MAY 2017 Heroes of Science The Stories Behind the Breakthroughs Einstein of Tesla Curie Hawking Newton

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How Plants Think P.52 ONLINE CONTENT Computers With Morals? P.10 CODE p.3 The War Over (Quantum) Reality P.28 The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality TIME ED O Taught by Professor Don Lincoln T FF I E FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY IM R L 70% LECTURE TITLES 1. Two Prototype Theories of Everything off 2. The Union of Electricity and Magnetism 1 O 3 3. Particles and Waves: The Quantum World R D AY ER BY M 4. Einstein Unifi es Space, Time, and Light 5. Relativistic Quantum Fields and Feynman 6. Neutrinos Violating Parity and the Weak Force 7. Flavor Changes via the Weak Force 8. Electroweak Unifi cation via the Higgs Field 9. Quarks, Color, and the Strong Force 10. Standard Model Triumphs and Challenges 11. How Neutrino Identity Oscillates 12. Conservation Laws and Symmetry: Emmy Noether 13. Theoretical Symmetries and Mathematics 14. Balancing Force and Matter: Supersymmetry 15. Why Quarks and Leptons? 16. Newton’s Gravity Unifi es Earth and Sky 17. Einstein’s Gravity Bends Space-Time 18. What Holds Each Galaxy Together: Dark Matter 19. What Pushes the Universe Apart: Dark Energy 20. Quantum Gravity: Einstein, Strings, and Loops 21. From Weak Gravity to Extra Dimensions 22. Big Bang and Infl ation Explain Our Universe 23. Free Parameters and Other Universes Pick Up the Quest 24. Toward a Final Theory of Everything Where Einstein Failed The Theory of Everything: At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far The Quest to Explain All Reality more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an Course no. 1318 | 24 lectures (30 minutes/lecture) equation that explained all physical reality—a theory of everything. He failed, but others have taken up the challenge in a remarkable quest that is shedding light on unsuspected secrets of the cosmos. SAVE $190 Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln of the world-renowned Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Ranging across time and space, and at +$10 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee scales ranging from the subatomic to the cosmic—and even into extra Priority Code: 143060 dimensions, with these 24 lectures you will bridge the eras between classical and modern physics and get a glimpse of the goal that has For over 25 years, The Great Courses has brought motivated physicists for centuries. It’s a dazzling trip! the world’s foremost educators to millions who want to go deeper into the subjects that matter most. No Off er expires 05/31/17 exams. No homework. Just a world of knowledge available anytime, anywhere. Download or stream THEGREATCOURSES.COM/9DISC to your laptop or PC, or use our free apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, or Roku. Over 600 1-800-832-2412 courses available at www.TheGreatCourses.com. Website access code: DSD1705 Enter this code at: www.DiscoverMagazine.com/code Contents to gain access to exclusive subscriber content. MAY 2017 VOL. 38, NO. 4 SPECIAL SECTION

34 Heroes of Science We celebrate the heroes who propelled science forward, the communicators who brought p.43 science to the public, the families who kept science going for decades and the forgotten researchers p.36 whose work lives on.

FEATURING iProfiles of 10 Major p.38 Scientists iUnsung Heroes iScience Popularizers iThe Next Generation of Science Stars iFamily Dynasties

AND MORE!

p.46 p.42 MARK MARTURELLO

May 2017 DISCOVER 3 Contents

OTHER FEATURES COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS

conservationists want to keep 6 EDITOR’S NOTE 28 The War Over it that way by mitigating light When Heroics in pollution. Now, other U.S. parks Reality Science Define Us are taking notice. Scientific research and its Quantum mechanics explains so much BY ERIC BETZ about the universe — why the sky is explanation of ideas is the foundation of society. blue, why stars shine. But over a century 66 HISTORY LESSONS after its birth, the interpretation of 8 INBOX When Dinosaurs the theory remains as baffling as ever. Readers muse about 21st-century Went Bad Can scientists figure out what it really mummies, physicist Luis Alvarez Early researchers cast the reptiles means? BY TIM FOLGER and a hitchhiking insect. as giant lumbering lizards with nary a feather in sight. Times have 52 Smarty Plants changed. BY GEMMA TARLACH Your flower garden might be brighter 9 THE CRUX 70 PROGNOSIS than it looks, but not because of the Creating a moral compass for artificial intelligence; A Master of Evasion colorful petals. Turns out, plants are the impact of clean-burning Researchers have had little success stoves on our health; a pretty brainy, and science is learning in their fight against pancreatic why and in what ways. biologist recounts the marvel of his first deep-sea dive; cancer. But a revolutionary BY MARTA ZARASKA and an update on a Discover method of using the body’s own story on the possibility of immune system offers hope. meat sans slaughter. BY DOUGLAS G. ADLER

74 20 THINGS YOU DIDN’T 20 VITAL SIGNS KNOW ABOUT … Athlete, Interrupted Earthquakes A marathoner’s race in Southeast Temblors have been shaking Asia lands her in the hospital up Earth for eons. And though with a dangerous condition that technology has helped measure evades diagnosis. BY CLAIRE PANOSIAN strength and flag strike zones, DUNAVAN earthquakes still have a few mysteries that rattle experts. 24 NOTES FROM EARTH BY GEMMA TARLACH Extinction for Easter Island’s Last Endemics The Polynesian island known ON THE COVER for its giant stone heads is also When Dinosaurs Went Bad a cautionary tale of the human p.66 impact on native species. Can its An Island at Risk p.24 remaining denizens be saved? How Plants Think p.52 BY NATHANIEL SCHARPING Computers With Morals? p.10 The War Over (Quantum) Reality Powered by 59 OUT THERE p.28 magazine Protecting Heroes of Science p.34 America’s Last Dark Skies Cover image: Albert Einstein, in his study at home in Princeton, N.J., 1944. Grand Canyon National Popperphoto/Getty Images

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EDITORIAL KATHI KUBE Managing Editor When Heroics in GEMMA TARLACH Senior Editor BILL ANDREWS Senior Associate Editor MARK BARNA Associate Editor ERIC BETZ Associate Editor Science Define Us LACY SCHLEY Assistant Editor DAVE LEE Copy Editor ELISA R. NECKAR Copy Editor Talk about science, exploration, AMY KLINKHAMMER Editorial Assistant history and ideas, and one Contributing Editors popular image from my 1970s TIM FOLGER, JONATHON KEATS, LINDA MARSA, KENNETH MILLER, youth immediately hits me. STEVE NADIS, ADAM PIORE, And makes me laugh. It’s a COREY S. POWELL, JULIE REHMEYER, STEVE VOLK, PAMELA WEINTRAUB, big, framed painting (at right) JEFF WHEELWRIGHT, of ships hitting the end of the DARLENE CAVALIER (SPECIAL PROJECTS) world, with a crew in a lifeboat ART rowing like mad away from the ERNIE MASTROIANNI Photo Editor brink. Four words are etched ALISON MACKEY Associate Art Director into a brass plate at the base of DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM the frame: I Told You So. CARL ENGELKING Web Editor NATHANIEL SCHARPING Web Staff Writer Sarcastic? Sure. Appropriate Bloggers to launch you into our Heroes MEREDITH CARPENTER, LILLIAN FRITZ-LAYLIN, of Science special section? JEREMY HSU, REBECCA KRESTON, JEFFREY MARLOW, NEUROSKEPTIC, Absolutely. For it’s only through ELIZABETH PRESTON, SCISTARTER, scientists and the foundation CHRISTIE WILCOX, TOM YULSMAN of inquiry that we know the ADVERTISING Earth is indeed a sphere, that STEVE MENI Advertising Sales Manager 888 558 1544 our planet revolves around [email protected] the sun and that gravity is a Rummel Media Connections KRISTI RUMMEL Consulting and Media Sales fundamental force. Scientific discovery is a linchpin of progress, in 608 435 6220 society, industry, culture and thought. [email protected] MELANIE DECARLI Marketing Architect We’ve rounded up dozens of people considered heroes in science, BOB RATTNER Research from the famed notables — Einstein, Curie and Darwin — to the DARYL PAGEL Advertising Services unsung heroes — Alhazen, James Hutton and Chien-Shiung Wu. KALMBACH PUBLISHING CO. We bring you the stories of how they pushed through adversity, DANIEL R. LANCE Senior V.P., Sales & Marketing and kept questioning, and testing, the world around them. STEPHEN C. GEORGE Vice President, Content JAMES R. MCCANN Vice President, Finance These hero scientists — and researchers around the globe today NICOLE MCGUIRE Vice President, Consumer Marketing — are all about exploration. Their pursuit of the “why” and the JAMES SCHWEDER Vice President, Technology ANN E. SMITH Corporate Advertising Director “what happens if” has been essential to what is now our modern MAUREEN M. SCHIMMEL Corporate Art Director world. And their quest will continue, furiously paddling us back KIM REDMOND Single Copy Specialist from the edge of ignorance. MIKE SOLIDAY Art and Production Manager SUBSCRIPTIONS In the U.S., $29.95 for one year; in Canada, $39.95 for one year (U.S. funds only), includes GST, BN 12271 3209RT; other foreign countries, $44.95 for one year (U.S. funds only).

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here is something disconcerting about looking at the face of someone who has long departed from this world and Frequent nighttime trips to the bathroom, the March issue’s realizing that they look just like you. That connection to the past has long intrigued archaeologists, for whom mummies represent an opportunity to gain firsthand information about ancient cultures. Preserved tissues hold a treasure-trove of information: the diseases individuals had, their diet, their genetic information, the microbes they carried with them and, in many cases, clues stories about bees, about the politics and culture of their time. embarrassing leaks and the inconvenience of Our minds may leap to Egypt at the word mummy, but cultures across the world have developed techniques meant to forestall decomposition. For many of these peoples, mummification preserved the perceived connection between the physical body and the immortal soul — just as they needed each other in life, so too were soul and body linked in the afterlife. In many cultures, mummification was also a status symbol. constantly searching for rest rooms in public thalidomide and Preparing a body took significant time and effort, which meant the process wasn’t available to just anyone. Receiving such lavish treatment signaled to others that you were revered and admired. While King Tut is arguably the most famous mummy, many of the others found around the world are women. Young and old, these eternal princesses have taken on a second life as cultural and scientific ambassadors for the civilizations they left behind. – for years, I struggled with bladder control When they were alive, they were women of significance. In death, princess mummies! they may be even more so.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Use as directed. Individual results may vary. BetterMAN and BetterWOMAN are the trademarks of Interceuticals, Inc. ©2017 Interceuticals, Inc. 8 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM THE CRUX THE LATEST SCIENCE NEWS AND NOTES

HEAVEN AND EARTH Under a starry sky last August at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, glowing lava poured into the Pacific Ocean at the Big Island’s Kamokuna lava delta. Photographer Sean Goebel was among hundreds to view the massive outflow spewing from the nearby Kilauea volcano. At this same spot on New Year’s Eve 2016, a roughly 25-acre section of solidified lava tumbled into the ocean. The collapse nearly took with it five spectators who had ignored safety barriers. Kilauea’s East Rift Zone, which encompasses this area, has been active since 1983. In that time, it has spread a 55-square-mile layer of mostly hardened lava on the island’s southeast coast.  ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTO BY SEAN GOEBEL

May 2017 DISCOVER 9 THE CRUX

Health care helper robot Zora is based on Nao, the same platform used to create the first ethical bot in 2010.

10 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM BIG IDEA

behave appropriately. Given that AIs don’t have the luxury of childhood, he believes stories could be used to Caring Computers “quickly bootstrap a robot to a point where we feel comfortable about it Artificial intelligence is learning right from wrong by studying understanding our social conventions.” human stories and moral principles. As an initial experiment, Riedl has crowdsourced stories about going to the pharmacy. They’re not page- BACK AROUND THE TURN of the millen- According to Susan, this responsibility turners, but they contain useful experi- nium, Susan Anderson was puzzling is ethically fraught, as the robot must ences. Once programmers input a story, over a problem in ethics. Is there a way balance conflicting duties, weighing the the algorithm plots the protagonist’s to rank competing moral obligations? patient’s health against respect for per- behavior and learns to mimic it. His The University of Connecticut phi- sonal autonomy. To teach it, Michael AI derives a general sequence — stand losophy professor posed the problem to created machine-learning algorithms in line, tender the prescription, pay her computer scientist spouse, Michael so ethicists can plug in examples of the cashier — which is then practiced Anderson, figuring his algorithmic ethically appropriate behavior. The in a game-like pharmacy simulation. expertise might help. robot’s computer can then After multiple rounds of At the time, he was reading about derive a general principle that Well-read reinforcement learning (where the making of the film2001: A Space guides its activity in real life. the AI is rewarded for acting Odyssey, in which spaceship computer Now they’ve taken another robots appropriately), the AI is HAL 9000 tries to murder its human step forward. would tested in simulations. Riedl crewmates. “I realized that it was 2001,” “The study of ethics goes reports more than 90 percent he recalls, “and that capabilities like back to Plato and Aristotle, behave in success. More remarkably, his HAL’s were close.” If artificial intel- and there’s a lot of wisdom culturally AI figured out how to commit ligence was to be pursued responsibly, there,” Susan observes. To appropriate “Robin Hood crimes” by he reckoned that it would also need to tap into that reserve, the stealing the meds when the solve moral dilemmas. Andersons built an interface ways. need was urgent and funds In the 16 years since, that conviction for ethicists to train AIs were insufficient — mirroring has become mainstream. Artificial through a sequence of prompts, like a the human capacity to break the rules intelligence now permeates everything philosophy professor having a dialogue for higher moral ends. from health care to warfare, and could with her students. Ultimately, Riedl wants to set AIs soon make life-and-death decisions for The Andersons are no longer alone, loose on a much broader body of self-driving cars. “Intelligent machines nor is their philosophical approach. literature. “When people write about are absorbing the responsibilities Recently, Georgia Institute of protagonists, they tend to exemplify we used to have, which is a terrible Technology computer scientist Mark their own cultural beliefs,” he says. burden,” explains ethicist Patrick Lin of Riedl has taken a radically different Well-read robots would behave in California Polytechnic State University. philosophical tack, teaching AIs to culturally appropriate ways, and the “For us to trust them to act on their learn human morals by reading stories. sheer volume of available literature own, it’s important that these machines From his perspective, the global corpus should filter out individual biases. are designed with ethical decision- of literature has far more to say about Cal Poly’s Lin believes that it’s too making in mind.” ethics than just the philosophical soon to settle on just one technique, The Andersons have devoted their canon alone, and advanced AIs can tap observing that all approaches share at careers to that challenge, deploying into that wisdom. For the past couple least one positive attribute. “Machine the first ethically programmed robot of years, he’s been developing such ethics is a way for us to know our- in 2010. Admittedly, their robot is a system, which he calls Quixote — selves,” he says. Teaching our machines considerably less autonomous than named after the novel by Cervantes. to behave morally requires an unprec- HAL 9000. The toddler-size humanoid Riedl sees a deep precedent for edented degree of moral clarity. And machine was conceived with just one his approach. Children learn from that can help refine human morality. task in mind: to ensure that home- stories, which serve as “proxy experi- AI just might teach us philosophy.

JOHN THYS/AFP/GETTY JOHN THYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES bound elders take their medications. ences,” helping to teach them how to  JONATHON KEATS

May 2017 DISCOVER 11 THE CRUX TRENDING BY MARK BARNA

You Asked Can life begin in an extreme environment, Q without the luxury of adapting to it slowly from a nurturing environment? Vincent Frisina Danbury, Conn.

Life is a bit like Goldilocks: It requires the right A temperatures (not too hot or cold), and the right chemical soup for cell creation and nutrition. “Early life would be very delicate and unable to survive in extreme environments, or even in most non-extreme environments that couldn’t support growth and division,” says Jack Szostak, a biophysicist and a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009.

How does the ear process sounds coming from Q inside the body? Rowena Kong Vancouver, British Columbia

You can hear some of your internal body sounds because When the Lights Go Out A your skeleton and inner tissues act as a conductor, guiding The sun’s power isn’t limited to lighting and heating our home vibrations in the body to the inner ear. But oftentimes, inner- planet — it could create chaos by way of its coronal mass body sounds like this are picked up mostly by the outer ear ejections (CME). These intense releases of magnetic energy can, in the conventional manner, says Dennis Trune of the Oregon on rare occasions, cause geomagnetic disturbances on Earth. In Hearing Research Center. Try placing a ringing tuning fork 1989, a CME knocked out the power grid across Quebec for nine OCK atop your head, and your inner ear will pick up the sound, says hours, with an estimated economic loss of $13.2 million. Elizabeth Olson, an expert on hearing at Columbia University. For years, researchers have speculated on how a similar The fork’s ring would be analogous, though exaggerated, to blackout would play out globally. According to a new study hearing inner-body sounds. in the journal Space Weather, an event engulfing London, Paris, Moscow and most of mainland United States would be economically devastating. The outage would essentially halt business, transportation and government operations for days or weeks. If this scenario, the most extreme of the four the researchers developed, ever played out, the U.S. economy could lose up to $41.5 billion each day.

BIGGEST U.S. LOSERS PER DAY: Manufacturing $5.18 billion Government Inner ear $5.09 billion Real estate, rental and leasing £ $4.25 billion To submit a question, email [email protected]. Finance and insurance And visit DiscoverMagazine.com/Ask for more answers. $3.79 billion Health care and social assistance $3.11 billion “According to general relativity, Retail trade the gravitational field does not live $2.99 billion Professional, scientific and technical services in space-time. It is space-time.” $2.85 billion — James Overduin, a theoretical physicist at Towson University, Wholesale trade on Albert Einstein’s gravitational theory $2.38 billion THIS PAGE FROM TOP: NASA/SDO; AJPHOTO/SCIENCE SOURCE. OPPOSITE FROM TOP: GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR CLEAN COOKSTOVES; EKLER/SHUTTERST ALLIANCE FOR CLEAN COOKSTOVES; GLOBAL TOP: OPPOSITE FROM SOURCE. AJPHOTO/SCIENCE NASA/SDO; TOP: FROM THIS PAGE

12 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Cooking Clean, Saving Lives We tend to take our modern gas and electric stoves and ovens encouraged the women to cook in ventilated areas.) In the for granted, but in many countries, homes have only kerosene traditional-stove group, 6.4 percent of the mothers-to-be or solid-fuel cooking stoves, which can pollute developed high blood pressure, which household air. Each year, more than 4 million is linked to heart disease and other people die globally of complications from conditions. Just 1.9 percent of women in inhaling smoke from these stoves. the clean-burning group developed it, In a study on the risks, researchers according to the paper in the American found that clean ethanol-burning stoves Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care are healthier than traditional units. They Medicine. monitored 324 healthy pregnant Nigerian Several nations still rely heavily on women: Half used ethanol stoves, and half pollution-producing cookstoves. Here are used wood or kerosene units. (Researchers A woman cooks on an ethanol stove. just a few of those countries:

COUNTRY KEY 38% Population using solid fuels for cooking 3.5 million People affected by indoor smoke 1,954 Yearly deaths from indoor smoke inhalation GHANA CHINA 84% NIGERIA BOSNIA AND GEORGIA 45% 21.3 million 75% HERZEGOVINA 46% 607.8 million 13,300 126 million 58% 2 million Over 1 million 70,000 2.2 million 7,547 4,775

HAITI INDIA 93% 64% GUATEMALA 9.4 million 800 million 64% 9,593 1 million 9.7 million 5,100 BANGLADESH 89% NICARAGUA UGANDA KENYA 137.7 million 54% 97% 84% 78,000 3.2 million 35.3 million 36.3 million 2,373 13,200 15,000 Source: Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

May 2017 DISCOVER 13 THE CRUX

PERSONAL

Deep Dive 5 or 6 inches grainy. This across. is my first A researcher’s first excursion to the bottom Sitting experience naturally, seeing true of the ocean leaves a lasting impression. it’s down by color. I don’t CRAIG McCLAIN is no stranger my hip, so I want to move to what lurks in the belly of IN HIS OWN WORDS . . . have to get into my face away Earth’s oceans. a yoga position from the porthole The deep-sea biologist is It’s the summer after my to get my face down and because I want to see currently executive director of the Louisiana University first year of graduate actually look out of it. everything. Marine Consortium. school, and I’m with a pilot, The porthole faces out to But the biggest thing Throughout his career, he‘s a sub tech and two deep-sea the side, so Paul has them for me is getting to see tackled many questions about biologists. One is Craig swing the submersible a giant isopod, which aquatic life, from how food Young, now the director around so my portside has always captured my availability affects species to how marine environments of the Oregon Institute window now looks toward imagination, attention impact an organism’s size. of Marine Biology, and what they’d been looking and interest. We’re Searching for those the other is Paul Tyler. at in the front. cruising along the answers, he’s crossed paths And Paul Tyler literally As I’m going down, seafloor, and I look over with beasts like the giant wrote the book on deep- isopod, a crustacean that, every now and then, I get and see one swimming. according to McClain, “is sea biology. It’s literally a glimpse of a fish. This is Here it was, nonchalantly essentially just a roly-poly called Deep-Sea Biology. before there was a lot of swimming past the that‘s double the size of your These guys, in my field, are deep-sea video on the web, submersible. I know shoe.” To see his subjects up famous. So not only is it so my only encounters these are real animals, close, McClain hops a ride in a submersible, a 23-by-8-foot my first research trip and with deep-sea organisms and I know that this is research vessel designed to my first submersible dive, had been in jars, occurring, but I can’t withstand the enormous I’m with two people I have on a lab believe this is actually pressure at seafloor levels. But science crushes on. shelf, or happening, really in the before he was heading up labs They launch us off the photos or moment. and leading his own dives, back of the ship, and we’re pictures,  AS TOLD TO LACY SCHLEY; McClain was a rookie. Here, PHOTO BY ERNIE he recounts his first, surreal diving down, and there’s which were MASTROIANNI deep-sea dive in the Bahamas. this tiny porthole, maybe largely

Craig McClain holds a giant isopod specimen similar to the one he saw on the ocean floor during his first

deep-sea dive. HARBOR BRANCH OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE FAU TOP:

14 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM CLOSE-UP

KRISTIN ALLEN U.S. HALL OF FAME ACROBATIC GYMNAST

BLUE BY DESIGN The male Chapman’s blue butterfly — native to southern Europe, Morocco and the Middle East — is known for its wings of shimmering azure. Even at 500x magnification, the hue remains intense. But this striking shade doesn’t stem from pigment; it’s created when light passes through nanostructures within the scales, an effect known as diffraction. Chemist Anne Gleich of Kaiserslautern, Germany, snapped this image to learn more about the process. The photo won an Image of Distinction award in the 2016 Nikon Small World contest.  ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTO BY ANNE GLEICH

May 2017 DISCOVER 15 THE CRUX 16

Story Time an ancientfairytale. Tracing theevolutionof as long assumedthestory, aswellothertalessuch diabolical creature withwhomhemadethedeal. power, thenuseshismagictotrapthe A craftsmantradeshissoulforsupernatural Smith andtheDevil people startedtotellthetaleof tree ofIndo-European languages. between livingorganisms)tomapstoriesontothe phylogenetics (thestudyofevolutionaryrelationships mutates overtime,they’veborrowed techniquesfrom Graça daSilva.Treating eachtaleasaspeciesthat and NewUniversityofLisbonsocialscientistSara Durham Universityanthropologist JamshidTehrani ancient. Now, there’s firmevidenceforthatfrom the sametrickthattrippedhimupinAsiaMinor. than 35languages—andthedevilisstillfallingfor spreading oversevenmillenniatoencompassmore ONCE UPONATIME  JONATHON KEATS; ILLUSTRATION BYDAVID CURTIS DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM INFOART Ukrainian Folklorists, includingtheBrothers Grimm,have The SmithandtheDevil Rumpelstiltskin Belarusian Polish Hindi Russian

and inAsiaMinor, Czech . The plot was simple: . Theplotwassimple: Lusatian Lithuanian Beauty andtheBeast istheoldestthey’vefound, Slovak The The Latvian Bulgarian Romani , is Serbocroatian Icelandic Swedish Slovenian Iranian Proto- 4,600 Indo- YA Norwegian Baltic- Proto- Slavic 3,000 YA Danish YEARS AGO Proto-Indo- Language European 6,500 (YA) Germanic Proto- 1,800 YA Luxembourgish Proto- 4,600 Celtic Italo- English YA Romanian Sardinian German Frisian Flemish Proto- 3,000 Celtic Romance YA Italian Proto- 1,800 YA Dutch evolutionary tree. as leavesonthetale's languages shownhere to allofthemodern from proto-languages Devil The Smithandthe Ladin progressed Walloon Irish Portuguese Catalan French Greek Scots Welsh Spanish

ReDISCOVER Where’s the Beef? Past promises of lab-grown meat were overly optimistic.

the back burner. His lab at the University of South Carolina shut down in 2011 due to personnel issues, and now he’s concentrating on organ printing at a 3-D bioprinting company in Russia. “Maybe I will return to the topic,” he wrote in an email. “In vitro meat production is the inescapable future of humanity.” While Mark Post, physiology chair at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, shares MORE THAN A Mironov’s optimism DECADE AGO, about in vitro meat’s Discover covered potential, he says the Without the concept of a future isn’t in at-home coffee-maker- devices. like device “Quite frankly, you, kids go that could, I don’t see that as overnight, turn a very pragmatic hungry on the a few animal solution,” says Post, muscle stem whose name has weekends. cells into a nice hunk of meat. become synonymous with The July 2006 story, the movement. He debuted “The Way of All Flesh,” his lab-produced meat (cost: explains the vision of $325,000 per burger) in a Your donation of just $28 biologist Vladimir Mironov: highly publicized taste test in a month - $336 a year- Those muscle cells would London in 2013. supports feeding programs, be harmlessly extracted from Instead, the focus now as well as provides an animal, and with the right is on ramping up efforts nutrients and environment, to produce it in factorylike clothing, school supplies, they’d multiply just as they settings, Post explains. and much more. would in their original host, Bigger production would but even more mean more burgers rapidly. for more than just a The idea was to few taste testers, while You can change the life of target three issues also sending costs way with traditional down. “In essence, it’s a child! Contact Children meat farming: available,” Post says, Incorporated today. protect animals “but not at the scale from inhumane that you need for [mass] conditions consumption.” 1-800-538-5381 and eventual His optimistic scenario childrenincorporated.org slaughter; — which depends reduce the on the production environmental infrastructure being in damage of large- In 2006, Vladimir Mironov, top, dreamed place and regulatory of growing lab meat overnight. Today, Mark scale livestock Post, center, says even one beef patty needs approvals — is having operations; and more cultured tissue than what’s above. a $10 cell-grown give humans hamburger patty on the healthier meat and better food security. shelves in four to five years. Yet, as you’ve noticed, your local “You need to be able to scale Target stocks no such appliance. production to a tremendous level if you Mironov says his vision hasn’t want to hit the Walmarts of this world,” changed, but he’s put those efforts on he says.

FROM TOP: 3D BIOPRINTING SOLUTIONS; DAVID PARRY/PA WIRE; DAAN LUINING/MARK POST LAB/MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY DAAN WIRE; PARRY/PA DAVID 3D BIOPRINTING SOLUTIONS; TOP: FROM  MICHAEL STONE

May 2017 DISCOVER 17 THE CRUX

TOOLS OF THE TRADE Tag, They're It How fish researchers track their scaly subjects. 1

1. JAW TAGS Researchers use equipment. 6. T-BAR TAGS these external tags, about the size External tags that come in a of a quarter, to identify whether variety of colors. Similar to cinch a fish has an internal tracker tags, T-bars flag the fish as part of implanted in it. It’s usually fit onto a study. 7. RADIO TELEMETRY TAG a fish’s lower mandible. 2. POP-UP Internal tag for tracking fish in SATELLITE ARCHIVAL TAG This shallower waters. Researchers use external tag collects detailed an antenna, either handheld or data on fish vitals, location and secured beneath a plane or boat, environmental information, to pick up the tag’s radio signal. such as light levels. 3. ACOUSTIC 8. VISUAL IMPLANT (VI) TAGS TRANSMITTER Internal or external Internal tags mixed with brightly tag that’s ideal for tracking colored biocompatible substances fish in deeper water. These that researchers implant into transmitters produce a unique translucent sections of a fish. set of pings that get assigned While it’s possible to spot them to an individual fish. To collect with the naked eye, researchers data, researchers either go out typically need fluorescent light in a vessel to pick up signals or or magnification to see VI tags. download the information from Different colors can indicate receivers stationed in the fish’s details such as the year a fish was environment. 4. CINCH TAGS This tagged for study. 9. HYDROSTATIC type of external tag indicates the TAGS Much like cinch tags, these fish bearing it is part of a study external tags flag the fish as and lists contact information being part of a study. 10. PASSIVE for the agency monitoring it. If INTEGRATED TRANSPONDER 4 recreational fishers reel in a catch (PIT) TAGS An internal tag that with a cinch tag, they should biologists must scan to 2 report it to the agency listed on activate. PITs relay data the tag. 5. LARGE-SCALE MODEL on fish growth rates and OF CODED WIRE Unlike the model movement patterns to a shown here, these internal tags receiver.  LACY SCHLEY; TAGS have a true diameter similar to COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE that of mechanical pencil lead. SERVICE, MIDWEST REGION 3 The wire comes on a spool and is lined with imprinted numbers. 5 When a biologist cuts off a piece to make a tag, a unique serial number will be paired with a fish. To read this number, researchers need magnification 8

10 7

9

6

WILLIAM ZUBACK/DISCOVER

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and worsens sunburns. But Mary was skeptical of doxy, as well. Athlete, Interrupted “If only I hadn’t resisted,” she says A marathoner completes a race through the Borneo rainforest, now about skipping the doxy. then pays the price with a deadly ailment. JUNGLE ADVENTURE BY CLAIRE PANOSIAN DUNAVAN During the Borneo competition, Mary was deep in a rainforest brushing against foliage. Suddenly she noticed jelly-like leeches clinging to her skin. “Don’t pull too hard!” a teammate warned, but Mary was already tugging. Soon every spot where a leech once clung was a red, oozing sore. Mary barely noticed the cuts as she continued on in the contest. Over the next few days, she and fellow athletes competed in wet conditions that included kayaking on and swimming in the Segama River and its tributaries. Mary and her team finished seventh in the race, celebrating with high-fives. On the flight back, Mary felt nauseous and hot, and her muscles ached. Upon landing, she drove to an emergency room where a doctor gave her an antibiotic and a shot of Demerol for the muscle pain, and declared her malaria-free. He told her to climb into bed and rest. After her 10 nights under burlap and twigs in Borneo, his order An endurance athlete takes part in an Eco-Challenge in Brazil. Such competitors push themselves sounded like bliss. But sleep eluded to their limits in locales teeming with dangers, including infectious diseases. Mary. As her condition worsened, she called a friend who was also a UCLA The Borneo wetlands teem with athletes trek through jungles, kayak oncologist. “Denny,” she gasped, “I’ve → darting birds, slithering snakes on muddy rivers and bike over jagged never felt so sick in my life.” and dangling orangutans. mountains. Three days later, Mary awoke in my Blood-sucking leeches and slim, I pleaded with her to take hospital, squinting her eyes at a new set coiled microbes also abound. Some precautions for her health given the of doctors crowded around her bed. folks find out about these guys the jungle conditions. “Borneo is swarming “Here’s an international athlete hard way. with mosquitoes and malaria,” I said. who recently swam in a jungle,” said Mary, 46, was a longtime “Won’t you please fill a prescription for Bernie Kubak, an infectious disease marathon runner from Southern malaria pills?” physician, to a group of medical California. She was in my office But Mary was leery of the possible trainees. “Now she has a fever of 102 at UCLA Medical Center for a side effects. On a previous trip, she’d and an inflamed liver and pancreas. checkup because she was training for suffered scary dreams while taking What’s your leading diagnosis?” a competition in Borneo, a rugged an anti-malarial medication called Having learned of other Eco- rainforest island in Southeast Asia. mefloquine. Another option was Challenge athletes who had fallen Along with 304 fellow athletes from the antibiotic doxycycline. Unlike ill, Kubak had already picked his: 26 countries, the petite, fearless mefloquine, the body tolerates leptospirosis. It’s an infection due to blonde was to compete in the Eco- doxycycline far better, although in Leptospira, a bacterium passed in

Challenge, a multisport race in which some patients it causes stomach pain animal urine that can live for months ESPEN RASMUSSEN

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in wet conditions. Eyeing Mary’s skin, in Tchimbé Raid marathoners Kubak could easily picture leptospires competing through the tropical forests drilling into her many open wounds, of Martinique in the Caribbean. Three including those from the leeches. He years later, an outbreak followed a puzzled over how he could prove it was triathlon on Réunion Island in the the bacterium while watching the drip Indian Ocean. of the intravenous ampicillin, another Rainy conditions can create the antibiotic he had added to Mary’s perfect environment for the microbes twice-daily doxycycline. by raising water tables and muddying Because several drugs were in her the ground. In Borneo and Martinique, system, culturing Mary’s blood now record downpours preceded the ill-fated to test for lepto would be useless. So races. The CDC pointed out that many Kubak decided the best way was to of the athletes sickened in Borneo had use a blood sample from before she swum in the Segama River and its received treatment. He made several tributaries, their open sores an easy way phone calls, and soon leftover vials of Leptospirosis for the bacterium to enter bodies. Mary’s blood were on their way from Bottom line: The more medical a hospital emergency room to the lab The Borneo experts learn about leptospirosis, the of David Haake, an internationally more they favor guarding against it known leptospirosis researcher at the Eco-Challenge with weekly doses of doxycycline West Los Angeles VA hospital. during high-risk travel. Haake was not optimistic. He was competition turned out supposed to coax delicate germs to grow to be a lepto NO REGRETS from this week-old, refrigerated serum? For two to three months after But days later, he spied a faint zone of nightmare. the brunt of the illness, Mary life in a flask of nutrient agar. Under a had lingering fatigue and other microscope, Haake examined the thin, tropical forest or an inner-city slum, symptoms. But eventually she motile corkscrews and later subtyped most are never diagnosed and treated was strong enough to resume her the bugs. Their genetic fingerprint with antibiotics. Although many standard weekend fare of long bike matched Leptospira weilii, a species people recover uneventfully, every rides and runs, and she returned to exclusive to Southeast Asia. year 60,000 pay the ultimate price, international adventure contests. often dying with lemon-yellow eyes, Her experience in Borneo will always THE ASIA CONNECTION rust-red urine, failing kidneys and stand as a personal high. “How often Asia looms large in the annals of hemorrhaging lungs. can you come around a corner on a leptospirosis. In 1915, Japanese The Borneo Eco-Challenge mountain bike and see an elephant?” microbiologist Ryukichi Inada first competition turned out to be a lepto she asks. But it’s also a powerful lesson. found leptospires in the kidneys of nightmare. Besides Mary, about 80 Not only did the event showcase rats. Spreading through the animals’ other competitors contracted the spirit and drive among athletes, it also urine, the bacteria could survive for condition. Fortunately, none of them revealed a serious vulnerability of months in stagnant water and wet soil. died, but as with Mary, more than competing in natural surroundings. Eventually, he and other scientists one-third required hospitalization. Mary has no regrets about what found the wily microbes in cows, pigs, According to a report by the happened. “Everything has risk,” dogs and other mammals. Centers for Disease Control and she says. “If you fear the unknown But rats and mice will always remain Prevention, the Eco-Challenge “was and don’t pursue adventure, you’re the principal reservoir of leptospirosis, the first recognized international missing out on such amazing according to Haake, who is currently leptospirosis outbreak associated with opportunities and experiences.” D testing an oral vaccine in hamsters, the increasingly popular activity of hoping to help halt the role of rodents adventure travel.” Claire Panosian Dunavan is an infectious in the disease’s spread. Since then, many more cases diseases specialist at the University of In the meantime, humans diagnosed involving adventure racers have been California, Los Angeles. The cases described with leptospirosis face a more urgent documented around the world. In in Vital Signs are real, but patient names

problem. Whether they live in a 2009, 20 lepto infections were identified and some details have been changed. SCIENCE SOURCE

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On Easter Island, isolated in the → vast Pacific Ocean, 10 species of near-microscopic insects are all that remain of the island’s native species — at least for now. The endemic insects hide in volcanic caves and eke out an existence in an increasingly imperiled habitat. Tourists who flood this tiny island, called Rapa Nui by the native residents, endanger the tiny bugs’ ancestral homes — fragile gardens of moss and ferns. On top of that, hordes of invasive species threaten to crowd them out. Iconic Moai, the monolithic stone statues standing some 40 feet tall, immortalized the island, but its most important inhabitants are almost too fire-intolerant ecosystem and the arrival small to be seen. of humans, timed inauspiciously with an extended drought period.” MOAI MATERIALIZE Wynne says that shift strained the Rapa Nui’s textbook tale of existing ecosystem, killing endemic environmental destruction began species, and created a much more when humans arrived. Polynesian homogeneous environment. sailors, carried over the waves in giant canoes, made landfall sometime GONE UNDERGROUND between A.D. 800 and 1200. Their The island now hosts many non-native new civilization turned tropical forests species, plus sheep, horses and goats, into boats and building materials. For Tourists flock to Easter Island for a glimpse descendants of the livestock owned of its iconic Moai statues (top). Ecologist food, they farmed and fished. And by Jut Wynne takes field notes during research by ranchers who worked the island in its 17th-century peak, the population at a location high above the Pacific Ocean. the early 1900s. Hidden under their had swelled to about 15,000. But just feet, however, are some of the last true a few thousand people remained when palm tree called Paschalococos disperta, natives of Rapa Nui. Europeans arrived in 1722. or the Easter Island palm. Wynne’s childhood dream of The Moai-building islanders caused “Ecosystems don’t collapse; they visiting Easter Island finally came an ecological shift that devastated shift from one steady state to another, true in 2008. That year he launched a species adapted to a specific kind and that’s simply what happened baseline study looking at three caves. of environment. What was once here on Rapa Nui,” says Jut Wynne, He sampled over a dozen more caves palm-dominated scrub forest became an ecologist at Northern Arizona in 2009 and 2011, and turned up eight grassland. The lost species included University’s Merriam-Powell Center new species endemic to the island, at least five kinds of land birds, sea for Environmental Research. “What bringing the total to 10. Last summer,

mammals, insects and a type of giant caused that shift was a very fragile, supported by a Fulbright fellowship, RODRIGUEZ BRIZUELA RAFAEL BOTTOM: PHOTO. STOCK MICHELE BURGESS/ALAMY TOP:

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He hopes the future may not be as bleak as Rapa Nui’s past. Wynne is working with the park system, the community and the government to increase awareness of the island’s unique, invisible treasures. The park has now closed roads to reduce traffic in vital areas. Even small measures, like roping off areas and putting up signs, could have a large impact, Wynne says.

DELICATE BALANCE Economic incentives make fully protecting the caves difficult, however. The island needs revenue from visitors, and the beautiful vistas and caves Jut Wynne examines a freshly caught insect. filled with indigenous art are a potent he expanded his search. Cave art adorns the wall behind him. lure. Sebastián Yancovic Pakarati, an The work took him to some of expert on Rapa Nui’s natural heritage the most remote places on the island and one of Wynne’s collaborators, in search of fragile habitats where says the island must develop a plan to the insects make their last stand. He better protect its natural and cultural plumbed the depths of damp caves and treasures before opening the floodgates rappelled down sheer cliff faces to find of tourism. But he is heartened that the fragmentary patches of moss and residents seem willing to play a role ferns where the insects could be hiding. in the ongoing protection of their Previous studies showed that many island and its resources. With the native species once crawled across the combination of newfound support

island. The remaining insects have likely and greater oversight, he is hopeful 239-267 3949 (2): 2015/ZOOTAXA WYNNE, & J.J. SOTO-ADAMES N. F. BERNARD, E.C. -49; 27 515: 2015/ZOOKEYS WYNNE, all retreated to places where conditions that these endangered areas can Original Easter Island occupants, clockwise reflect the Rapa Nui ecosystem that from upper left: Cyptophania pakaratii, be preserved. existed before humans arrived. Hawaiioscia rapui and Entomobrya manuhoko. “The new generations want to So far, Wynne has discovered seven pay more attention, not just to species of springtail, tiny insects whose nearly half the island, that hasn’t conserving and preserving the defining feature is a spring-loaded tail stopped foot traffic. Tourists regularly Moai and the cultural legacy of our that flips them into the air and away walk through some of the insects’ ancestors, but we also want to place a from danger — a built-in ejector seat. habitats, completely oblivious to major emphasis on nature’s heritage He has also found two isopod species, the ramifications of their behavior, and biodiversity,” says Pakarati, who popularly known as “roly-polys,” and Wynne says. serves on the Advisory Council of one species of book louse. And while Even studying the insects in their National Monuments. the results are still tentative, Wynne natural cave environment presents And the park is now working on says his team’s search last summer a delicate balance between scientific a conservation plan to protect and might have doubled the island’s known enlightenment and harmful intrusion. monitor caves in an area with the endemic species. Invasive species present another threat. highest concentration of native species. American cockroaches, millipedes and “We hope this initiative can help with ‘IN DANGER OF EXTINCTION’ other hitchhikers now pervade the the conservation and preservation of Preserving those insects has also taken island, threatening to crowd out — and the location, and eventually the rest of on new urgency. Roughly 100,000 eat up — the natives. the island,” Pakarati says. D tourists came through Rapa Nui in “And because of that,” says Wynne, 2015, a surfeit of pedestrians for an “we believe that most of the insects Nathaniel Scharping is a staff writer island totaling only 63 square miles. on the island are indeed in danger for Discover. Follow him on Twitter:

Even though a national park covers of extinction.” @NathanielScharp & J.J. TAITI S. -449; 437 3702: 2013/ZOOTAXA WYNNE, MOCKFORD & J.J. E.L. LEFT: TOP CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW, NICHOLAS GLOVER. TOP:

26 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Breakthrough Science for Curious Minds

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OVER REALITY

QUANTUM PHYSICS MAY BE WELL UNDERSTOOD, BUT SCIENTISTS STILL DON’T AGREE ON WHAT IT MEANS.

BY TIM FOLGER

28 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM HERE’S A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT:

Imagine astronomers didn’t really believe There’s the Many Worlds model, which posits the that Earth orbits the sun or that our world existence of innumerable parallel realities. If that seems a tad extravagant, you might prefer QBism (pronounced turns daily on its axis. What if they viewed the “cubism”), where the quantum world and the scientists who heliocentric model of the solar system merely as observe it are inextricably bound together in an unpredictable, an abstract mathematical tool to track planets interactive universe. The central issue is that physicists don’t know what the most basic equation of quantum theory — a and stars with great precision, not as a literal mathematical formulation called the wave function — actually description of the way things are? What if they represents. Does it describe a fundamental feature of the claimed we can’t truly know whether the sun physical world? Or is it instead just a handy way to predict orbits Earth or vice versa and, moreover, that experimental results? “There is no standard interpretation,” says Antony such questions were not even worth asking? Valentini, a theoretical physicist at Clemson University. “It’s It would be preposterous. No respectable scientist would extraordinary. I don’t know of any comparable episode in the ever entertain such notions — except when it comes to the history of science.” most powerful theory in the history of physics: quantum Where does that lack of consensus leave physicists? After mechanics. More than a century after its birth, quantum all, quantum mechanics isn’t just a branch of physics; it is mechanics, the physics of atoms, photons and other particles, modern physics. “Most of the things that people are doing on remains as baffling as ever. Experiments have repeatedly almost every floor of every physics department in the world confirmed the theory’s weird predictions with phenomenal are quantum in one way or another,” says Matt Leifer, a accuracy — to a dozen or more decimal places in some cases. physicist at Chapman University in California. Technologies derived from it drive the world’s economy: The If physicists can’t agree on — or don’t know — what their electronics industry as we know it wouldn’t exist without reigning theory is all about, does it mean they’ve hit a wall quantum mechanics. It explains why the sky is blue and how in terms of understanding the world? Recent efforts to rule stars generate their light. out some interpretations haven’t brought us any closer to an And yet, despite the theory’s unquestioned dominance answer. If there’s one thing certain about the quantum world, and practical significance, physicists still don’t agree on what it’s that nothing’s ever settled. it means or what it says about the nature of reality. Some physicists deny that quantum mechanics describes any sort of LIGHT AND SHADOW objective reality. The confusion dates to the early days of quantum mechanics, At least a dozen interpretations of quantum mechanics vie in the 1920s, when Niels Bohr clashed with Albert Einstein. for physicists’ hearts and minds, each with a radically different Bohr, an almost oracular figure in 20th-century physics, take on reality. Adán Cabello, a physicist at the University argued that when studying the atomic world, physicists must of Seville in Spain, recently summed up the confusing, give up the notion of a reality that exists independently of

ILLUSTRATIONS BY RICHARD KAIL/GETTY IMAGES ILLUSTRATIONS incompatible gaggle of viewpoints as “a map of madness.” their own measurements. The message of quantum mechanics

May 2017 DISCOVER 29 is inescapable, he said, and exceedingly strange: Atoms and MANY WORLDS, ONE CAT all other particles do not possess definite positions, energies Some of the attempts to answer that question have, if or any properties until they are measured in an experiment. anything, only added an extra dose of weirdness to the To be clear, it’s not just that physicists don’t know what the quantum brew. Perhaps the strangest of all the interpretations properties are; the properties literally only come into being at is the one first proposed in 1957 by Princeton physicist the time of the measurement. Hugh Everett. In his doctoral thesis, Everett argued that the Einstein categorically rejected Bohr’s view. While equations of quantum mechanics should be taken at face strolling the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study in value: Quantum waves are real, with each possible wave in Princeton University one moonlit night, Einstein famously effect representing a separate, independent reality. According asked a colleague, “Do you really believe the moon is not to the Many Worlds theory, as Everett’s idea is now known, there when you are not looking at it?” Einstein remained every possible physical event actually takes place — in its convinced until his death that quantum mechanics was own parallel universe. The implications are staggering. only a steppingstone toward a deeper, more At this moment, for example, an uncountable comprehensive theory that would make number of yous are reading this, possibly sense of the uncanny phenomena of the scratching their heads. quantum world. For all its universe-begetting What makes quantum mechanics so WHY AREN’T outlandishness, the Many Worlds view confounding? Consider the following has many advocates. “In a certain iconic, oft-repeated experiment: A PEOPLE, TREES sense, it’s very conservative,” says beam of light shines through two AND EVERYTHING David Wallace, a philosopher of parallel slits cut into a barrier and ELSE AS WAVY AND physics at the University of Southern falls on a strip of photographic film INDISTINCT AS THE California. “It leaves the physics beyond the barrier. Since light itself unchanged, and it holds onto the idea consists of a stream of particles — ATOMS THEY’RE that scientific theories are supposed to photons — it seems reasonable to MADE OF? give us a description of what is going assume that the photons pass through on, even if what’s going on is much one slit or the other en route to the film. weirder than we thought.” And if physicists set up the experiment But, of course, there’s no consensus. with a photon detector at each slit, that is Many physicists prefer the idea that quantum indeed what they see: Photons hurtle randomly waves — or more precisely, their mathematical through either the first slit or the second, which results in representations, wave functions — don’t correspond to two separate clumps of dots forming on the film. actual physical entities; the wave function simply reflects the A slight adjustment, however, profoundly alters the results. probability that a particular experimental outcome will occur. If physicists remove the photon detectors, the pattern created This eliminates the paradoxes of quantum mechanics without on the film changes completely. Instead of two clusters of the necessity of conjuring innumerable universes. Case in dots, alternating light and dark bands appear across the film, point: Erwin Schrödinger’s hapless cat. what physicists call an interference pattern. That pattern Schrödinger, a contemporary of Bohr and Einstein, and could form only if each individual photon somehow spread one of the founders of quantum mechanics, devised his out like a wave and went through both slits simultaneously. famous thought experiment to highlight what he saw as the Bright bands develop on the film where two wave crests absurdity of Bohr’s ideas. His Rube Goldbergian experiment coincide; overlapping crests and troughs create the dark has six components: a steel box, a cat, a radioactive element, bands. In other words, photons behave like particles with a Geiger counter, a hammer and a vial of cyanide. The detectors present and like waves without detectors. cat is put in the steel box; the lid is closed. No one can see For Bohr, this showed that the objects we consider particles what’s happening inside. During any given interval of time, don’t have a definite existence until they are observed. On the the radioactive element may or may not emit a high-energy very smallest scales, reality is blurry, not sharply defined — at particle. If it does, the Geiger counter detects it and triggers least when no one is looking. the hammer to smash the vial, releasing poisonous fumes that Since everything ultimately consists of those blurry kill the cat. If it doesn’t, the cat survives. particle-waves, why don’t we see quantum effects in our According to the rules of quantum mechanics, the everyday lives? Why aren’t people, trees and everything else as radioactive particle exists as a wave function in all its possible wavy and indistinct as the atoms they’re made of? The short states — both emitted and not emitted. A single, definite state answer is no one really knows, hence the crazy cornucopia crystallizes only upon measurement. What does that mean for of quantum interpretations. In one way or another, the the cat? Is it both alive and dead until someone opens the box manifold versions all seek to answer a single question: Are for a look? Schrödinger ridiculed the notion of a cat — or these “quantum waves” as real as the ground beneath your anything — existing in two different conditions at once. feet, or are they purely mathematical constructs without any To some physicists, Schrödinger’s thought experiment physical existence? shows that the wave function can’t be real, that it represents

30 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM May 2017 DISCOVER 31 nothing more than the probabilities of different events. The with so many different wave functions. The predictions those cat is alive or dead, not alive and dead. The cat’s condition is wave functions make are so different.” The PBR theorem determined before anyone opens the box. The only thing that shows that quantum states must therefore correspond changes when the box opens is our knowledge of the cat’s fate. uniquely with something that’s real — that is, it proves the wave function actually exists and is not just an abstract CARDS AGAINST REALITY measure of probability. In our everyday world, it seems, the laws of quantum Despite some rave reviews, the PBR result hasn’t changed theory lead to absurd results. But what about that two-slit many minds. “I was a bit disappointed that the people who experiment? If the wave function isn’t actually real, what liked it were the people who already believed the conclusion,” creates those light and dark bands? says Pusey. The naysayers instead deny one of PBR’s main Four years ago, Matthew Pusey of the Perimeter Institute assumptions: that there exists an objective reality we can in Waterloo, Ontario, Jonathan Barrett, then at the measure in the first place. University of London, and Terry Rudolph at Imperial College London published a paper A MALLEABLE UNIVERSE in Nature Physics where they argued The notion of a completely objective reality convincingly that quantum waves must is the bedrock principle of science, which be real. In an interview with Nature, is the main reason Einstein was so Clemson physicist Valentini said, “I IF THE WAVE uncomfortable with Bohr’s “nothing don’t like to sound hyperbolic, but I FUNCTION ISN’T exists without observation” take on think the word ‘seismic’ is likely to ACTUALLY REAL, quantum theory. Yet Christopher apply to this paper.” Fuchs, a physicist now at the Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph’s WHAT CREATES University of Massachusetts, and theorem, known as PBR, uses THOSE LIGHT AND Ruediger Schack of Royal Holloway a sophisticated mathematical DARK BANDS? University of London disagree. argument to show that any They contend that Bohr was on to interpretation of quantum mechanics something: Our notion of an objective that doesn’t treat the wave function as a reality needs modification. The physical real object invariably leads to results that world cannot be separated from our own contradict quantum theory itself. If they’re efforts to probe it. How could it be otherwise, right and the wave function is real, interpretations since we ourselves are embedded in the very world like Everett’s Many Worlds, which take the reality of the we’re seeking to understand? wave function as a given, could start to seem more plausible. They call their way of looking at quantum mechanics In that case, Schrödinger’s cat would be alive in one universe, QBism, a modified version of a theory they developed with dead in another. Alternatively, fans of Bohr’s view could claim University of New Mexico physicist Carlton Caves called that the cat exists as a fuzzy quantum wave inside the closed Quantum Bayesianism. QBism combines quantum mechanics box; the frazzled feline would indeed be in a combined alive- with Bayesian probability, a variation on standard probability dead state until someone takes a look. in which the odds of any given event are revised as one gains To get the gist of the PBR argument, consider a simple card more knowledge of the many possible conditions tied to the game between you and a dealer involving two decks of cards. event. For example, if a patient complains of headaches to a One deck holds only red cards, the other deck only aces. The doctor, the initial odds of a diagnosis of brain cancer might be dealer gives you a card and asks which deck it came from. In low. As the doctor examines the patient, the odds of a cancer most cases the answer will be easy. But for two cards — the diagnosis may go up or down. two red aces — there’s no way to tell. The aces could come QBism applies similar reasoning to physics experiments: from either deck. That’s fine with a deck of cards, but the Whenever physicists perform an experiment, they are updating quantum version doesn’t play so nicely. their own subjective knowledge. There is no fixed underlying If the wave function is not a real physical object and instead reality that different observers can independently experience. only measures experimental probabilities, then more than Just as a doctor must assess each patient individually, so one wave function could describe a single physical state, say too must a physicist approach the fresh, ever-changing the position of a photon (just like that red ace could come phenomena presented by the quantum world. In QBism, the from either deck). The notion that a slew of different wave experimentalist cannot be separated from the experiment — functions could describe the same underlying reality falls apart both are immersed in the same living, unpredictable moment. in quantum mechanics, says Pusey. Reality can’t come from “If QBism says one radical and important thing about two decks. He and his colleagues showed that the probabilistic the nature of reality, then observer participancy is it,” says interpretation becomes a problematic one. Schack. “Subjects matter. And reality, if QBism is right, “It leads to so many possibilities that you can prove that cannot be conceived without always including the subject. quantum mechanics wouldn’t allow it,” says Pusey. “It That’s certainly a bold statement about the real world, about wouldn’t make sense for one physical state to be compatible reality. It’s just a feature of reality that is very fundamental.”

32 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Quantum theory, Schack says, work with de Broglie’s idea, but offers profound observations about for the most part pilot wave theory the real world, but the theory itself languished until the early 1990s when is not a description of the world. He it hooked Valentini as a grad student. posits that the right way to think Valentini has devoted his of quantum mechanics is as a set career to almost single-handedly of rules about how to correctly resurrecting the pilot wave idea. conduct experiments. Now his years of work actually have “Whether you see a wave or a chance — a small one, he admits particle depends on what question — of being vindicated. Of the many you ask,” says Schack. “What interpretations of quantum theory, do physicists do? They choose pilot wave theory is unique in that experiments. You could describe Valentini has found a way in which any experiment as a gamble on it might be experimentally tested. the outcome. Quantum mechanics No other interpretation of quantum is a useful guide to action: It tells mechanics can make that claim. you how to put together your Many Worlds, Bohr’s interpretation experimental apparatus so that it and others are all experimentally works in the end.” indistinguishable — they reproduce Schack says he and Fuchs like to the results of standard quantum use a term they’ve borrowed from theory. But if Valentini is right, the American philosopher William James, who saw reality certain effects predicted in pilot wave theory may have as being “malleable.” QBism, says Schack, makes the same left an imprint on the cosmic microwave background, the point. What sort of universe do we inhabit? Is it like a giant primordial radiation left over from the Big Bang that still machine, with the future evolving from the past according to pervades all of space. immutable laws? Or is it inherently interactive? “Why would The temperature of that radiation is almost a perfectly you want a clockwork universe?” he asks. “QBism gives a uniform 2.725 degrees Celsius above absolute zero. Detailed much richer universe. It’s a reality in which we matter far observations, however, have found slight variations in the more than we ever could in a clockwork universe.” radiation. Standard quantum theory can explain nearly all of these variations, but in 2015, new data released by the BACK TO THE BEGINNING European Space Agency’s Planck spacecraft revealed evidence If QBism is right, if the wave function isn’t real and quantum of small anomalies in the background radiation. And that is theory doesn’t give us a direct description of reality, it leaves just the kind of thing Valentini has been looking for. While unanswered the most basic of all questions: What then is the conventional quantum theory predicts that random quantum quantum world actually like? What is it made of? Particles? fluctuations in the early universe have left celestial imprints, Waves? Something beyond our ability to imagine? For pilot wave theory predicts fluctuations that are less random, theoretical physicist Valentini, the answer has been there from leaving slightly different wrinkles in the cosmic microwave the earliest days of quantum theory. background radiation. In 1927, the French physicist Louis de Broglie, who first “It’s tantalizing,” Valentini says. “We’re carrying out the proposed that particles could behave like waves, developed analysis partly to understand things better and partly to an interpretation of quantum mechanics called pilot wave see what the data can tell us about the predictions that we theory, where waves and particles are both equally real. have.” Another two years of data and analysis should settle Each particle rides its own wave. The pilot wave is a bizarre the question. thing — it exists in multiple dimensions — but it is a real Valentini also feels encouraged by the PBR theorem physical object. because it lends support to a central tenet of pilot wave Pilot wave theory explains the strange two-slit experiment: theory: The wave function is real. Nevertheless, he realizes A particle always goes through one slit or the other; at the the odds of his life’s work being confirmed are slim. “Who same time its pilot wave travels through both slits. But there’s knows what will happen?” he says. “It may be 20 years of no wave-particle paradox because the experimental apparatus work down the drain. We don’t know. You have different and the wave-surfing particle all form one interdependent camps pushing hard for their own interpretation. But really, system described by a pilot wave. Adding or removing a if we’re going to be honest, as scientists, if a member of the detector from the experiment changes the system’s pilot wave public asks us what is the meaning of our most basic theory and the pattern on the screen. of physics, I think we all have to say we don’t know.” D Bohr and other physics luminaries rejected de Broglie’s idea, though, in part because it didn’t provide any way to Tim Folger is a contributing editor to Discover and series editor of predict the exact paths of particles. In the 1950s, David The Best American Science and Nature Writing, an annual anthology. Bohm, a leading American physicist, did some additional He lives in New Mexico.

May 2017 DISCOVER 33 COVER STORY COVER

Heroes of Science Here’s to the household names and forgotten figures who accomplished incredible feats of knowledge — no capes required. ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK MARTURELLO

34 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM You know the first guy in our Rushmore of great scientists, but can you name the other three?

May 2017 DISCOVER 35 HEROES OF SCIENCE

Albert Einstein The whole package

36 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM crowd barged past Einstein expanded on relativity in 1916 dioramas, glass displays with his theory of gravitation: general and wide-eyed security relativity. It holds that anything with guards in the American mass distorts the fabric of space and Museum of Natural time, just as a bowling ball placed on a History. Screams rang out bed causes the mattress to sag. During a asA some runners fell and were trampled. solar eclipse in 1919, astronomers showed Upon arriving at a lecture hall, the mob that the sun’s mass did indeed bend broke down the door. the path of starlight. (The temporary The date was Jan. 8, 1930, and the New darkness around the sun enabled York museum was showing a film about astronomers to chronicle the bending.) Albert Einstein and his general theory of The validation made Einstein a superstar. Unsung Hero relativity. Einstein was not present, but Two years later, Einstein won the 4,500 mostly ticketless people still showed Nobel Prize in Physics, not for general up for the viewing. Museum officials relativity, but for his discovery of the Alhazen told them “no ticket, no show,” setting photoelectric effect. By this time, the Method man the stage for, in the words of the Chicago 42-year-old physicist had made most of Observe. Hypothesize. Experiment. Revise. Repeat. The scientific method Tribune, “the first science riot in history.” his major contributions to science. is the foundation upon which Such was Einstein’s popularity. In 1933, Einstein accepted a researchers build. The man who laid As a publicist might say, he was professorship at the Institute for the groundwork for it, however, is the whole package: distinctive look Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., all but forgotten in the West. Born in the mid-10th century in (untamed hair, rumpled sweater), witty where for years he tried (unsuccessfully) what is now Iraq, Ibn al-Haytham, personality (his quips, such as God not to unify the laws of physics. He became known to English speakers as playing dice, would live on) and major a U.S. citizen in 1940, and his fame Alhazen, was a man of endless scientific cred (his papers upended grew as a public intellectual, civil rights curiosity. At a time when the Arabic- physics). Time magazine named him supporter and pacifist. speaking world was the epicenter of scientific inquiry, Alhazen was one Person of the Century. Many consider Einstein’s theory of of its brightest stars. “Einstein remains the last, and general relativity to be his crowning He wrote more than 100 books perhaps only, physicist ever to become a achievement. The theory predicted both on physics, mathematics and household name,” says James Overduin, a black holes and gravitational waves — astronomy, among other fields, theoretical physicist at Towson University and just last year, physicists measured and is believed to be the first to explain how our brains create the in Maryland. the waves created by the collision of two illusion of the moon appearing Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879, black holes over a billion light-years larger near the horizon. His Einstein was a precocious child. As a away. During their epic journey across pioneering work on optics inspired teenager, he wrote a paper on magnetic the cosmos, the ripples played with the likes of Roger Bacon and fields. (Einstein never actually failed space and time like a fun-house mirror Johannes Kepler centuries later. But Alhazen’s creation of the scientific math, contrary to popular lore.) He contorting faces. method is his most far-reaching married twice, the second time to his first General relativity also is the bedrock achievement. cousin, Elsa Löwenthal. The marriage of gravitational lensing, which uses the Known for developing theories lasted until her death in 1936. gravity of stars and galaxies as a giant based on experimentation and data collection rather than abstract As a scientist, Einstein’s watershed year magnifying glass to zoom in on farther thought, Alhazen stressed the need was 1905, when he was working as a clerk cosmic objects. Astronomers may to test results — especially those in the Swiss Patent Office, having failed to soon take advantage of such physics considered canon, as he wrote in his attain an academic position after earning to see geographic details of worlds Doubts Against Ptolemy: his doctorate. That year he published his light-years away. “A person who studies scientific four most important papers. One of them Einstein, who died of heart failure books with a view of knowing the described the relationship between matter in 1955, would have applauded such real facts ought to turn himself into and energy, neatly summarized E = mc2. bold, imaginative thinking. His an opponent of everything that he Other papers that year were on greatest insights came not from careful studies; he should thoroughly assess Brownian motion, suggesting the experimental analysis, but simply its main as well as its margin parts, and oppose it from every point of existence of molecules and atoms, and considering what would happen under view and in all its aspects. . . . If he the photoelectric effect, showing that certain circumstances, and letting his takes this course, the real facts will light is made of particles later called mind play with the possibilities. “I am be revealed to him.” photons. His fourth paper, about enough of an artist to draw freely upon Alhazen’s advice can be seen special relativity, explained that space my imagination,” he said in a Saturday in action today around the world, and time are interwoven, a shocking Evening Post interview. “Knowledge is from middle school science fairs idea now considered a foundational limited. Imagination encircles the world.” to the Large Hadron Collider. principle of astronomy. — MARK BARNA — GEMMA TARLACH

May 2017 DISCOVER 37 HEROES OF SCIENCE

espite her French name, Marie Curie’s story didn’t Marie Curie start in France. Her road to Paris and success was a hard She went her own way one, as equally worthy of admiration as her scientific Daccomplishments. Born Maria Salomea Sklodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, she faced some daunting hurdles, both because of her gender and her family’s poverty,

38 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM which stemmed from the political step to discovering that atoms weren’t turmoil at the time. Her parents, deeply the smallest form of matter. It was a patriotic Poles, lost most of their defining moment for what Curie would money supporting their homeland eventually call radioactivity. in its struggle for independence from Around the same time, Curie met and Russian, Austrian and Prussian married her French husband, Pierre, an regimes. Her father, a math and physics accomplished physicist who abandoned professor, and her mother, headmistress his own work and joined his wife’s of a respected boarding school in research. The two started examining Russian-occupied Warsaw, instilled in minerals containing uranium and their five kids a love of learning. They pitchblende, a uranium-rich ore, and also imbued them with an appreciation realized the latter was four times more Unsung Hero of Polish culture, which the Russian radioactive than pure uranium. They government discouraged. reasoned some other element must be When Curie and her three sisters in the mix, sending those radioactive Chien-Shiung Wu finished regular schooling, they levels through the roof. And they were “First Lady of Physics” couldn’t carry on with higher education Chien-Shiung Wu’s path to the highest right: After processing literally tons levels of science began in coastal like their brother. The local university of pitchblende, they discovered a new China’s Jiangsu Province. She arrived in didn’t let women enroll, and their element and named it polonium, after the U.S. in 1936 to pursue a doctorate family didn’t have the money to send Marie’s native Poland. at the University of California, them abroad. Their only options were They published a paper in July 1898, Berkeley. While there, her experiments with X-ray emissions and xenon gas to marry or become governesses. revealing the find. And just five months became important contributions to Curie and her sister Bronislawa found later, they announced their discovery of the Manhattan Project. another way. yet another element, radium, found in But it was her work a few years The pair took up with a secret trace amounts in uranium ore. later, at Columbia University, that organization called Flying University, In 1903, Curie, her husband and would earn her a place in the physics pantheon. Wu was the first to or sometimes Floating University. Becquerel won the Nobel Prize in Physics verify — and later refine — Enrico Fittingly, given the English for their work on radioactivity, making Fermi’s theory of radioactive beta- abbreviation, the point of FU was Curie the first woman to win a Nobel. decay, which describes how some to stick it to the Russian government Tragedy struck just three years later. unstable atoms emit radiation when and provide a pro-Polish education, Pierre, who had recently accepted a transforming into more stable atoms. In 1956, other researchers asked in Polish — expressly forbidden in professorship at the University of Paris, Wu to help them prove their Russian-controlled Poland. died suddenly after a carriage accident. hypothesis about a breakdown of Eventually, the sisters hatched a Curie was devastated by his death. the law of parity. The law states plan that would help them both get the Yet she continued her research, filling that objects and their mirror images should behave the same way, only higher education they so desperately Pierre’s position and becoming the reversed, like a right and left hand. wanted. Curie would work as a first woman professor at the university. Wu’s complex experiments confirmed governess and support Bronislawa’s In 1911 Curie won her second Nobel their hypothesis. The team won medical school studies. Then, Prize, this time in chemistry, for her the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957, Bronislawa would return the favor once work with polonium and radium. She but never acknowledged Wu’s contribution. she was established. Curie endured remains the only person to win Nobel The lack of credit didn’t hold Wu years of misery as a governess, but prizes in two different sciences. back. She went on to become the first the plan worked. In 1891, she packed Curie racked up several other woman president of the American her bags and headed to Paris and her accomplishments, from founding the Physical Society and a National Medal bright future. Radium Institute in Paris where she of Science recipient. She enjoyed a long career as a distinguished At the University of Paris, Curie directed her own lab (whose researchers professor, and great acclaim within was inspired by French physicist Henri won their own Nobels), to heading up her field, where she was known as the Becquerel. In 1896, he discovered France’s first military radiology center “First Lady of Physics.” that uranium emitted something that during World War I and thus becoming At a memorial conference in her looked an awful lot like — but not the first medical physicist. honor in 1997, Nobel laureate Leon Lederman spoke for many when he quite the same as — X-rays, which had She died in 1934 from a type of recalled her exacting standards during been discovered only the year before. anemia that very likely stemmed from their collaboration decades earlier: Intrigued, Curie decided to explore her exposure to such extreme radiation “The week of agony I endured some uranium and its mysterious rays as a during her career. In fact, her original 40 years ago at the hands of my esteemed colleague C.S. Wu taught Ph.D. thesis topic. notes and papers are still so radioactive me a lesson about what it means to be Eventually, she realized whatever was that they’re kept in lead-lined boxes, a great scientist. That is, that validity producing these rays was happening and you need protective gear to view of your results must have the highest at an atomic level, an important first them. — LACY SCHLEY priority.” — G.T.

May 2017 DISCOVER 39 HEROES OF SCIENCE

Unsung Hero Francis Beaufort Charting a course for good When he was barely a teenager in the 1780s, Francis Beaufort went to sea in the British Royal Navy. On his first voyage, to China, the ship foundered because of inaccurate navigational charts. Beaufort and other crew members spent five days on the open water before being rescued. The harrowing experience set him on his life’s course. When he was a midshipman, Beaufort began making weather reports every two hours rather than the standard 12- to 24-hour span. By the time he was in command, he kept a detailed weather journal as well, and he had devised a system of alphanumeric notations about weather conditions that became standard throughout the Navy. You may have heard of the Beaufort Scale, which evolved out of his notation system and classifies wind force. Though Beaufort developed the scale for winds at sea, it was later modified to include overland winds as well. What you may not know are Beaufort’s other contributions to science. When he was appointed as Hydrographer to the Admiralty in 1829, he was determined to map all uncharted waters. Over the next Isaac Newton 26 years he produced nearly 1,500 meticulously detailed charts, some of which are still, like his notation The man who defined system, in use today. He also began publishing mariner notices and timetables, transforming the science on a bet Hydrographer’s Office from obscurity into a cutting-edge institution. Oh, and one more science assist: saac Newton was born on plague, Newton discovered the laws In 1831, as Captain Robert FitzRoy Christmas Day, 1642. Never the that now bear his name. (He had to prepared to survey the coasts of humble sort, he would have found invent a new kind of math along the South America, he asked Beaufort to the date apt: The gift to humanity way: calculus.) The introverted English find someone well educated, “some scientific person,” to accompany the and science had arrived. A sickly scholar held off on publishing those expedition. FitzRoy’s ship was the infant, his mere survival was an findings for decades, though, and it HMS Beagle. Beaufort recommended Iachievement. Just 23 years later, with took the Herculean efforts of friend Charles Darwin. — G.T. his alma mater Cambridge University and comet discoverer Edmund Halley and much of England closed due to to get Newton to publish. The only

40 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM reason Halley knew of Newton’s So how did Newton pass his work? A bet the former had with other remaining three decades? Remarkably, scientists on the nature of planetary by modernizing England’s I Know orbits. When Halley mentioned the economy and catching criminals. orbital problem to him, Newton After languishing on a professor’s shocked his friend by giving the salary at Cambridge University for That Name answer immediately, having long ago decades, in 1696 Newton received a One of the biggest honors a scientist worked it out. cushy royal appointment to be Warden can receive is to become the namesake of a unit of measurement Halley persuaded Newton to publish of the Mint in London. It was meant — a fitting reward if they’re the his calculations, and the results were as an easy job with a nice paycheck: ones who discovered what’s being the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia It “has not too much bus’nesse measured in the first place. (All four Mathematica, or just the Principia, to require more attendance than of our “Rushmore” scientists have in 1687. Not only did it describe for you may spare,” his friend Charles units named after them, though only Newton’s made it into the official the first time how the planets moved Montague wrote after landing him International System of Units.) through space and how projectiles the job. But Newton, focused as ever, Sometimes, though, the label is all we on Earth traveled through the air; threw himself into it. know of the scientist. Let’s revisit the the Principia showed that the same After a promotion to Master of people behind the units. fundamental force, gravity, governs the Mint, he oversaw the recoinage DANIEL GABRIEL FAHRENHEIT both. Newton united the heavens and of English currency, advised on (1686–1736) the Earth with his laws. Thanks to him, economics, established the gold The Dutch physicist invented alcohol and mercury thermometers, as well as the scientists believed they had a chance of standard and replaced all the country’s temperature scale that now bears his unlocking the universe’s secrets. metal currency with improved, ridged name (and perplexes the world outside Newton’s academic devotion was coins (still in use today), which the U.S. and a handful of other countries), with 0 degrees marking the temperature absolute. His sometime assistant made it harder to shave off bits of of a 1-1 mix of ice and salt. Humphrey Newton (no relation) the precious metals. ANDERS wrote, “I never knew him to take any CELSIUS He also focused his attention on (1701–1744) recreation.” He would only really counterfeiters, searching them out A well-traveled Swedish leave his room to give lectures — even as zealously as he sought answers astronomer and professor at Uppsala University, to empty rooms. “Ofttimes he did from the heavens. Newton established he invented the Celsius in a manner, for want of hearers, information networks among London’s (also called centigrade) read to the walls,” Humphrey shadiest spots, even going undercover temperature scale. In the system, now used worldwide, water wrote in 1727. Newton never went to do so. Counterfeiting was freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100. halfway on anything. considered high treason, punishable by WILLIAM THOMSON, It would take too long to list death, and Newton relished witnessing LORD KELVIN his other scientific achievements, his targets’ executions. (1824–1907) but the greatest hits might include Newton was known by his peers The British mathematician his groundbreaking work on light as an unpleasant person. He had and physicist helped establish thermodynamics and color; his development and few close friends and never married. and invented our third refinement of reflecting telescopes Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed temperature scale: 0 is equivalent to absolute zero, the (which now bear his name); and other called him “insidious, ambitious, and theoretical coldest temperature fundamental work in math and heat. excessively covetous of praise, and possible. It isn’t measured by degrees, He also dabbled in biblical prophecies impatient of contradiction.” The man but individual kelvins. (predicting the world’s end in A.D. could nurse grudges for years, even JAMES PRESCOTT 2060), practiced alchemy and spent after his foes had died. JOULE years trying, and failing, to produce He famously feuded with German (1818–1889) The unit that measures the fabled philosopher’s stone. Alas, scientist Gottfried Leibnitz, mainly work, or energy (a force even Newton’s genius couldn’t create over who invented calculus first, acting over distance), honors the British physicist the impossible. creating a schism in European who established that all forms of In 1692, this rare failure, along mathematics that lasted over a century. energy are equivalent. He also developed with the unraveling of one of his Newton also made it his life’s work thermodynamics, along with Lord Kelvin. few close friendships — and possibly to torment English scientist Robert ALESSANDRO VOLTA mercury poisoning from his alchemical Hooke, destroying the legacy of (1745–1827) experiments — resulted in what a man once considered London’s The namesake behind today’s volts, which measure differences in electrical potential, we’d now call a prolonged nervous Leonardo da Vinci. Italian physicist and experimentalist Volta breakdown. Newton’s science- How fitting that the unit of force discovered methane, used his tongue to detect electricity and invented the first producing days were over, for reasons is named after stubborn, persistent, electric battery. Continued on next page known only to him, though he would amazing Newton, himself a force of — BILL ANDREWS FROM TOP: OLOF ARENIAS VIA UPPSALA UNIVERSITY AND WIKIMEDIA; SCIENCE SOURCE; MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY EVANS MARY SCIENCE SOURCE; WIKIMEDIA; AND VIA UPPSALA UNIVERSITY ARENIAS OLOF TOP: FROM remain influential in the field. nature.

May 2017 DISCOVER 41 ANDRÉ-MARIE AMPÈRE (1775–1836) Another major electrical unit, the current-measuring ampere, takes its name from this French physicist. He was one of the main founders of the science of electromagnetism, which he christened “electrodynamics.” MAX PLANCK (1858–1947) The German theoretical HEROES OF SCIENCE physicist invented quantum theory, so of course his unit is hard to grasp. The Planck length (1.616 x 10-35 meters), a tiny fraction of a proton’s diameter, is theoretically the smallest possible measurable length. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL (1847–1922) The Scottish-born inventor of the telephone and teacher of the deaf may have a famous name, but the unit named for him hides behind a fractional prefix: the decibel. Fittingly, it quantifies the relative intensity, or loudness, of sounds. CHARLES F. RICHTER (1900–1985) In 1935, the American seismologist and physicist came up with the earthquake-measuring scale that bears his name (though today’s scientists have replaced it with other, more precise systems). Originally interested in astronomy and chemistry, Richter got into seismology simply because that’s where a job opened up. Charles Darwin SCIENCES AND HEALTH COLLEGE OF PHARMACY MASSACHUSETTS SCIENCES LIBRARY, BENEDICTIS HEALTH RIETTA TETSUYA “TED” FUJITA Delivering the evolutionary gospel (1920–1998) The scariest tornadoes are classified as EF5, but harles Darwin would not the Southern Hemisphere, as well as the where does the F come from? The Japanese-born have been anyone’s first flora and fauna they contained. storm researcher Fujita lent guess for a revolutionary Darwin’s observations pushed him his name to the system he created for classifying tornadic destructiveness, scientist. to a disturbing realization — the though scientists have since refined As a young man, Victorian-era theories of animal it into the Enhanced Fujita scale. He also contributed to hurricane and his main interests were origins were all wrong. Most people thunderstorm analysis. Ccollecting beetles and studying geology in Darwin’s time still adhered to in the countryside, occasionally creationism, the idea that a divine being WILBUR SCOVILLE (1865–1942) skipping out on his classes at the was responsible for the diversity of life Even the hotness University of Edinburgh Medical we find on Earth. of hot peppers is School to do so. It was a chance Darwin’s observations implied susceptible to scientific quantification. While invitation in 1831 to join a journey a completely different process. He developing his test, around the world that would make noticed small differences between which assigns Scoville heat units to the various species of Darwin, who had once studied to members of the same species that the genus Capsicum, the American become a country parson, the father of seemed to depend upon where they pharmacist (and presumed spiciness evolutionary biology. lived. The finches of the Galapagos are fan) realized the most sensitive instrument at his disposal was the Aboard the HMS Beagle, between the best-known example: From island human tongue. — B.A. bouts of seasickness, Darwin spent to island, finches of the same species his five-year trip studying and possessed differently shaped beaks, documenting geological formations and each adapted to the unique sources of

myriad habitats throughout much of food available on each island. HEN UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO; OF CONGRESS; HARRIS & EWING COLLECTION/LIBRARY PHOTO/SCHERL; PICTURE LIBRARY/SZ EVANS MARY TOP: FROM

42 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM This suggested not only that species them. This was a level of attention that those species best adapted to their could change — already a divisive uncommon among fathers at that time environments will survive and those that concept back then — but also that — to say nothing of eminent scientists. fall short will die out. the changes were driven purely by Through it all, the theory of evolution Though Darwin’s theory was logically environmental factors, instead of was never far from his mind, and the sound and backed up by reams of divine intervention. Today, we call this various areas of research he pursued evidence, his ideas faced sharp criticisms natural selection. only strengthened his convictions. from adherents of creationism and the When Darwin returned, he was Darwin slowly amassed overwhelming religious establishment around the world hesitant to publish his nascent ideas evidence in favor of evolution in the — just as he had feared. and open them up to criticism, as he 20 years after his voyage. Although it wouldn’t become widely felt that his theory of evolution was All of his observations and musings accepted until the 1930s, Darwin’s still insubstantial. Instead, he threw eventually coalesced into the tour de theory of natural selection and his himself into studying the samples from force that was On the Origin of Species, ideas on evolution have survived largely his voyage and writing an account of published in 1859 when Darwin was intact. “I can’t emphasize enough how his travels. Through his industrious 50 years old. The 500-page book sold revolutionary Darwin’s theory was and efforts, Darwin built a reputation as out immediately, and Darwin would go how much it changed people’s views a capable scientist, publishing works on to produce six editions, each time in so short a time,” says Jerry Coyne, on geology as well as studies of coral adding to and refining his arguments. professor emeritus in the Department of reefs and barnacles still considered In non-technical language, the book Ecology and Evolution at the University definitive today. laid out a simple argument for how the of Chicago. “On the Origin of Species is Darwin also married his first cousin, wide array of Earth’s species came to be. absolutely thorough and meticulously Emma Wedgwood, during this time. It was based on two ideas: that species documented, and anticipated virtually They had 10 children, and by all can change gradually over time, and all the counterarguments. There’s accounts Darwin was an engaged and that all species face difficulties brought nothing you can really say to go after the loving father, encouraging his children’s on by their surroundings. From these important aspects of Darwin’s theory.” interests and taking time to play with basic observations, it stands to reason — NATHANIEL SCHARPING

pull energy from the environment and transmit signals and electricity around Nikola the world, wirelessly. But his theories were unsound, and the project was never completed. He also claimed he had Tesla invented a “death ray.” In recent years, Tesla’s mystique Wizard of has begun to eclipse his inventions. San Diego Comic-Con attendees dress the Industrial in Tesla costumes. The world’s most famous electric car bears his name. The American Physical Society even has Revolution a Tesla comic book (where, as in real life, he faces off against the dastardly ikola Tesla grips his hat Thomas Edison). in his hand. He points While his work was truly genius, his cane toward Niagara much of his wizardly reputation was Falls and beckons bystanders of his own making. Tesla claimed to to turn their gaze to the have accidentally caused an earthquake future. This bronze Tesla — in New York City using a small Na statue on the Canadian side — stands to send current over vast distances, steam-powered electric generator he’d atop an induction motor, the type of powering American homes across the invented — MythBusters debunked that engine that drove the first hydroelectric country. He developed the Tesla coil idea. And Tesla didn’t actually discover power plant. — a high-voltage transformer — and alternating current, as everyone thinks. We owe much of our modern techniques to transmit power wirelessly. It was around for decades. But his electrified life to the lab experiments of Cellphone makers (and others) are just ceaseless theories, inventions and patents the Serbian-American engineer, born in now utilizing the potential of this idea. made Tesla a household name, rare for 1856 in what’s now Croatia. His designs Tesla is perhaps best known for his scientists a century ago. And even today, advanced alternating current at the start eccentric genius. He once proposed a his legacy still turns the lights on. of the electric age and allowed utilities system of towers that he believed could — ERIC BETZ

May 2017 DISCOVER 43 Our Personal Favorites

ISAAC ASIMOV (1920–1992) essays. Lucretius’ only known work, Asimov was my gateway into science On the Nature of Things, is remarkable fiction, then science, then everything for its foreshadowing of Darwinism, else. He penned some of the genre’s HEROES OF SCIENCE humans as higher primates, the study most iconic works — fleshing out of atoms and the scientific method — the laws of robotics, the messiness all contemplated in a geocentric world of a galactic empire, the pitfalls of ruled by eccentric gods. — M.B. predicting the future — in simple, effortless prose. A trained biochemist, KATHARINE MCCORMICK the Russian-born New Yorker wrote (1875–1967) prolifically, producing over 400 books, not all science-related: Of the 10 Dewey McCormick planned to attend medical Decimal categories, he has books in school after earning her biology nine. — B.A. degree from MIT in 1904. Instead, she married rich. After her husband’s death RICHARD FEYNMAN in 1947, she used her inheritance to provide crucial funding for research (1918–1988) on the hormonal birth control pill. She Feynman played a part in most of the also fought to make her alma mater highlights of 20th-century physics. more accessible to women, leading In 1941, he joined the Manhattan to an all-female dormitory, allowing Project. After the war, his Feynman more women to enroll. As a feminist diagrams — for which he shared interested in science, I’d love to be the ’65 Nobel Prize in Physics — friends with this badass advocate for became the standard way to show women’s rights. — L.S. how subatomic particles interact. As part of the 1986 space shuttle JOHN MUIR (1838–1914) Challenger disaster investigation, he explained the problems to the public In 1863, Muir abandoned his eclectic in easily understandable terms, his combination of courses at the University trademark. Feynman was also famously of Wisconsin to wander instead the irreverent, and his books pack lessons I “University of the Wilderness” — a live by. — E.B. school he never stopped attending. A champion of the national parks (enough right there to make him a hero to me!), ROBERT FITZROY (1805–1865) Muir fought vigorously for conservation FitzRoy suffered for science, and for and warned, “When we try to pick out that I respect him. As captain of the anything by itself, we find it hitched HMS Beagle, he sailed Charles Darwin to everything else in the Universe.” It’s OBSERVATORY EARTH AND LAMONT-DOHERTY THARP OF MARIE ESTATE Y; around the world, only to later oppose a reminder we need today, more than his shipmate’s theory of evolution ever. — ELISA NECKAR while waving a Bible overhead. FitzRoy founded the U.K.’s Met Office in 1854, ROLF O. PETERSON (1944– ) and he was a pioneer of prediction; he coined the term weather forecast. Peterson helms the world’s longest- But after losing his fortunes, suffering running study of the predator-prey from depression and poor health, relationship in the wild, between and facing fierce criticism of his wolves and moose on Isle Royale in the forecasting system, he slit his throat in middle of Lake Superior. He’s devoted 1865. — CARL ENGELKING more than four decades to the 58-year wildlife ecology project, a dedication JEAN-BAPTISTE LAMARCK and passion indicative, to me, of what science is all about. As the wolf (1744–1829) population has nearly disappeared and Lamarck may be remembered as a moose numbers have climbed, patience failure today, but to me, he represents and emotional investment like his are an important step forward for crucial in the quest to learn how nature evolutionary thinking. Before he works. — BECKY LANG suggested that species could change over time in the early 19th century, MARIE THARP (1920–2006) no one took the concept of evolution I love maps. So did geologist and seriously. Though eventually proven cartographer Tharp. In the mid-20th wrong, Lamarck’s work brought the century, before women were permitted concept of evolution into the light aboard research vessels, Tharp explored and would help shape the theories of the oceans from her desk at Columbia a young Charles Darwin. Science isn’t University. With the seafloor — then all about dazzling successes; it’s also thought to be nearly flat — her a story of overcoming failures and canvas, and raw data her inks, she — N.S. incremental advances. revealed a landscape of mountain ranges and deep trenches. Her keen LUCRETIUS (99 B.C.–55 B.C.) eye also spotted the first hints of plate My path to the first-century B.C. Roman tectonics at work beneath the waves. thinker Titus Lucretius Carus started Initially dismissed, Tharp’s observations with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Michele would become crucial to proving — G.T. de Montaigne, who cited him in their continental drift. TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSIT MICHIGAN IMAGES; AGOSTINI/GETTY DE GRANGER NYC (2); VIA GETTY IMAGES; DEBORAH FEINGOLD/CORBIS TOP: FROM

44 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Galileo Galilei Discoverer of the cosmos

round Dec. 1, 1609, which was based in Aristotle’s Italian mathematician incorrect views of the cosmos. The Galileo Galilei pointed church declared the sun-centered a telescope at the model heretical, and an inquisition moon and created in 1616 ordered Galileo to stop Unsung Hero modern astronomy. His promoting these views. The real blow subsequentA observations turned up from religious officials came in 1633, four satellites — massive moons — after Galileo published a comparison Raymond Dart orbiting Jupiter, and showed that of the Copernican (sun-centered) and Getting to the root of it In 1924, scientific consensus held that the Milky Way’s murky light shines Ptolemaic (Earth-centered) systems humans had evolved somewhere in from many dim stars. Galileo also that made the latter’s believers look Eurasia. After all, human-like fossils found sunspots upon had been found from Germany’s the surface of our Neander Valley to the Indonesian star and discovered island of Java. Then an Australian anatomist the phases of Venus, working in South Africa received a which confirmed that package. The delivery was expected. the planet circles the Its contents were not. sun inside Earth’s The box was supposed to contain own orbit. a fossilized partial baboon skull from a limestone quarry in the country’s “I give infinite heartland. Raymond Dart had planned thanks to God, who to add it to a museum collection. has been pleased to To Dart’s surprise, the skull in the make me the first box belonged to a child. Not a human observer of marvelous child, but also not a baboon. The specimen was large-brained. Because things,” he wrote. the spinal cord entered the skull at The 45-year-old the bottom rather than at the back, Galileo didn’t invent as it does for chimps, Dart believed the telescope, and the individual had walked upright — until then, considered an exclusively he wasn’t the first human trait. to point one at the sky. He called the skull Australopithecus But his conclusions africanus and argued that it showed changed history. we evolved in Africa. Science, its center Galileo knew he’d of authority then firmly in Western Europe, scoffed. But South African found proof for the paleontologist Robert Broom and theories of Polish Dart began exploring the country’s astronomer Nicolaus numerous cave systems. They turned Copernicus (1473- up more fossils, far older than any 1543), who had from Eurasia. Even as Dart’s theory of our launched the Scientific ancestral African homeland was Revolution with his vindicated, a series of discoveries sun-centered solar system model. foolish. They placed him under house in eastern Africa beginning in 1959 Galileo’s work wasn’t all staring at arrest until his death in 1642, the same suggested that was where our the sky, either: His studies of falling year Isaac Newton was born. ancestors had evolved. Over the past two decades, however, bodies showed that objects dropped The English mathematician South Africa has re-emerged as the at the same time will hit the ground at would build on Galileo’s law of potential root of our family tree with the same time, barring air resistance inertia as he compiled a set of laws additional finds, some older than — gravity doesn’t depend on their so complete that engineers still use eastern Africa’s famous “Lucy.” Paleoanthropologists still disagree size. And his law of inertia allowed for them centuries later to navigate on where our ancestors took their Earth itself to rotate. spacecraft across the solar system — first bipedal steps. But the debate, But all this heavenly motion including NASA’s Galileo mission thanks to Dart, is over which part of contradicted Roman Catholic doctrine, to Jupiter. — E.B. Africa we should call home. — G.T.

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HEROES OF SCIENCE DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM of numbers The enchantress Lovelace Ada T only 36.Babbage abandoned death in1852,when shewas would lastuntilLovelace’s eventual closefriendshipthat up aworking relationship and at firstsight.Thetwo struck invention.” and saw the thegreat beauty of she was, understooditsworking, a gun. . . Miss Byron, young as seeing alooking-glassorhearing are saidtohave shown onfirst expression . . . that somesavages instrument withthesortof thisbeautiful the working of “While at othervisitorsgazed family friendwho was there: machine. According toa his incomplete prototype of met Babbage at aparty. work onit,theteenage Lovelace calculator. his Inthemiddle of — essentially, a giant mechanical he calledtheDifference Engine plans for anelaborate machine Byron.) Babbage haddrawn up poetLord legitimate childof Byron. (Shewas theonly of known by hermaidenname Lovelace was just17andstill started intheearly 1830s, when Babbage. Theircollaboration inventor andengineerCharles without Britishmathematician, emerged. before today’s computers programmer —afullcentury It was mathematical obsession There, an heshowed off She couldn’t have done it

as thefirstcomputer her placeinhistory Ada Lovelace earned an understatement. hertimewould be of o say shewas ahead should themachine ever seethe solving acomplex math problem, Lovelace even wrote instructions for nearly any mathematical taskordered. card meanttheenginecouldperform user feditcommandsviaapunch mechanisms andthefactthat the than acalculator —itsintricate saw that engine’s truepotential. crunching —but itwas Lovelace who more complexcapable number of a new Analytical Engine—intheory, his Difference Enginetobrainstorm The Analytical Enginewas more exerted over it.” masculine intellects . . . couldhave has grasped itwithaforce which few Sciences and the mostabstract of has thrown hermagical spellaround Lovelace was an“enchantress who she calledit,that definesherlegacy. it’s herwork in“poeticalscience,” as gambling andscandal, raucous lifeof the firstprogrammer. While sheled a computer program, andLovelace later deemthoseinstructionsthefirst day.light of Many historianswould In the words of BabbageIn thewords of himself, — L.S. Pythagoras Math’s mystery man

emories of middle or mathematicians of antiquity. His high school geometry influence was widespread and lasting. invariably include Theoretical physicist James Overduin an instructor drawing sees an unbroken chain from Pythagoras right triangles on a to Albert Einstein, whose work on blackboard to explain curving space and time Overduin calls Mthe Pythagorean theorem. The lesson “physics as geometry.” Unsung Hero was that the square of the hypotenuse, Even today, the sea of numerical or longest side, is equal to the sum formulas typically on physicists’ of the squares of the other sides. blackboards suggests the Pythagorean Mary Anning Simply put: a2 + b2 = c2. A proof maxim “All is number,” an implication Godmother of paleontology Along the southern coast of followed, adding a level of certainty that everything can be explained, England, waves crash against rare in other high school classes, like organized and, in many cases, predicted sea cliffs, eroding the rock and social studies revealing fossils that span the and English. Mesozoic Era, the time of dinosaurs Pythagoras, and giant reptiles. For centuries, locals combed the a sixth-century beaches, or picked their way up B.C. Greek the crumbling cliffs, looking for philosopher and curiosities to sell to tourists and mathematician, collectors. It was dangerous work, is credited but Mary Anning’s father taught her the trade when she was still with inventing a child. When he died young, it his namesake became a way for Anning to help theorem and support her family. various proofs. Anning was no more than 13 But forget years old when she found her first notable fossil, in 1812: the fossilized about the body matching the Ichthyosaurus certainty. skull her older brother had Babylonian uncovered the previous year. She and Egyptian soon discovered more, including plesiosaurs, fish, invertebrates and a mathematicians pterosaur, England’s first. used the Visitors to her fossil shop often equation noted they found Anning a woman centuries before of considerable intelligence and Pythagoras, knowledgeable about anatomy. Geologists and scholars in the says Karen Eva emerging field of paleontology Carr, a retired sought her out. When she died historian at of cancer at age 47, she was Portland State honored by the Geological Society University, of London, an organization that would not admit women for though many another 72 years. scholars leave Respect is one thing; formal open the recognition is another. Anning’s possibility finds entered museum collections he developed under the names of the men who purchased them from her. Research the first proof. based on her discoveries rarely Moreover, Pythagoras’ students often through mathematics. The Pythagorean acknowledged her contribution. attributed their own mathematical theorem proof doesn’t just work Even today, the sharp-eyed discoveries to their master, making sometimes, most of the time or when woman who got her hands dirty taking pick and shovel to sea it impossible to untangle who the stars align — it works all the time. cliffs is best remembered as a invented what. Pythagoras’ legacy includes the scientific tongue twister: She sold seashells Even so, we know enough to suspect hallmarks of pattern, order, replication by the seashore, yes, but she also Pythagoras was one of the great and certainty. — M.B. scienced. — G.T.

May 2017 DISCOVER 47 48

HEROES OF SCIENCE DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM shared withHenriBecquerel. radioactivity andforcreating the firstartificialradioactive IRÈNE JOLIOT-CURIE 1903 NobelPrizeinPhysics, polonium earned themthe polonium earned crystallography, butjoined Prize inChemistrywithher theory ofourAfricanorigins; also promoted primatefield his wife’s research. Their Key figure inadvancingthe discovery ofradioactive Originally specializedin husband forresearch on Physicist andchemist Currently aleadingexpert Shared the1935Nobel research andhelpedJane on thegeneticsofbeans. Heads theKoobiFora Research Project, whichfocuseson The carindustryhadtheFords,oilRockefellers,andpoliticsKennedys.Science,too,hasitslegacylineages. discovered newhominin element, phosphorus. elements radiumand Has ledteamsinAfrica’s Turkana Basinthathave paleoanthropologist Paleoanthropologist MEAVE LEAKEY PIERRE CURIE Goodall getherstart. COLIN LEAKEY LOUIS LEAKEY Archaeologist and (1859–1906) (1897–1956) Plant biologist (1903–1972) Chemist finding humanfossils intheTurkana Basin. Great Dynasties ofScience (1942– ) (1933– ) species. Paleontologistand anthropologist The Leakeys LOUISE LEAKEY h uisTheAlvarezes The Curies (1972– ) leadership ofKenyancultural important Africandigs,his Louis andsometimesonher and wildlifeconservation Best remembered forwriting Madame Curie, groups, andhispositions RICHARD LEAKEY Won asecondNobelPrize, in Kenyangovernment. own, madeseveralmajor Homo habilis Sometimes workingwith Paleoanthropologist hominin finds,including biography ofhermother. Chemist andphysicist coordinating several paleoanthropologist Primarily knownfor for continuedstudyof radioactive elements. MARY LEAKEY in chemistry, in1911, Archaeologist and MARIE CURIE Writer, journalist LABOUISSE (1867–1934) and diplomat ÈVE CURIE (1913–1996) (1904–2007) (1944– ) ancestor. , ourdistant a best-selling Astronomical Society;madesignificantcontributions Among manyotherthings,helpedfoundtheRoyal to cataloging the Southern Hemisphere’sto catalogingtheSouthern nightsky WILLIAM JAMES One ofthefirstpeople to usefingerprints for identification. and tothefieldofphotography. Astronomer, mathematician, British officer HERSCHEL chemist andphotographer work onaliquidhydrogen (1833–1917) SIR JOHNHERSCHEL diagnose themacularform Nobel PrizeinPhysicsfor Developed abetterwayto Milky Way’s disk-likeshape. several key government several keygovernment Besides discoveringUranus astronomical observations, radar projects inWorld Manhattan Project and LUIS FERNANDEZ was thefirsttomap and makingmanyother War II;wonthe1968 LUIS WALTER Contributed tothe bubble chamber. SIR WILLIAM (1911–1988) ALVAREZ HERSCHEL (1853–1937) ALVAREZ (1792–1871) (1738–1822) Astronomer Physicist of leprosy. Physician The Herschels WALTER C.ALVAREZ diagnosing certaindigestive STEWART HERSCHEL brother andanastronomer non-invasive techniquefor developed thehypothesis Valuable assistanttoher WALTER ALVAREZ wiped outthedinosaurs. Made manyobservations Her discoveriesinclude that anasteroid impact of astronomical objects, the stomach’s electrical Pioneered thestudyof electrogastrography, a Along withhisfather, activity andfounded in herownright: including meteors ALEXANDER HERSCHEL CAROLINE LUCRETIA eight comets. (1750–1848) Astronomer (1884–1978) (1836–1907) Astronomer and comets. conditions. Geologist Physician (1940– ) — L.S. Carl Linnaeus Say his name(s)

t started in Sweden: a functional, biology. Linnaeus started a revolution, user-friendly innovation that but it was an unintentional one. took over the world, bringing Today we regard Linnaeus as the order to chaos. No, not an Ikea father of taxonomy, which is used closet organizer. We’re talking to sort the entire living world into Unsung Hero about the binomial nomenclature evolutionary hierarchies, or family Isystem, which has given us clarity trees. But the systematic Swede and a common language, devised by was mostly interested in naming James Hutton Carl Linnaeus. things rather than ordering them, an Unconformist rock star Born in Edinburgh at the height Linnaeus, born in southern Sweden emphasis that arrived the next century of the Enlightenment, James Hutton in 1707, was an “intensely practical” with Charles Darwin. was a gifted observer. With that skill man, according to Sandra he would formulate the first theories Knapp, a botanist and of deep time, and of how our taxonomist at the Natural planet’s surface constantly recycles itself — ideas considered heretical History Museum in London. in his day. He lived at a time when formal Hutton’s work became the scientific training was scant basis of modern geology, inspired and there was no system for Charles Darwin and prefigured referring to living things. Plants plate tectonics, volcanology, geobiology and the Gaia Hypothesis, and animals had common a late-20th-century view of the names, which varied from one planet as a single self-regulating location and language to the organism. next, and scientific “phrase His keen eyes also steered him names,” cumbersome Latin away early on from a different path. After attending medical school in descriptions that could run the 1740s, Hutton opted to become several paragraphs. a gentleman farmer. He traveled The 18th century was also a through much of Britain learning time when European explorers the latest agricultural techniques, but the landscapes themselves were fanning out across the increasingly drew his attention. globe, finding ever more plants He became obsessed with and animals new to science. unconformities in the rocks, where “There got to be more and strata are distorted, rumpled or more things that needed to jumbled in composition, some layers of rock thrusting near vertically into be described, and the names those above or below. were becoming more and more Earth, Hutton theorized, was not complex,” says Knapp. a static thing, but a dynamic world Linnaeus, a botanist with of constant reinvention. Continents a talent for noticing details, first used As evolution became better built up and then wore down, the cycle repeating over millions or even what he called “trivial names” in the understood and, more recently, billions of years. margins of his 1753 book Species genetic analysis changed how we Hutton lived at a time when even Plantarum. He intended the simple classify and organize living things, learned “natural philosophers” — Latin two-word construction for each many of Linnaeus’ other ideas have the word scientist did not yet exist plant as a kind of shorthand, an easy been supplanted. But his naming — believed Earth was a mere 6,000 years old. When he finally published way to remember what it was. system, so simple and adaptable, Theory of the Earth in 1788, he “It reflected the adjective-noun remains. endured vituperative criticism. structure in languages all over the “It doesn’t matter to the tree in The key word here is endured. world,” Knapp says of the trivial the forest if it has a name,” Knapp Despite the initial negative reaction, and a few decades of obscurity names, which today we know as genus says. “But by giving it a name, we can after his death, Hutton’s theory and species. The names moved quickly discuss it. Linnaeus gave us a system eventually became mainstream — from the margins of a single book to so we could talk about the natural the bedrock upon which modern the center of botany, and then all of world.” — G.T. earth sciences sit. — G.T.

May 2017 DISCOVER 49 Rosalind Franklin The hero denied her due

n 1962, Francis Crick, James to the council. In 1953, Watson and Watson and Maurice Wilkins Crick published their iconic paper

HEROES OF SCIENCE shared the Nobel Prize for in Nature, loosely citing Franklin, describing DNA’s double-helix whose “supporting” study also structure — arguably the greatest appeared in that issue. Unsung Hero discovery of the 20th century. But Franklin left King’s in 1953 in Ino one mentioned Rosalind Franklin a long-planned move to join J.D. — arguably the greatest snub of the Bernal’s lab at Birkbeck College, Henrietta Lacks 20th century. where she discovered the structure Woman, cell line, symbol The British-born Franklin was of the tobacco mosaic virus. But More than 65 years after her death, a firebrand, a perfectionist who in 1956, in the prime of her career, Henrietta Lacks’ contributions to worked in isolation. “She was she developed ovarian cancer — science are a cause célèbre. HBO planned to air a movie about her life prickly, did not make friends easily, perhaps due to her extensive X-ray in April; high-profile lectures and but when she did she was outgoing work. Franklin continued working conferences now bear her name. and loyal,” Jenifer Glynn wrote in in the lab until her death in 1958 When Lacks died at 31, however My Sister Rosalind Franklin. at age 37. — a wife, a mother of five and an Franklin was also a impoverished black tobacco farmer struck down by cervical cancer — brilliant chemist and she was virtually unknown. Tissues a master of X-ray from the malignancy were collected, crystallography, an without the knowledge or consent of imaging technique that Lacks or her family, and used to create reveals the molecular the first human-derived cell lines. HeLa, as the cell lines are known, have structure of matter proven invaluable for cancer research. based on the pattern They have been the basis of tens of of scattered X-ray thousands of experiments. beams. Her early But researchers barely tried to research into the protect Lacks’ identity, treating her cells as no different from a sample microstructures of collected from a lab rat. When writer carbon and graphite Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 best-seller are still cited, but her The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks work with DNA was brought her story into the public the most significant — spotlight, it spurred an outcry. Little changed, however. In 2013, and it may have won researchers published the HeLa three men a Nobel. genome, with personal information While at King’s pertaining to both Lacks and her College London in the family, online with her identity. early 1950s, Franklin The incident led the National Institutes of Health to create a review was close to proving process that gave Lacks’ descendants the double-helix a voice in approving future HeLa theory after capturing research. The arrangement represents “photograph #51,” a new era in the handling of human considered the finest genetic material. image of a DNA molecule at the “As a scientist, Miss Franklin was There are other Henriettas out there: individuals whose genetic time. But then both Watson and distinguished by extreme clarity information has been used in research Crick got a peek at Franklin’s and perfection in everything she without consent. It’s logistically work: Her colleague, Wilkins, undertook,” Bernal wrote in her impossible to track down these showed Watson photograph #51, obituary, published in Nature. unwitting participants or their descendants. Instead, they remain and Max Perutz, a member of Though it’s her achievements that the true unsung heroes of science. King’s Medical Research Council, close colleagues admired, most Henrietta Lacks’ greatest legacy handed Crick unpublished data remember Franklin for how she was is to give them a face, that we be from a report Franklin submitted forgotten. — C.E. reminded of our debt to them. — G.T.

50 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Getting Out the Word Science needs to get out of the lab and into the public eye. Over the past hundred years or so, these scientists have made it their mission.

SEAN M. CARROLL (1966– ) the first buckets. His posthumously The physicist (and one-time Discover published A Sand County Almanac blogger) has developed a following is a cornerstone of modern among space enthusiasts through his environmentalism. lectures, television appearances and books, including The Particle at the End BILL NYE (1955– ) of the Universe, on the Higgs boson. What should an engineer and part-time stand-up comedian do with his life? RACHEL CARSON (1907–1964) For Nye, the answer was to become With her 1962 book Silent Spring, a science communicator. In the ’90s, the biologist energized a nascent he hosted a popular children’s science environmental movement. In 2006, show and more recently has been an Discover named Silent Spring among eloquent defender of evolution in the top 25 science books of all time. public debates with creationists.

RICHARD DAWKINS (1941– ) OLIVER SACKS (1933–2015) The biologist, a charismatic speaker, The neurologist began as a medical first gained public notoriety in 1976 researcher, but found his calling in with his book The Selfish Gene, one of clinical practice and as a chronicler his many works on evolution. of strange medical maladies, most famously in his book The Man Who JANE GOODALL (1934– ) Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, CARL SAGAN (1934–1996) Goodall’s patience and observational skills led to fresh insights into their It’s hard to hear someone say “billions behavior — and led her to star in a and billions” and not hear Sagan’s number of television documentaries. distinctive voice, and remember his 1980 Cosmos: A Personal Voyage STEPHEN JAY GOULD miniseries. Sagan brought the wonder (1941–2002) of the universe to the public in a way that had never happened before. In 1997, the paleontologist Gould was a guest on The Simpsons, a testament NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON GETTY IMAGES; EVERETT COLLECTION; MICHEL GUNTHER/SCIENCE SOURCE; ROBIN MARCHANT/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID MONTGOMERY/GETTY IMAGES MONTGOMERY/GETTY DAVID ROBIN MARCHANT/GETTY IMAGES; MICHEL GUNTHER/SCIENCE SOURCE; EVERETT COLLECTION; GETTY IMAGES; to his broad appeal. Among scientists, Gould was controversial for his idea of (1958– ) evolution unfolding in fits and starts The astrophysicist and gifted rather than in a continuum. communicator is Carl Sagan’s successor as champion of the universe. In a STEPHEN HAWKING (1942– ) nod to Sagan’s Cosmos, Tyson hosted the miniseries Cosmos: A Spacetime His books’ titles suggest the breadth Odyssey in 2014. and boldness of his ideas: The Universe in a Nutshell, The Theory of Everything. “My goal is simple,” he has said. “It E.O. WILSON (1929– ) is a complete understanding of the The prolific, Pulitzer Prize-winning universe, why it is as it is and why it biologist first attracted broad public exists at all.” attention with 1975’s Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. His subsequent ALDO LEOPOLD (1887–1948) works have filled many a bookshelf with provocative discussions of If Henry Thoreau and John Muir biodiversity, philosophy and the animals primed the pump for American he has studied most closely: ants. environmentalism, Leopold filled — M.B.

SCIENCE STARS to his accessible explanations naturalist Emily Graslie brings Raychelle Burks demystifies the of the universe in TV and viewers into the guts of the molecules behind poisons, dyes The next generation radio shows, books and public natural world, often literally. and even Game of Thrones via As science progresses, so does the appearances. When not talking dinosaurs or video, podcast and blog. roll call of new voices serving as Neuroscientist Carl Hart head transplants on Australian Climate scientist and bridges between lab and layman. debunks anti-science myths radio, molecular biologist evangelical Christian Katharine Here are some of our favorite supporting misguided drug Upulie Divisekera coordinates Hayhoe preaches beyond emerging science stars: policies via various media, @RealScientists, a rotating Twitter the choir about the planetary British physicist Brian Cox including his memoir High Price. account for science outreach. changes humans are causing became a household name in the From the Amazon forest to the Mixing pop culture and in PBS’ Global Weirding video U.K. in less than a decade, thanks dissecting table, YouTube star and chemistry, analytical chemist series. — ASHLEY BRAUN FROM TOP: ALFRED EISENSTAEDT/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; ASTRID STAWIARZ/GETTY IMAGES; COLIN MCPHERSON/CORBIS VIA COLIN MCPHERSON/CORBIS IMAGES; ASTRID STAWIARZ/GETTY LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; ALFRED EISENSTAEDT/THE TOP: FROM

May 2017 DISCOVER 51 52 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM SMARTY PLANTS They learn. They remember. They make decisions. Your garden greenery is brainier than you think.

BY MARTA ZARASKA

ONICA GAGLIANO, an evolution- The first three days were devoted to training. ary ecologist at the University Gagliano taught one group of peas that if a fan of Western Australia, thought blew at them from a certain part of the maze, her experiment on associative a blue light (something all peas crave) would fol- learning in plants wasn’t working. low. Another group of seedlings was trained that Her team was trying to find out when the fan blew, the light would appear in the whether you could train com- opposite corridor. For the third group, acting as a M mon peas in a way similar to how control, there was no association between the fan Pavlov trained his dogs. But the two-week experi- and the light. ment was over, with no results — or so she believed. And the little pea plants learned. “Depending on “I went into the lab to dismantle everything. the treatment, the plants knew exactly what the fan And then I suddenly realized that these plants meant,” Gagliano says. were doing what I was looking for — and doing it Based on maze studies involving animals, so well, so beyond my expectations, that I couldn’t the typical subjects for this type of experiment, even see it at first,” she says. Gagliano and colleagues expected the peas to grow For the first time, Gagliano and her colleagues randomly, which is the standard research assump- showed that you can train plants the same basic tion — for animals. Their initial model didn’t take way you can train dogs. While Pavlov’s mutts into account that peas have their own system and learned that the ring of a bell meant food was com- will always grow toward light. ing, Gagliano’s team taught the garden peas to “Until I saw my peas doing their thing, the stan- associate a fan with light. dard, hypothetical assumption of 50/50 random The researchers placed seedlings choice was all I could see, and what most scientists under a maze made out of plumbing would see because of our own learned condition- pipes; the growing pea had to make ing, funny enough,” says Gagliano. “The peas a choice each time it hit a fork in the taught me how to see beyond my own training and road whether to go left or right. conditioned assumptions.” ILLUSTRATION BY ETIAMMOS/ADOBE STOCK

May 2017 DISCOVER 53 For Gagliano, that particular experiment, pub- nutrition there,” Baluška says. “At least 20 physical lished in Scientific Reports in late 2016, showed not parameters — such as temperature, humidity or only that plants can learn by association — which is levels of heavy metals — are continuously sampled astounding in itself — but also how easily humans and analyzed. And all this information has to be underestimate plants. “We are plant blind,” she says. then somehow processed and compared to make the right decision about which way to grow.” He THE ROOT OF THINKING believes we should think of plants as having a body In 1880, Charles Darwin theorized that plants have plan not so unlike our own, just upside down, with special cells devoted to processing information and their heads buried in the ground and their back- making decisions about root growth, similar to a sides and sexual organs, such as flowers, sticking brain. Yet it was only in the 1990s that František into the air. It may be a disturbing thing to picture, Baluška, a plant cell biologist at the University of but Darwin had a similar mental image of plants. Bonn in Germany, began proving Darwin’s theory. No matter where the “brains” of plants might be Baluška admits that he was once plant blind, too. located — if they exist at all, that is, since the idea Early in his career, he suspected that a group of cells remains controversial — plenty of behavioral stud- in the plant roots could be important. Only years ies show they are far more brainy than we tend to later would he and colleagues discover the cells were assume. For one, they remember stuff. If you don’t actually a kind of command center. “These cells water your houseplants, they may not get angry, Evolutionary ecologist Monica are highly specialized for sampling and processing but they might commit your misdeed to memory. Gagliano (below) information and then directing the root growth,” he To study this memory, scientists can evoke what’s studies the cognitive abilities of a variety says. “And they are very similar to our neurons.” called a “drought stress” in their leafy subjects. In of plants, including In a way, it makes perfect sense that plants would one 2015 study, researchers took 3-week-old speci- the humble pea (right) in her lab have their “brains” in the soil. Soil is a tough place mens of Arabidopsis thaliana (a relative of cabbage at the University to be. “It’s a very difficult task for the root to find and mustard) out of the soil. They patted all the of Western Australia. water off their roots with filter paper and left the seedlings to dry for up to two hours. That kind of treatment is something no plant likes — hence the stress. Later, when the young seedlings were put back into water, they didn’t trust the newfound abundance and behaved as if they were ready for another period of drought: The pores on their leaves remained partially closed, limiting drinking, but also limiting moisture loss in case of another dry spell.

SHAKEN AND STIRRED In 2014, Gagliano chose a different species to study plant memory: Mimosa pudica, famed for its sen- sitivity to touch. If you brush a leaf of a mimosa with your fingers, it will fold almost instantly. She FRANCES ADRIJICH (2)

54 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM TOP: JAY SMITH AFTER GAGLIANO, M. ET AL. LEARNING BY ASSOCIATION IN PLANTS/SCIENTIFIC REPORTS/SREP38427/2 DECEMBER 2016. BOTTOM: SUTHAN/SHUTTERSTOCK ish Columbiawho studiesmycorrhizal networks. Simard, aforest Brit ecologist at the University of plant toplant,like atelephonewire,” says Suzanne fungi.“Theseare direct pipelinesfrom bodies of plants andconductssignals through interwoven an underground systemthat connectsroots of what’s goingonthrough themycorrhizal network, riences, theycanalways chat withotherstofindout they can’t rely ontheirmemories tocompare expe out what’s happening intheirenvironment. And if Just like humans, plantshave many figuring ways of PLANT CHAT had never experienced ahotspell. epigenetic memory—even thoughtheythemselves had differentially expressed genes—clearsignsof thenext generation were tested,they the tissuesof in acomfortable 71.6degrees Fahrenheit. Butwhen the stressed plants togrow peacefully andreproduce 107 degrees Fahrenheit. Afterward, theyallowed seedlings toextreme heat —about ascorching The researchers repeatedly exposed 2-week-old are cultivated inIndiafor theiroil-richseeds. on Indiancolzaplants, turnipsthat relatives of anexperiment scientists published theresults of hold truefor plants. Canadian In2015,agroup of any changestotheDNA itself. Thesamemay changes inhow theirgenesare expressed, without inherit fearfulmemoriesfrom theirparents through be epigeneticinnature. Mice, for example, can to how memories are formed long-term inanimals. stresscells leave inaway that’s imprintsof similar example, that fluctuations incalciumlevels inplant a few possibilitiesare emerging. Itcouldbe, for ‘How — they Gagliano says, “Butlet’s looktheotherway round plants have nobrains, sohow cantheydoit?’ ” made themindifferent tothe fall.Itwas memory. danger, showing itwas notjustsimplefatigue that closed theirleaves toprotect themselves from dropping them,theplantsrapidly pots insteadof thescientistsvigorously shookthemimosa But if andwouldharmless notbothertofold theirleaves. later, theystillremembered that beingdropped was completely ignored theexperience. Even amonth weren’t aseager toclose. After60falls, theplants the third. Butby thefourth go, themimosaleaves happened afterthefirstdrop, andthesecond, enough tocausetheplantsfold theirleaves. It heights. Theresearchers letthemfall6inches, far stroking theirleaves: Theydropped themfrom something more radical tothemimosaplantsthan inItaly Firenze Australia did andUniversity of Westernand hercolleagues from theUniversity of Other studieshintthat memoryinplantsmay Researchers can’t answer that questionyet, but “The typicalreaction tothisexperiment is, ‘But do theydoit?’ ” do it.Sothequestionshouldrather be, - - Pea Plant Experiment Pea Plant (A) three groups. Some were chosen as broadcast as chosen were Some groups. three Kingdom. United the in They took fava bean plants and based divided them into scientists by 2013 in done was network underground that through talk by aninsect is emitting a plantbeing devoured the others. Afterall,if what ishappening with just eavesdropping on they’re talking, orif whether theplantsare really themselves were underanattack. natural they insectrepellents —inresponse, asif bors emittedmore phenolicsandtannins—their sometrees were damaged, theirhealthyof neigh odors,” shesays. Inaclassic1983study, when leaves compounds that plantsuseincommunication have theirconversations, thevolatileof becausemany of trees.is thelanguage “We of cantuneinto some theair.deep breath andsniff What you are smelling The next timeyou gotoaforest, Simard says, take a — anotherway plants canexchange information. venting themfrom talkingviaairbornechemicals plantsinpolyester bags,all three groups of pre nicating through theroots, theresearchers covered defense. aphid specific the duce notpro did and danger ofthe unaware remained plants unplugged Butthe chemicals. repellent aphid- producing began plants Those attack. insect ofimpending ofplants group second the mycorrhizal network, the broadcasters warned the via compounds outchemical Bysending tem. sys “telephone” soil the from unplugged groups, other the from separate butalso aphid-free was group, control the third, the And network. root the via attack under plants the to but connected aphid-free, was ofbeans group Asecond them. destroying plants, unlucky the on munch would that aphids hungry in covered were —they ers The first study to clearly show plants do indeed indeed do show plants clearly to study first The The obvious questionis To testwhether thefava plantswere truly commu Seedlings insideY-maze (B) ------light andfan. association between that there wasno and wastrained acted asthecontrol the fan.Athird group and grew awayfrom opposite direction a fanwithlightinthe toassociate learned A secondgroup (B) the testingphase. toward thefanduring light andgrew with asubsequent to associateafan group (A)learned experiment. One they craveina2016 to seekthebluelight how pipes learned a mazeofplastic Pea seedlingsin perceives athreat. instantly iftheplant close itsleavesalmost Mimosa pudica will Plants Communicate Via . . .

Compounds in the air

Mycorrhizal networks in the ground

Researchers have long known plants can communicate defensive chemicals that are later detected by another encouraging them to prepare for the hard times. And with each other plant, it doesn’t necessarily mean the first plant had the reason they do it is not necessarily altruistic. In through the release of volatile any intention of warning others. But scientists from the case of peas, for example, being less vulnerable compounds in the Israel recently put such doubts to rest by studying to drought also means being less vulnerable to pests, air; studies have now shown an how garden peas raise a “drought alarm.” A plant which attack when plants are weakened. If all the underground system stressed by lack of water will emit chemicals that its neighbors are healthy, they are less likely to attract of roots and fungi, neighbors detect. These plants react to the warning leaf-munching visitors to the area. Everyone is bet- called the mycorrhizal network, can also by closing their stomata — tiny openings on their ter off. “Information is being sent from one plant carry signals from one leaves — to slow down moisture loss. But the chain to another, directly, and it changes their behavior,” plant to the next. of threat communication doesn’t end there. Simard says. “We humans push air through our The plants that have been warned, even though vocal cords and out comes sound. With plants it’s not stressed themselves, will start sending signals not air over vocal cords, but carbon compounds

about the impending drought to those farther away, released into the air. It’s a language, too.” READ/UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD DAVID

56 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM And just like humans, it appears not all plants similarly shaped relative was speak the same language. Different individuals detected, nepotism kicked release different volatile compounds — words — in: The plant would grow its into the air, which combine into what scientists leaves away from the family call a “signature” — the equivalent of a sentence. member to avoid shading it. The more related the plants are, the more similar In addition to talking to their language, and the easier it is for them to each other, recognizing rela- communicate. tives and remembering stress- Experiments in 2014 on sagebrush showed some ful events, some plants can plants spoke a language dominated by camphor even count. Take the Venus’ compounds, while others emitted more thujone, flytrap, a carnivorous plant coincidentally the same chemical suspected to native to the wetlands of the be responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of Carolinas. When a fly lands absinthe. Those sagebrush plants that communi- inside the trap, the leaves cated using similar airborne “words” were better shut, and the plant begins to at warning each other about the arrival of hungry digest its prey. Experiments pests. What’s more, plants inherit their language published in 2016 showed the from parents — so speaking the same dialect helps plant counts how many times them also recognize relatives. the victim touches sensory hairs on the outer surface of FIGURING OUT THE FAMILY TREE the trap, initially to confirm If you are a plant, there is a good chance you’ll the catch is something that spend your life surrounded by your family, for bet- moves, and therefore edible. ter or for worse. “For a plant, there are two reasons One, two, and the trap shuts. to recognize a relative,” says Susan Dudley, plant Three, four, five, and diges- The Venus’ flytrap biologist at McMaster University in Ontario. “One tive juices start flowing. The mechanism is simple, counts the number of times prey comes is to avoid mating with them, and the other is to but strikingly reminiscent of what’s going on in in contact with benefit from the relationship. Competition can be the brains of animals: Touching the sensory hairs its sensory hairs to determine the costly. So whom do you trust? Your relatives share fires electrical messages, or “action potentials” — size of the hapless your genes, so in a way their success is your success. known as nerve impulses in animals. insect, when to shut its leaves to trap the It’s basically nepotism.” In one of Dudley’s experi- “The plant can judge, by simply counting the creature, and even ments, Arabidopsis thaliana plants sampled chemi- number of action potentials spreading over the how much digestive juice to produce cals coming from the roots of their siblings. Once trap, whether useless dead material has landed for its meal. exposed to these signatures, they restrained the inside it or if useful animal prey has been caught,” growth of their own roots to leave more resources says Sönke Scherzer, an electrophysiologist at the for others, something they didn’t do if the secre- University of Würzburg in Germany, and one of tions came from strangers. the study’s co-authors. “Counting also includes Plants are also capable of recognizing their some kind of memory, since the plant must remem- relatives by their body shape — which tends to ber — at least for a certain time interval — how be similar to their own. In a series of experiments many action potentials have been evoked before.” published in 2014, Argentinian biologists grew If plants can learn, count and recognize family, young Arabidopsis thaliana (yes, scientists really can we say they actually think? That they are intel- like that plant) in rows of pots. The team used ligent? Conscious? How you answer these questions many different setups: In some, the seedlings were depends largely on your definition of concepts such simply placed between either relatives or strangers. as intelligence or cognition. Yet the way we view In other setups, the researchers positioned plastic plants is changing. “A few years ago you couldn’t light filters between the plants. And in yet others, use the term plant behavior in accepted journals, but they used genetically modified plants that lacked now the concept of plant behavior is not controver- some sensory light receptors. After analyzing all the sial anymore,” says Baluška. data, the researchers were able to establish that the Gagliano believes we tend not to credit plants seedlings recognized each other by body shape: The with intelligence simply out of habit, because most plants’ light receptors could sense different patterns of us remain plant blind: “If you want to see plants of red to far-red light and blue light visible around as something that can never do anything purpose- and reflected off of the other seedlings, creating a fully,” she says, “that’s what you are going to see.” D profile of each plant. Think of it in broad terms, the way you can pick out a friend walking toward you Marta Zaraska is a freelance journalist based in France in a crowd, even if the light is in your eyes and you and author of Meathooked: The History and Science of Our

IMAGE QUEST MARINE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO QUEST MARINE/ALAMY STOCK IMAGE can’t see her facial features. For the seedlings, if a 2.5-Million-Year Obsession With Meat.

May 2017 DISCOVER 57 Advertisement How To Fix Your Fatigue and Get More Energy PALM SPRINGS, CA -- According to patients at the Center for Restorative Medicine, a new dis- covery has completely transformed their lives.

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In a dramatic press conference yesterday, Dr. Gundry unveiled a simple — yet highly effective The science behind his formula is brand new, — solution to symptoms that plague millions of and was met with both fascination and enthu- Americans over 30: low energy, low metabolism siasm by those in attendance. Immediately and constant fatigue. following the announcement, Dr. Gundry’s team released a comprehensive video presenta- He went on to say that persistent fatigue can tion, so that the public can be educated as to be a warning sign for much more serious health exactly how it works. Watch the presentation problems…including diabetes, obesity, hyper- here at www.GetEnergy26.com tension and heart disease. Within just a few hours, this video had gotten “When you’re feeling low energy, that’s your thousands of hits, and is now considered to body screaming HELP!” He told the crowd of have gone viral. One viewer commented: “If this reporters and medical professionals. works, it’s exactly what I’ve been praying for my whole life. I’ve never seen anything like this Dr. Gundry’s radical solution was inspired by a solution before…the truth about my diet was breakthrough with a “hopeless” patient who had shocking and eye-opening.” been massively overweight, chronically fatigued and suffering from severely clogged arteries. Of course, Dr. Gundry’s announcement was met with some hesitation. We spoke to some The secret to his breakthrough? “There are who attended the press conference, who ad- key ‘micronutrients’ missing from your vised that people keep their expectations real- diet,” Dr. Gundry told the room. “If you can istic. replenish them in very high dosages, the health results are astonishing.” It makes a lot of sense, and it sounds great in theory, but we’ll have to wait and see what the This unorthodox philosophy is what led results are. Knowing Dr. Gundry, however, there Dr. GundryWRFUHDWHWKHZRUOG¶V¿UVWDWKRPH is a great deal of potential. treatment for fatigue — which has since be- come remarkably successful with his patients. See his presentation here at GetEnergy26.com “They’re reporting natural, long-lasting energy ZLWKRXWDµFUDVK¶DQGWKH\¶UHIHHOLQJVOLP¿WDQG active,” he revealed yesterday. Powered by

OUT THERE magazine A Look at the Universe and All Its Wonders

PRESERVING THE VIEW As the starry sky glows green from the northern lights, one source of illumination is noticeably absent: light pollution. With no glare from streetlights or billboards, this lone observer at Glacier National Park’s Lake McDonald enjoys a sight all but invisible from urban areas. Read how officials at our national parks are taking the lead to slow the growth of light pollution, starting on page 6 0 .  ERNIE MASTROIANNI; PHOTO BY JACOB FRANK/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

May 2017 DISCOVER 59 OUT THERE

shared experience for so much of the Protecting America’s history of humanity,” he adds. Humans themselves are the cause. Light pollution from streetlights, Last Dark Skies structures, parking lots, billboards, and more now spreads by 6 percent Few stargazing sites deliver like America’s national parks. each year. As a result, these common But even these places are under threat. stories from our past have faded like BY ERIC BETZ the constellations that cradled them.

A smattering of crisp, white clouds FORGOTTEN HEROES A GRAND STAR PARTY →lingers west of Grand Canyon And, as a crowd builds in a darkened But not on this night. Not here. National Park. And as the desert sun parking lot near Grand Canyon’s The National Park Service has shut sets, smoke from a far-off fire turns the Mather Point, the talk here turns to off the visitor center lights for the sky as red as the surrounding Supai the greatest of those ancient heroes annual Grand Canyon Star Party. sandstone. Venus slowly emerges from — Hercules. Barentine is guiding a Red LED ropes guide park visitors behind the clouds like a beacon of the group of parkgoers on a tour of the from telescope to telescope through night. Jupiter and the evening star push night sky. “Imagine with me that there the parking lot, where some 50 toward the horizon, racing the crescent is the body of a man who’s kneeling,” amateurs have their instruments moon in a perfect isosceles triangle. Barentine says as he sketches the open to the public. Their setting leaves an inky black figure on the sky in green laser. “His “Ask questions. Take any telescope sky bustling with activity. Faint stray body is this set of four stars here that’s you like and ask them what they’re meteors streak at zenith, and satellites sometimes called The Keystone.” looking at,” the Tucson Amateur crawl across the sky like ants on their As part of his 12 labors of penance, Astronomy Association’s Jim ardent paths. Barentine explains, Hercules was forced O’Connor tells a standing-room-only If you sat here on a moonless to steal the golden apples of the Hesper- crowd at the visitor center auditorium. night like this and counted through until dawn, you could tally thou- sands of stars. “The place you are in is special — Sitting around smoldering campfires, people keep that in your mind — in contrast looked to the stars and relived the tales of their to the places that most of us live,” says International Dark-Sky Association heroes. Now these experiences are confined to (IDA) astronomer John Barentine, who manages the Dark-Sky Places Program. star sanctuaries like Grand Canyon National Park. “Every human being once shared this experience of looking up into the night sky and seeing it filled with stars.” ides. To get them, our Greek hero — the “We’re going to interpret the night sky Before the spread of electricity, illegitimate son of Zeus — adventured for you.” humans across the planet knew the in search of Hera’s secret garden and Each year, the Tucson astronomy stories written in the skies. Sitting killed the dragon that guarded them. club partners with the Park Service to around smoldering campfires, people That serpent is now commemorated in host eight nights of public observing looked to the stars and relived the tales the constellation Draco the Dragon, near the South Rim’s Mather Point. It’s of their heroes. Now these experiences placed next to Hercules in the night sky. the best-attended special event that the are confined to star sanctuaries like “The human brain saw patterns in Canyon hosts. Grand Canyon National Park. those stars. And we translated all of Enthusiastic volunteers bring their In 2016, while the nation celebrated our human hopes and our fears and telescopes from all over the country to a century since the inception of the our dreams and our worries onto camp together and share their love of National Park Service, the agency those stars,” says Barentine. “The the stars with visitors from all over the recommitted itself to protecting natural night sky inspires. world. The Saguaro Astronomy Club a resource overlooked by many in “We are losing this thing — ‘the of Phoenix hosts a simultaneous star

America — the night sky. night’ — that has been our common party at the remote North Rim Lodge. TYLER NORDGREN

60 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM May 20171 DISCOVER 61 OUT THERE

In both instances, tourists come night at Grand Canyon, if the moon is To protect the last of these sites, the to see the Grand Canyon and find down, if you’re there late into the night, National Park Service has established themselves looking through an will be filled with thousands of stars.” its Colorado Plateau Dark Sky eyepiece at the heavens. Unlike most The public lands that shelter the last Cooperative. It’s an attempt to rally star parties with a dedicated core of of our wild places now also give refuge state and federal agencies, along with amateur astronomer attendees, this to our celestial heritage. Most Ameri- local tribes, communities, businesses, one brings in more than 1,000 mem- cans have never seen the Milky Way and citizens, to the dark-sky cause. bers of the public each night. Many — the nebulous and star-rich center This community support network travelers revel in the park’s skies every of our galaxy. And within a decade, recognizes the popularity of Southwest other night of the year. The Grand scientists expect that Americans will skies and their importance as a tourism Canyon and other major American have to make pilgrimages to one of draw, as well as an environmental national parks have set attendance just three significant dark patches to necessity. And already their movement records in recent years. see the Milky Way in all its wonder. has helped forward discussions on what These refuges consist of the deserts of to do about errant visitors center lights THE LAST REFUGE eastern Oregon/western Idaho, western and streetlights, as well as encroaching “There are not many places you can Utah/northeastern Nevada, and the oil and gas development. go in the lower 48 United States that Colorado Plateau — the 100,000 Over the past decade, sites like Chaco are relatively easy to get to where you square miles of high elevation desert Culture National Historical Park,

can see this,” Barentine says. “A typical surrounding the Grand Canyon. Rainbow Bridge National Monument, HARUN MEHMEDINOVIC/SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM

62 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM Revelers watch the sunset during the annular eclipse at Grand Canyon National Park in 2012.

Group, recently tried — and has so Light pollution far failed — to seize on this and build (brighter Grand Canyon officials hope to preserve colors) from the region’s natural lightscape for shopping malls, tract homes, high-end Phoenix and centuries to come. boutiques, and even a dude ranch just Las Vegas spreads to off Highway 64. Grand Canyon To the east, another developer National Park’s night skies. Grand Canyon-Parashant National is pushing a controversial plan to Monument, and, most recently, build a gondola to the bottom of Canyonlands National Park, have been the Grand Canyon near the conflu- named Dark-Sky Parks, which increases ence of the Colorado and Little their profile as stargazing destinations. Colorado rivers — a site where the The attention helps protect the natural Hopi tribe believes their ancestors lightscape, too. originated. Such developments could capitalize FLIPPING THE SWITCH on the nearly 5 million visitors who But light pollution is creeping into even travel to the Grand Canyon each year. these places. At the Grand Canyon, But they would also strain the already skyglow washes in from Las Vegas and scarce water supplies and wash out Phoenix — hundreds of miles away. some of the faintest stars cherished by The enemies of the night are also now those who travel to the parks to recon- approaching the gates. Every visitor nect to the natural world. to the Grand Canyon South Rim’s The Park Service opposes the main entrance must pass through the developments at its door. And it’s now tiny town of Tusayan. And an Italian tackling the developments within

FROM TOP: ERIC BETZ; NPS; TYLER NORDGREN NPS; ERIC BETZ; TOP: FROM developer, the Stilo Development its borders as well.

May 2017 DISCOVER 63 OUT THERE

“We’re trying to improve the dark “We have inventoried a little over park is pushing to retrofit all offend- skies here in Grand Canyon National 5,000 fixtures — everything from porch ing lights and achieve a full dark-sky Park,” says park ranger Marker lights to floodlights on big buildings,” designation by the Grand Canyon’s own Marshall. “We’ve got a lot of light says the now former Grand Canyon centennial in 2019. fixtures that are very old and are not as National Park Superintendent Dave dark-sky friendly as they could be.” Uberuaga. The change will play out one A PRESERVE LIKE NO OTHER Park officials have developed a plan lightbulb at a time. The Park Service is Susan Schroeder is CEO of the Grand with help from the IDA. And the Grand now looking at how to treat each one — Canyon Association, the park’s Canyon has applied for provisional shielding the lights that need shielding non-profit partner in fundraising. She IDA Dark-Sky Park status — the gold and buying new lamps where necessary. says her group aims to gather about standard for any stargazing destination. And even switching off a light isn’t $1 million to complete the retrofits and But the task ahead is monumental. always easy. Desert View Watchtower, add ranger-led interpretive programs Thousands of old lights at the designed by famed architect Mary about dark skies. The money also will South Rim had to be cataloged Colter, is one of the most iconic park pay for an astronomers’ campground and analyzed, with hundreds more buildings. From its perch, the 70-foot- at Mather Point, one of the most several hours away at the North tall stone structure looks all the way popular sites in the entire park system. Rim. To achieve full dark-sky status, down to the Colorado River — a rarity The grounds will cater to dark-sky the park will have to actually fix the at the South Rim. That profile recently enthusiasts and their telescopes. offending lights. prompted river runners to complain So far, one generous amateur astrono- Most luminaries on the replacement about an errant light left on. mer has covered much of the cost. Joe list would be a familiar nuisance to any “The electrician went up there and Orr was a member of both the Tucson skygazer. But the canyon also operates they couldn’t find a way to turn it off, so Amateur Astronomy Association and remote trading posts and campgrounds they went into the electrical panel box, the Grand Canyon Association. far below the rim, like Indian Gardens and it was wired in. It didn’t even have a He donated a large part of his wealth and Roaring Springs. switch,” Uberuaga says. Ultimately, the to protect dark skies at the park, and

Light Pollution Map of the United States

MINNEAPOLIS

BAKKEN OIL FIELD

SAN FRANCISCO CHICAGO NEW YORK

DALLAS LAS VEGAS PHOENIX ATLANTA VATORY

MIAMI EAGLE FORD OIL FIELD SUOMI NPP SATELLITE/NASA EARTH OBSER EARTH SUOMI NPP SATELLITE/NASA

64 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM With no nearby cities, Utah’s Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, situated just north of the Grand Canyon, has some of America’s darkest skies.

his passionate programs on the subject leaky water supply pipes and antiquated North Slope and the desolate Bakken inspired others to give money as well. infrastructure. Other National Park region centered in North Dakota. The Orr died recently, but he left some Service sites face similar problems. boom in oil production has created money in trust to help with the Grand jobs in the previously unpopulated Canyon retrofits. And last year’s star DARK SKIES FOR ALL PARKS region. And that new residential and party was named in his honor. But if funding allows, the standards commercial infrastructure is bringing “That anchor initial amount really developed at Grand Canyon will be new lights near Theodore Roosevelt got us launched,” Uberuaga says. rolled out across the parks system. National Park. The impact is most Already the undertaking at Grand Anyone with an iPad can now theoreti- obvious when seen from space. NASA Canyon is tougher than any previous cally go out into the field and catalog photos show how the Bakken region dark-sky effort. So far, most IDA parks lights, creating an actionable database. became one of the brightest regions in have been small. “They would like to get to a model the West in just a few short years. Its They’re often in remote places with where essentially almost every national skyglow rivals that of large metropoli- little nearby development and relatively park unit short of the ones that are tan areas. The same is true of shale oil few visitors. Those parks never had a lot in urban settings would qualify to fields in Texas. of lighting to begin with. In contrast, become a Dark-Sky Park under the IDA “The place you are in is special, but the Grand Canyon had nearly 5 million program because they’ve put a standard it shouldn’t be in a sense,” Barentine visitors in 2015. And it’s also home to a set of policies in place,” Barentine says. says to a group of skywatchers standing town of park workers. “They would standardize the applica- near Mather Point. “Of course, the “This is really in many respects unlike tion process to the IDA.” Grand Canyon is great and we can’t any Dark-Sky Park application we’ve That could help protect these reproduce it everywhere on Earth, but dealt with before,” says Barentine. dark-sky sanctuaries in perpetuity. the night sky over the Grand Canyon is And the herculean effort is even more Even remote-sounding national parks something that we can bring back if we remarkable because it comes at a time like Rocky Mountain and Joshua Tree so choose to do that.” D when Grand Canyon National Park have seen light pollution encroach is already facing a multibillion-dollar from nearby cities. The problems Eric Betz, a former associate editor at

HARUN MEHMEDINOVIC/SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM backlog in maintenance work to repair now also include Alaska’s remote Astronomy, is an associate editor at Discover.

May 2017 DISCOVER 65 History Lessons When Dinosaurs Went Bad Today’s depictions of agile, often feathered animals are a far cry from the saggy tail-draggers of yesteryear. How did early research get it so wrong? BY GEMMA TARLACH

In 1842, English anato- → mist Richard Owen pro- posed the term dinosauria for the strange animal fossils he and colleagues had begun to study. Owen drew from ancient Greek to create the word: dei- nos, meaning “terrible” in the awesome-to-behold sense, and sauros, “reptile” or “lizard.” The truth is, those early paleontologists — and generations of their successors — got those terrible lizards, well, terribly wrong: T. rex as a tail-dragging lunk, tank- like Iguanodon, long-necked sauropods submerged in water because surely they were too big to walk on land. Scientific inaccuracies abound in this 1916 illustration of a tail-dragging, sprawled-posture Diplodocus by One problem early paleon- Heinrich Harder. A century later, we know better thanks to a richer fossil record and more rigorous research. tologists faced was that they were limited to merely looking at a fossil but back then the concept would have in both academic and public spheres, and finding a living animal to compare it been very hard to imagine.” and research standards were often less with visually. than rigorous. In lecture rooms and “Dinosaurs were very alien, ENTRENCHED IDEAS museum halls, the idea of dinosaurs as very different,” says University of Early on, a few great minds did suspect overgrown lazy lizards was so dominant Leicester paleontologist David Unwin. that science might be getting dinosaurs that it verged on the absurd. “[Paleontologists] tried to force them to wrong. Comparative anatomist Consider the Diplodocus debate of fit into paradigms that didn’t exist then.” Thomas Henry Huxley, for example, the early 20th century. After acquiring Matthew Lamanna, assistant noticed similarities in the body plans a specimen of the massive sauropod, curator of vertebrate paleontology of dinosaurs and birds as early as Carnegie Museum paleontologist at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of the 1860s. He thought there might William Holland and colleagues Natural History, agrees that early be an indirect evolutionary relation- mounted it for display in an elephant- paleontologists were restricted by what ship, though he never claimed birds like posture. We now know this was the they could compare dinosaurs to — descended from dinosaurs. right approach: legs directly beneath and how they understood the broader But Huxley — often called Darwin’s the body, rather than the sprawled living world. bulldog for his staunch support of stance of a reptile. “Remember the origin of the word evolution — couldn’t rally others to the The move brought howls of disap- dinosaur predates the theory of evolu- idea. It would be more than a century proval, most pointedly from two tion,” Lamanna says. “Ideas about before the dinosaur-bird connection paleontologists, American Oliver Hay animal [species] being transitional had gained traction. and German Gustav Tornier, who yet to materialize. Now we know that And it was a long hundred-plus insisted that the 80-foot-plus animal

dinosaurs are sort of bizarre croc-birds, years. Interest in dinosaurs was growing had walked like a reptile. PHOTO FLORILEGIUS/ALAMY STOCK

66 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM “Holland had a spectacular rebuttal,” book The Dinosaur Heresies as person- says Lamanna, referring to a withering ally influential. 1910 paper by the Carnegie paleontolo- Evidence mounted in support of gist, which included illustrations based Ostrom and his new school of thought. on Tornier’s claims. “Holland articulated But stalwarts of the Old Lizard Guard the skeletons in the sprawling posture, remained — until another extraordinary but their ribs were so damn deep that discovery in the mid-1990s. they projected below the body.”

As Holland drily pointed out in the Dinosaur feathers in amber from Myanmar are FEATHERWEIGHT FIND retort, if his critics were right about another link to the animals’ descendants: birds. In 1995, a farmer in northeastern China the dinosaur’s stance, “the Diplodocus found a feathered dinosaur. “It was the must have moved in a groove or a rut. THE DINOSAUR RENAISSANCE final piece of the puzzle,” Lamanna This might perhaps account for his early The team, based near Bridger, says. “The skeptics had to admit that extinction. It is physically and mentally Mont., and led by John Ostrom, dinosaurs were progenitors of birds bad to ‘get into a rut.’ ” found numerous fossils of an animal because feathers are such a uniquely Research waned during and imme- he would later name Deinonychus avian characteristic. It was one of those diately after the world wars, but at the antirrhopus. Some pieces had been rare moments in science where the same time, dinosaurs’ sheer weirdness discovered in 1931, but Ostrom answer is so clear it’s like getting hit over made for perfect escapist fare in movies was the first to grasp the dinosaur’s the head with a two-by-four.” such as 1933’s King Kong. In fact, significance. The Chinese dinosaur, Hollywood and pop culture’s embrace In 1969, he laid out a case for Sinosauropteryx, had primitive, almost of dinosaurs may have set research Deinonychus as an “active and very furlike feathers classified as filamentous. back. According to veteran dinosaur agile predator” that was potentially But in short order, researchers found illustrator Gregory Paul, writing in The warmblooded. In subsequent research, more feathered dinosaurs, including Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Ostrom went a big step further: Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx. “the very popularity of dinosaurs He compared his famous find with “These dinosaurs had feathers with OF THE BULLETIN OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY/JULY 1969/YALE UNIVERSITY/PEABODY.YALE.EDU/YPM-VP-005207 1969/YALE HISTORY/JULY MUSEUM OF NATURAL THE PEABODY OF THE BULLETIN OF gave them a circus air that convinced specimens of the earliest-known bird, a central rachis, veined, barbed,” says many scientists they were beneath their Archaeopteryx, and made the link Lamanna, referring to their advanced scientific dignity and attention.” Huxley had stopped short of a century structure. “They were modern feath- While the idea of dinosaurs as lum- earlier: Birds evolved from dinosaurs. ers for all intents and purposes.” The bering lizards persisted, research didn’t Ostrom’s theory, bolstered by last holdouts to the dinosaur-bird come to a standstill. Postwar expeditions additional finds, reignited interest in connection caved. to Mongolia and China, mostly by the field. And if Huxley was Darwin’s Additional feathered finds — both Soviet and Polish scientists, unearthed bulldog, Ostrom had his own bold filamentous and fully developed — con- many new species that couldn’t be forced champion in former student Bob tinue to emerge. In December 2016, for into the traditional reptile stereotype, Bakker, whose larger-than-life personal- example, researchers described a fully such as the monster-clawed enigmas ity was perfectly sized to take on the feathered, partial tail of a dinosaur Therizinosaurus and Deinocheirus. establishment. preserved in amber from Myanmar. It was a Yale University team in the “Bakker argued that even the least Myanmar, also known as Burma, is mid-’60s, however, that ushered in a new birdlike dinosaurs were more an emerging hotspot for fossil discover- era for the terrible lizards. birdlike than we thought,” ies, illustrating another phenomenon says Lamanna, who cites changing our understanding of dino- the paleontologist’s 1986 saurs. More people looking in more places means more fossils are seeing the light of day. Some of the most stunning Paleontologist John Ostrom’s 1969 recent finds have come from Argentina, description of agile Deinonychus antirrhopus (shown here in an Morocco, Australia and Niger. illustration by Bob Bakker, his student Dinosaurs have now been found from at the time) ushered in a new way of understanding dinosaurs. the Arctic Circle to Antarctica. Technology is also a driving force. “We’ve got more fossils, which is

TOP: ROYAL SASKATCHEWAN MUSEUM (RSM/R.C. MCKELLAR). BOTTOM: DEINONYCHUS ANTIRRHOPUS BY ROBERT BAKKER/J. OSTROM ET AL./COURTESY AL./COURTESY OSTROM ET BAKKER/J. ANTIRRHOPUS BY ROBERT DEINONYCHUS BOTTOM: MCKELLAR). MUSEUM (RSM/R.C. SASKATCHEWAN ROYAL TOP: great,” Unwin says. “But it’s laptops and

May 2017 DISCOVER 67 History Lessons

mainframes that are the foundation of PHOTO A LLC/ALAMY STOCK The Many Iterations of Iguanodon this field moving forward. Digitization has had the biggest impact on how we Few dinosaurs have had as many extreme makeovers as Iguanodon. Over nearly two centuries, the herbivore has been imagined as a spike-nosed lummox, inappropriate describe the past.” kangaroo and now, at last, a stiff-tailed, mostly quadrupedal animal. Lamanna sees some of the biggest strides — no pun intended — being 1825: Only the second dinosaur made in how dinosaurs moved. For (after Megalosaurus) to be classified scientifically, the species’s first starters, let’s nail the coffin shut on the fragmentary fossils were named whole tail-dragging thing. Dinosaurs by British paleontologist Gideon did not walk like crocodiles. Mantell for the similarity of their “We’ve found a lot more skeletons, teeth to those of iguanas. In addition and we also have hundreds of fossil to reconstructing Iguanodon as a stout, tail-dragging reptile, early trackways, preserving dinosaur foot- paleontologists placed a finger prints,” says Lamanna. “If you watch bone on the animal’s snout. (Fun a crocodile walking, you’ll see its tail fact: The individuals Mantell initially described as Iguanodon were reclassified leaves a significant furrow, something in the 20th century as relatives and .) Therosaurus Mantellisaurus we don’t see very much with dinosaurs.” 1851: Dining or Unwin agrees, adding that digitiza- dino-ing? A London tion allows paleontologists to model event held inside movement in a way that would have a reconstructed been impossible a few decades ago. “We Iguanodon was the talk of the town might not be able to tell how T. rex and helped cement moved yet, but increasingly we can tell the notion of the you how T. rex didn’t move,” he says. dinosaur as a tank- like, spike-nosed reptile. NEXT STEPS

As passionate as paleontologists get AMERIC GROUP NORTH UNIVERSAL IMAGES PHOTO; MUSEUM/ALAMY STOCK HISTORY THE NATURAL PHOTO; STOCK PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY EVANS MARY about advances in their field, one imagines they’re no more excited than 1878: It was one step forward, one step back their predecessors once were about their when several Iguanodon specimens turned up in Bernissart, Belgium. The completeness of multiple theories. Might we one day find that individuals confirmed once and for all that the our early 21st-century reconstructions ol’ snout spike was actually a modified thumb. are just as flawed as the reptilian beasts Paleontologists also realized the animals were imagined in the Victorian era? not dedicated quadrupeds. They overcorrected, Unwin doubts it, noting modern however, and reconstructed it in a bipedal kangaroo posture — even though they had to paleontology’s methods: “Computers misalign some of the bones to make it work. allow us to approach our research more like they do in astronomy and physics 1980: The discovery of and other hard sciences. We’re moving stiffened tendons along the away from the qualitative, subjective tail established Iguanodon as approach and toward quantitative mod- no tail-dragger. Other research eling. We’re producing very rigorous during this dinosaur renaissance, looking work. Thirty years ago we never had at the inflexibility of its hand and wrist, anything like the datasets underpinning revealed that Iguanodon spent most of its time with four limbs on the ground, our research now.” but was capable of some bipedalism. Lamanna is more cautious: “I’m sure we’re doing things now that we’ll regret 21st century: Will future Iguanodon reconstructions sport feathers? Stay tuned. one day, too.” Some things, after all, Despite having a beak and being an ornithischian, or “bird-hipped” dinosaur, the D animal isn’t closely related to the lineage that evolved into birds. However, since never change. 2002 paleontologists have unearthed a couple of other ornithischians with primitive bristle or furlike feathers. Iguanodon may get yet another makeover. — G.T. Senior editor and dinosaur lover Gemma

Tarlach cried through much of Jurassic World. YORK/1859; NEW GOODRICH/DERBY&JACKSON, KINGDOM/S.G. THE NATURAL OF HISTORY LIBRARY/ILLUSTRATED BIODIVERSITY HERITAGE TOP: FROM

68 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

Prognosis A Master of Evasion Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat. It might meet its match with researchers’ latest immunotherapy tactics. BY DOUGLAS G. ADLER

Most people don’t obesity and simply being older → even know they have a than 60. Obviously, not all pancreas, let alone what it does. of these risk factors can be One of my patients, Richard, controlled. was no exception. He came The organ’s location ensures to see me after experiencing its intimate relationship with several months of weight loss many of the key blood vessels and fatigue. that course through the A CT scan revealed a abdomen. So when pancreatic concerning spot on his pancreas cancers either spread to other as well as other spots on his organs or become intertwined liver, and a biopsy confirmed with some of these vessels, our worst fears: He had surgery is off the table. Even pancreatic cancer. The spots on among those who do undergo his liver also were pancreatic surgical removal of the cancer, cancer cells, indicating recurrence is common, with the cancer had spread, or as many as 60 percent seeing metastasized, to another organ. the disease return within Richard’s cancer was advanced six months. and likely to result in his death. That’s why even in 2017 most In more than two decades patients with pancreatic cancer as a doctor, I’ve diagnosed are left with medical, rather more than 1,000 patients with than surgical, treatment options. pancreatic cancer, and giving Often, that medical treatment this kind of news is never easy. becomes purely palliative,

Richard was 65, had just retired The pancreas hides behind the stomach and small intestine. The meaning we manage the growth a few months earlier and was organ’s location makes treatment of pancreatic cancer challenging. of the cancer and its effects on looking forward to spending the body as well as we can, but time with his grandchildren. When The pancreas itself is about 6 inches we don’t expect to cure the disease. I called him with his results, he was long and tucked away behind the understandably devastated. I marveled stomach and small intestine. It pumps RESISTANCE IS THE RULE once again at the destructiveness of out hormones such as insulin, which Chemotherapy has emerged as the this disease. helps to regulate blood sugar levels, cornerstone of treatment for pancreatic Pancreatic cancer — pancreatic in addition to enzymes that allow us cancer patients. It extends life by ductal adenocarcinoma — is the to digest food. When cells start going months or years and can improve most common tumor of the pancreas awry, catching cancerous growths early quality of life. Drugs like fluorouracil, and has the worst prognosis. Within is nearly impossible. The symptoms oxaliplatin and irinotecan work by five years of diagnosis, 95 percent — jaundice, weight loss and pain — mimicking and damaging DNA of patients die of the disease. Yet often develop late in the course of the molecules, or inhibiting enzymes researchers are finally making some disease, usually too late for effective involved in cell and DNA replication, headway by studying how to harness treatment with surgery. The risk factors slowing the uncontrolled growth of the power of the body’s own immune for pancreatic cancer are numerous tumor cells. Another common and system to extend, by even a few months, but some major ones include tobacco newer drug used to treat pancreatic

patients’ lives. use, chronic pancreatic inflammation, cancer is gemcitabine, which also SCIEPRO/SCIENCE SOURCE

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PACIFIC NORTHWEST & NATIONAL PARKS OF THE AMERICA’S SAN FRANCISCO AMERICAN WEST MUSIC CITIES August 17-26, 2017 August 16-28, 2017 August 14-22, 2017 • Enjoy 2 minutes and 2 seconds of totality at • View 2 minutes of totality in the stunning sky • Experience 2 minutes and 40 seconds of a specially selected viewing location in central above Jackson Hole, Wyoming. totality near Nashville, Tennessee, the best Oregon. • Visit Lowell Observatory, journey through viewing location in the country. • Discover some of the Pacifi c Northwest’s red rock country around Sedona, marvel • Enjoy 4-star accommodations in New Orleans, most notable cities, including Seattle, Bend, at the cliff s of Zion National Park, enjoy Memphis, and Nashville. Portland, and San Francisco. a storied lodge in Yellowstone, visit the Grand Canyon, pay your respects at Mount • Tap your toes to traditional jazz, go behind • Explore Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market, Rushmore, and much more. the scenes at RCA’s recording studios, visit nearby Mount St. Helens, the Columbia River Graceland and the Grand Ole Opry, and Gorge, Crater Lake and Redwood National • Enjoy the best of regional cuisine and much more. It’s a feast for the eyes — Park, and cross the Golden Gate Bridge. accommodations in Salt Lake City and and the ears!

P30221 Jackson Hole. See all the tours at DiscoverMagazine.com/trips-tours Prognosis

mimics one of the building blocks of immune system. One approach is to DNA and interferes with the ability of give patients specific antibodies that cancer cells to reproduce. target the homing devices (essentially However, as a 95 percent mortality chemical receptors) in white blood rate suggests, chemotherapy isn’t a cells, rendering the tumor cells viable treatment over the long term. immunologically visible. Why is it that pancreatic cancer seems Antibodies like this have been to be maddeningly resistant to most helpful in a variety of cancers, and chemotherapy regimens? Pancreatic have potential for pancreatic cancer, cancers are often desmoplastic, but so far they haven’t worked for meaning that they contain and are unclear reasons. surrounded by dense scar tissue called Conversely, the immune system fibrosis. This scar tissue can serve as contains triggers to blunt immune a protective barrier for pancreatic Pancreatic cancer cells are adept at protecting responses, and antibodies that block cancers, allowing tumors to resist themselves from chemotherapy drugs. these “off-switch” checkpoints might chemotherapy and evade the body’s be able to further reduce the ability of own immune system. cells. In this way, the patient’s newly these cancers to escape the immune Pancreatic cancer cells can also educated immune system would then system. Drugs that work in this manner protect their nuclei, home to the target and kill any future cells that have been approved to treat melanoma chromosomes that contain DNA, show the same antigens — the real but have been tested in a limited by blocking chemotherapy agents. pancreatic cancer cells. manner, with little success so far, in Moreover, in some cases, pancreatic A similar idea involves injecting patients with pancreatic cancer. cancer cells can even repair damage to cancer patients with strains of different In yet another approach, researchers their DNA caused by the chemotherapy bacteria that have been genetically could modify specific white blood drugs that do get into the tumor, modified to present antigens found cells (called T-cells) to see and target further protecting themselves. on pancreatic cancer cells. This helps pancreatic cancer cells, although this teach the immune system to target therapy could attack healthy cells, IMMUNE SYSTEM ADVANTAGE the rogue cells. too. Novel methods to turn these Despite all of this bad news, researchers These vaccines have been used in modified T-cells off after a certain are aggressively looking for new combination with chemotherapy time are one way around this potential avenues to treat pancreatic cancer. to provide a one-two punch to complication. These approaches could One of the more interesting of these pancreatic cancer cells. One study ideally be used alone or in combination is immunotherapy. Immunotherapy used a pancreatic cancer vaccine with with each other or chemotherapy to treatments use the body’s own immune modified pancreatic cancer cells known attempt to “hit” these tumors with system to seek out and destroy cancer as GVAX, alongside the chemotherapy everything we have. cells. If there were a way to strengthen drug cyclophosphamide and a special Immunotherapy as a science is the body’s immune system to give it an bacterium that boosts the immune still young; our understanding of advantage, this would offer patients response. Researchers reported that the immune system and how it helps a chance to not only kill cells in the those with metastatic pancreatic fight cancer is a work in progress. primary tumor, but also allow the body cancer who received the combination Medical researchers are working hard to “scrub” away cancer cells that have treatment had an overall improved to develop effective vaccines and spread to other organs. survival with only limited side effects. other immunotherapy treatments for Immunotherapy takes several forms. The added survival translated into pancreatic cancer. While it would be The most appealing version would be a several months of extra life, and while fantastic for patients if we could use so-called cancer vaccine. A pancreatic that may not sound like much, a few immunotherapy to cure this disease, cancer vaccine could be made of whole months of additional survival with an just stopping — or even slowing — its pancreatic cancer cells, treated so they aggressive cancer is a big deal. progress would be a tremendous can’t replicate, but modified to present leap forward. D certain molecules on the surface of BEYOND THE VACCINE those cells. Those molecules would Other possible ways to attack Douglas G. Adler is a gastroenterologist help “teach” the body’s immune system pancreatic cancer cells focus on taking and professor at the University of Utah

to recognize and attack these cancer away their ability to hide from the School of Medicine. STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE SOURCE

72 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM CLASSIFIEDS THE YEAR IN SCIENCE TRAVEL Science SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS AMAZON RAINFOREST Discover Award-winning lodge in Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo ® for Curious January/February 2017 Reserve, shown to have the world’s greatest diversity of primates. Customized itineraries, TOP daily departures. 1-800-262-9669. Minds STORIES Visit: www.perujungle.com Detecting OF 2016 Alzheimer's Earlier Scary-Smart Artificial Intelligence Climate Change DO YOU HAVE A PRODUCT, Get a full year in Overdrive Next-Gen OR SERVICE YOU WANT Spaceflight (10 issues) More Hobbitses, Precious! TO PROMOTE TO OVER . . . AND MORE! The collision Discover! of two black holes generates of gravitational 6 MILLION READERS? waves. • Breakthroughs in science,

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[email protected] DiscoverMagazine.com/Offer P30444 20 Things You Didn’t Know About …

Earthquakes BY GEMMA TARLACH

1 Our planet is full of famous shaky spots or side to side. 12 Surface waves, which travel only — California, Japan, New Zealand and so on at or near Earth’s surface, actually cause the most — but the father of modern seismology hailed damage. These waves move slower than body waves from comparatively stable Ireland. 2 In 1849, but don’t lose their oomph as they travel. 13 While Dublin-born engineer Robert Mallet detonated seismic waves are now well understood, science kegs of gunpowder he’d buried on a beach to test still can’t explain earthquake lights (EQL), multi- how shock waves traveled through rock and other colored flashes in the sky typically reported before material: the world’s first seismological experi- or during many large tremors. EQL sightings date ment. 3 We’ve also got Mallet to thank for back to at least the fourth century B.C. 14 A 2014 the very word seismology. He coined the term study in Seismological Research Letters suggested that from the Greek seismos, or earthquake. 4 Mallet EQL may be the result of positive charges building wasn’t the first to study tremors, though. Back up along the fault line as stress increases before in the fourth century B.C., for example, Aristotle the big shake. 15 Large earthquakes happen theorized that surface shakes were caused by winds mostly along faults where tectonic plates meet whooshing through underground spaces. 5 In the as they move over the planet’s surface. But second century A.D., China’s Zhang Heng created plenty of smaller earthquakes, most not even the first seismoscope, which reportedly picked up felt by humans, occur across the world every day a jolt not noticed by humans. 6 A massive due to detonations, such as nuclear weapons testing quake near Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755 was felt or mining, or rising magma linked to volcanic activity. Seismographs (above) as far away as Finland. It inspired the first pro- 16 Magma on its way to the surface can fracture crust record waves traveling posal that waves of energy traveled from a single or expand existing fissures; it’s a process similar to though the ground during seismic events such as the point of origin through rock, much the way sound the way wastewater pumped underground during oil 2003 Boumerdes quake in waves travel through air. 7 It wasn’t until the early and gas extraction operations can cause small-scale Algeria (below), the result 17 of shifting tectonic plates. 20th century, though, that researchers understood seismic events. Non-tectonic temblors are usu- seismic waves, which we now ally magnitude 3 or less on the Richter scale, the categorize as either body (moving famous but now antiquated way to measure a quake’s through the planet’s interior) or shake. The Gutenberg-Richter law, however, remains surface. 8 The body wave known fundamental to both seismology and geophysics. as a P wave, sometimes called Simply put, the law states that within a region, the a primary or compressional bigger the quake, the less likely its occurrence. 18 In wave, travels faster than any January, Scientific Reports published an update to the other and is the first wave detected law, which researchers believe more accurately models during an event. 9 You know what risk for catastrophic quakes. 19 And it’s good timing: else picks up P waves? Pooches. Dogs The planet appears to be experiencing an uptick in can hear the waves, which have too high-magnitude quakes. From 1977 to 1999, the world high a frequency for our ears to experienced zero seismic events that were magnitude notice. That’s why there are so many (m) 8.5 or higher. Since 2004, however, we’ve had six reports of dogs barking immediately big shakes of m8.5 or more. 20 But our fussy planet before a quake. 10 P waves compress and move does go through dips and peaks in seismic activity. particles in the same direction that the energy is From 1950 to 1965, for example, no fewer than seven traveling — imagine the in and out of an accordion quakes of m8.5 or more jolted Earth. So don’t retreat in action. 11 But slower, secondary S waves, the other to your bunker just yet. D type of body wave, move particles perpendicular to the direction the wave itself is traveling: up and down Gemma Tarlach is senior editor at Discover.

DISCOVER (ISSN 0274-7529, USPS# 555-190) is published monthly, except for combined issues in January/February and July/August. Vol. 38, no. 4. Published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Periodical postage paid at Waukesha, WI, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DISCOVER, P.O. Box 62320, Tampa, FL 33662-2320. Canada Publication Agreement # 40010760. Back issues available. All rights reserved. Nothing herein contained may be reproduced without written permission of Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Printed in the U.S.A. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ZEPHYR/SCIENCE SOURCE; DOLVA/ADOBE STOCK; ERIC BOUVET/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES ERIC BOUVET/GAMMA-RAPHO STOCK; DOLVA/ADOBE ZEPHYR/SCIENCE SOURCE; LEFT: TOP CLOCKWISE FROM

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