugs, including to ramp up collection efforts

Entomology Laboratory and Southern Hemisphere biota the Miridae, represent a extensively in these locations,

Michael D. Schwartz of Agri- overall will be well known." tremendous amount of that as they have been poorly sam- culture and Agri-Food Canada, Dr. Cassis calls this project biodiversity. pled in the past. also leading specialists on "the research opportunity of a Data for the plant bugs pro- All told, the specimens these insects. lifetime," and believes it will ject, which also involves sci- studied will represent more than 5,000 species with nearly 25 percent of them to be described as new. (For comparison, most individual taxonomists are lucky to describe 30 new species in a year.) About 800 of the species collected will come from Australia, where there is a high degree of insect en- demism, or insects that live only on this continent. The scientists also will note the species of plants on which each of the collected insects is found to create a database that indicates the host plants for each group of bugs.

Drs. Schuh and Cassis are Cerry Cassis and Christiane Weirauch in South Africa's renowned experts on plant Western Cape Province, October 2003 bugs and have collaborated for several years in collecting On the plant side, the pro- these insects will be helpful resource managers even at a and studying them. With this ject will double the number of in making decisions about time of rapid commercial grant, they can increase their known bug hosts to about where conservation actions development. The project description and analytic results will be distributed efforts to an "industrial" through a searchable Web site The project's goal is to create scale, involving more than a featuring images, a complete dozen entomologists. Analy- a world taxonomy and database taxonomic catalog, interactive sis of family-group relations mapping of distributions, and among the greatly expanded for bugs that feed by sucking interactive identification keys inventory of species resulting the juices from host plants. and will eventually be made from this project will involve available to the public via a use of the Museum's cluster traveling museum exhibition. supercomputer to search for 5,000, and boost the number might best be directed. The The ambitious project the simplest family tree to of bug species with known project will also allow scien- brings many of the world's describe all these bug hosts to more than 4,000. tists to test theories great natural history mu- species' evolutionary transi- With this large body of infor- about biodiversity seums together to tions from the tree's base mation, theories of host hotspots and theo- solve global biodiver- to its farthest reaches. The association can be tested ries of when insects sity problems. Collab- supercomputer, with the aim of radiated from place orators include the one of the fastest understanding to place throughout Smithsonian Institution, in the world, is whether bugs Earth's history Both the Canadian National used Museum- have coevolved these areas of study are Insect Collection, and wide to analyze with their plant helpful to efforts to con- the Zoological Institute complex arrays of hosts, whether serve what remains of of the Russian Academy biological data host affiliation is the world's insect biota. of Sciences, along with and arrive at the result of eco- A major compo- ,- the American Mu- '^ j 1 ' Tuxedo elongatus the best tree for- logical associa- nent of the research feeds on oaks. seum of Natural mation among tion, or whether for the project will History and the many possible the evolution of involve taxonomic and sys- Australian Museum. The trees that could host associa- tematic biology training of grant for the project was describe the tions is driven Ph.D. candidates and post- made under the NSF's Plane- evolutionary by chemicals in doctoral fellows, an element tary Biodiversity Inventory Gerry Cassis collecting relationships plants. of particular importance initiative, the objectives of plant bugs in South groups Improved given global decline in which include documenting among of Africa's Western Cape the species. Province, October 2003 knowledge of taxonomists and natural all Earth's species.

The contents of these paces are provided to Natural History by the American Museum of Natural History. —

Museum Events American Museum S Natural History ^

Seasons ofLife and Land: The Beast in the Garden

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Tliursday, 5/23, 7:00 p.m. Through September 6 David Baron's new book Stunning large-format color considers implications

photographs by conservationist of wildlife protection laws: Subhankar Banerjee focus on can humans learn to coexist the interdependence of land, with large predators that

water, wildlife, and humanity have been brought back

in Alaska's Arctic Refuge. to abundance?

Artfor Heart Art/Sci Collision: Through September 26 An Evening with Paintings by children who lost Ned Kahn

Sea of Clouds loved ones in the attacks on Tuesday, ^/i8, y:oo p.m. New York City's World Trade At the intersection of science

EXHIBITIONS The Bedouin of Petra Center on February 26, 1993, and art, Ned Kahn's work Exploratorium/AMNH Through July 6 and September 11, 2001, draws from a palette of

Through August 15 Photojournalist Vivian Ronay's create a powerful and natural phenomena. This exhibition invites visitors evocative color photographs poignant memorial.

to explore fundamental document the Bedoul group Made possible by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. concepts and phenomena in of Bedouin tribes living near

the natural sciences. Fun, the archaeological site of

hands-on displays clustered Petra in Jordan. LECTURES

around four themes— Earth This exhibition is made possible by the Adventures in the Global generosity of the Arthur Ross Foundation. processes, rotation, mirrors Kitchen

and illusion, and pendulums Tuesday, ^/4, y:oo p.m.

encourage audiences of all The Butterfly Conservatory: Culinary collaboration

ages and all levels to Tropical Butterflies Alive between Museum entomolo- FIELD TRIP

investigate and play. in Winter gist Lou Sorkin, Citarella's Around Manhattan Island

Exploratorium/AM NH is funded in part by Through May ji celebrated pastry chef Bill Thursday, ^/2^, 6:00 p.m. a grant from the Small Business Adminis- Yosses, and Gene Rurka of A three-hour cruise with tration. For information on accessibility,

call 212-769-5100. the Explorers Club. geologist Sidney Horenstein.

Petra: Lost City of Stone Through July 6 Starry Nights This exhibition tells the story Live of a thriving metropolis at the Jazz crossroads of the ancient world's major trade routes. Last chance for butterflies! Friday, May 7 ^^^MH^^l In New York, Petra: Lost City of Stone This popular exhibition 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. is made possible by Banc of America |HI includes more than 500 live, Rose Center for Earth Securities and Con Edison. The American ^^^ Museum of Natural History also gratefully free-flying tropical butterflies and Space ^B^S acknowledges the generous support of in an enclosed tropical habitat Lionel I. Pincus and HRH Princess Firyal Houston Person Quartet and of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. w/here visitors can mingle ^B_?^mj^M This exhibition is organized by the with them. starry Nights is made possible by American Museum of Natural History, Lead Sponsor Verizon and New York, and the Cincinnati Art Museum, The Butteffly Conservatory is made Associate Sponsors CenterCare under the patronage of Her Majesty possible through the generous support Health Plan, Constellation Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of the Hashemite of Bernard and Anne Spitzer. NewEnergy, and WNBC-TV. Kingdom of Jordan. Air transportation 1 generously provided by Royal Jordanian. H

"-•^*'" .

FAMILY AND Julie of the Wolves COURSE The Search for Life: CHILDREN'S PROGRAMS Sunday, ^/i6, 2:00 p.m. Eclipses and Transits Are We Alone? Oceanophony A musical adaptation of Four Mondays, ^1^-24 Narrated by Harrison Ford

Saturday, 5/1, 1:00-2:00 p.m. the children's classic about 6:^0-^:^0 p.m. Made possible through the generous support of Swiss Re. or y.oo-4:oo p.m. a young Eskimo girl who Explore the mechanics behind

Join Bruce Adolphe and his runs away and is protected impressive celestial phenom-

PollyRhythm Players for a by wolves. ena, and prepare for the much- Passport to the Universe weird and wonderful musical anticipated transit of Venus. Narrated by Tom Hanks voyage to the mysterious deep. Red Rover to Mars Tuesday-Thursday, 5/18-20 LECTURES LARGE-FORMAT FILMS Earthly Adventures 4:00-^^0 p.m. (Ages 12-1^) Life, the Universe, LeFrak Theater Sunday, ^/i, 12:^0-2:00 p.m. Students learn about the his- and SETI in a Nutshell Bugs'.

{Ages 4-5, each child with tory of NASA's rovers and Monday, ^/j, 7:^0 p.m. This live-action rain forest

one adult) or ^00-4:^0 p.m. what we learn from them, and SETI's Jill Tarter leads this adventure follows the (Ages 6-7) then design and build their discussion on the future of

Explore earthquakes, torna- very own "rovers." our search for life elsewhere

does, and other forces of in the universe.

nature in this hands-on workshop. The Book Nobody Read

Monday, ^/lo, j:}0 p.m. Space Explorers: Astronomer Owen Gingerich's Transit of Venus new bibliographic detective Tuesday, j/n, 4:^0-^4^ p.m. story revisits Copernicus's

(Ages 10 and up) De Revolutionihus, which first

On the second Tuesday of proposed that Earth dramatic lives of a praying each month, kids can learn revolved around the Sun. mantis and a graceful under the stars of the Hayden butterfly and ends with their Planetarium Space Theater. PLANETARIUM SHOWS inevitable encounter. SonicYision

I Want to Be an Astronaut Fridays and Saturdays, 'j:}o, Volcanoes ofthe Deep Sea

Sunday, ^/i6 &:;}o, g:]o, and 10:^0 p.m. Explore Earth's most hostile

12:^0-2:00 p.m. (Ages 4-^, A mind-warping musical and environments and its strangest each child with one adult) visual roller-coaster ride. creatures, and consider the

or y.oo-4:}o p.m. (Ages 6-y) SonicVislon is made possible by generous implications for our search sponsorship and technology support Three, two, one, blast off! The vehicle carrying the Mars rover for life. from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Opportunity poised for launch Find out what life is like 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station. HAYDEN PLANETARIUM Become a Member of tlie PROGRAMS American Museum of Natural History TUESDAYS IN THE DOME As a Museum Member you will be among the first to INFORMATION Virtual Universe: embark on new journeys to explore the natural world Call 212-769-5100 or visit The Big Bang and and the cultures of humanity. You'll enjoy: www.amnh.org. Cosmic Construction

Tuesday, ^/4 ' Unlimited free general • Free subscription TICKETS AND 6:]o-'/:}o p.m. admission to the Museum to Natural History REGISTRATION and special exhibitions, and magazine and to Rotunda, Call 212-769-5200, This Just In. . discounts on Space Shows our newsletter Monday-Friday, May's Hot Topics and IMAX® films 9:00 a.m. -5:00 p.m., Tuesday, ^/i8 • Invitations to Members-

or visit www.amnh.org. 6:jo-7:]o p.m. ' Discounts in the Museum only special events, A service charge may apply Shop, restaurants, and on parties, and exhibition Celestial Highlights: program tickets previews All programs are subject to Transit of Venus For further information, call 212-769-5606 change. Tuesday, ^/2^ or visit www.amnh.org. 6:^o-y:^o p.m.

The comtents or these pages are provided to Natural History by the American Museum of Natural History. ENDPAPER

The Face of Extinction

By Hanna Rose Shel

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, as documented by no less an eininence than John James Audubon, passenger pi- Martha in death: the last passenger pigeon geons by the biUions turned day to night as they passed overhead in the American skies [see "Audubon brain, and Hver—were examined and placed in sep-

ill Kentucky," by Williani Sender, page 46]. Yet by the arate jars of ethyl alcohol.

turn of the twentieth century, all that had changed: fifty years of relentless extennination forever ban- Once Martha's taxidermic treatment was com- ished Ectopistes niigmtoriiis from the Earth. The last plete, she was perched on a model "branch," passenger pigeon in the wild was reportedly shot by enclosed in a glass case, and given a post of proini- a boy in Ohio in 1900. nence in the gallery, surrounded by other extinct and But the species officially went extinct only with endangered avians from North America. In her new, the death of Martha, a denizen of the Cincinnati postmortem role, she even went on the road several Zoo. Martha had been born in about 1894, and, in times on behalf of species that were facing the threat her youth, she had a female passenger pigeon's of extinction. She served as a tabletop mascot at a classic good looks: pale cinnamon-rose breast; long, conservation conference for the San Diego Zoo at

pointed tail feathers; a graceful head and neck. By the zoo's golden jubilee, in 1966, and at a Cincinnati the year of her death, the news of an incipient ex- Zoo fund-raiser, in 1974. She always flew first class, tinction, together with clamorous announcements coddled by the flight crew and protected, at least fi- of unclaimed cash rewards for locating a passenger nancially, by a hefty insurance pohcy. pigeon nest or colony, was attracting visitors from Almost five years ago, though, around the turn of far and wide to Martha's red-roofed aviary in Ohio. the millennium, Martha's perch went dark. The

In the following years, many more visitors turned Smithsonian Institution closed its bird gallery indef- out to admire Martha's taxidermied mount in the initely to the public at the end of 1999. And now

Birds of Our World gallery, at the National Museum the last exemplar of a vanished species is hidden ot Natural History in Washington, D.C. Martha's away in a storage cabinet in the bird division's re- presentation there, in fact, was carefuUy planned. search collections. Her body had been proinised to the Smithsonian, Yet without reminders such as Martha, how are and when she finally expired, in September 1914, people to visualize, materialize, and memorialize the zookeepers rushed her corpse to the Cincinnati the Earth's destroyed and extinguished species? Ice Company. There, held by her feet, she was low- After eighty-five years in the pubUc eye, the figure ered into a tank of water, frozen upside down in a of Martha has become an organic monument, bio- 300-pound block of ice, and shipped by express train logically continuous with the living bird she com- to the capital. memorates, the embodiment of extinction itself. Martha was officially signed into the Smithsonian In the words of the naturalist Aldo Leopold, effigies collections as a "passenger pigeon in the flesh." Her such as Martha's "live forever by not living at all."

accession card is by turns blunt, then sentimental: "The death of this individual marks the complete Hanna Rose Shell is a liistorian of science at Harvard Uni- extinction of the genus and species, of the countless versity and a fihnmaker She recently edited the new edition of hordes ot other days." She was unpacked, thawed, William T. Hornaday's 1889 hook, Extermination of the and autopsied. Several organs—including her eyes. American Bison (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).

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A buffer against fiurricanes and storms, this restore the area and others like it around

unique area also protects a transportation network and infrastructure the world. Not only because it's their backyard and their livelihood,

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For Chrystal Kain and Dr. Michael Macrander, the wetland is their For details about this and other Shell sustainable development efforts,

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erosion and deterioration that claim 35 square miles a year.