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52 DATE WITH EXTINCTION For a thousand years before people settled in New Zealand, a small alien predator may have been undermining the islands' seabird populations. BY LAURA SESSIONS

1^!

COVER STORY 44 THE LONGEST WINTER A series of deep freezes descended across the Earth 750 million years ago, each lasting millions of years. The spring that finally took hold may have triggered the present bloom of multicellular life. BY GABRIELLE WALKER COVER Lynn Davis, Iceberg 31, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000

STORY BEGINS ON PAGE 44

58 ARCTIC COVENANT Springtime in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUBHANKAR BANERJEE Visit our Web site at TEXT BY VITTORIO MAESTRO www.nhmag.com DEPARTMENTS

THE NATURAL MOMENT So Fleeting a Spring Photograph by Christian Ziegler

8 UP FRONT Life on Ice

10 LETTERS

14 CONTRIBUTORS

16 SAMPLINGS Stephati Reebs

20 UNIVERSE Reaching for the Stars Neil deGrasse Tyson

22 FINDINGS How Bears Feed Salmon to the Forest Robert S. Semeniuk

24 How Bears Change the Salmon Scott M. Gende and Tliomas P. Quinn

42 BIOMECHANICS Throwing Yourself into It Adam Summers

62 REVIEW Happy Birthday, DNA!

Everett I. Mendelsohn

70 BOOKSHELF Laurence A. Marschall

73 nature.net Oil to Burn? Robert Anderson

74 OUT THERE Warp Factor Charles Liu

75 THE SKY IN APRIL Joe Rao

76 AT THE MUSEUM

80 ENDPAPER Both a GodGo( and a Rogue Ravi Corea

PICTURE CREDITS: Page 14 u^iMlMiam

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-< See preceding pages Life on Ice

know, the picture on our cover this month makes it look as if we're all I about to collide with an iceberg. And, truth be told, there seems plenty to be anxious about. A few weeks ago, those of us who Uve or work in Every year in Panama, just after Manhattan (the editorial staff of this magazine, for instance) thought that the first downpour of the we had gone from yellow alert to orange, along with the rest of the coun- rainy season, the flowers of the try. Then the mayor reminded us that we'd been there, done that—New guayacan tree (Tabehiiia guayacan) York City had been stuck in orange ever since the code went into effect.

burst open. The explosion of Maybe it's small consolation—but things could be worse, much worse. blossoms, whose timing coincides Compared with what the Earth has undergone in its geological past, even with the northern temperate the many human insults to our planet seem puny and fundamentally insub- spring, announces the end of the stantial. A few weeks ago Gabrielle Walker stopped by our offices to show four- to five-month-long dry sea- us her latest report about what's hot on the geological front. A grand idea, son. The downpour, and a tem- first conceived many years ago but rejected soon afterward, has now re- perature change, are thought to turned with such compelling vitality—and is so well supported by the evi- trigger the trees' ready buds to dence of rocks all over the world—that it is stimulating new work and new swell and bloom. Water plays such thinking across an entire scientific community. Walker's story, with apolo- a critical role that, depending on gies to Laura IngaUs Wilder, is called "The Longest Winter" (page 44). rain patterns, a blossom-fiUed tree Walker isn't kidding. The "winter" in question lasted as long as 10 mil- may be just a short distance away lion years. The average annual temperature at the surface of the Earth hov- from a dry, unadorned one. ered around 40 degrees below zero. Conditions were antarctic. Native bees are drawn to the Most ice ages—certainly the ones people are most familiar with—are sensory delights of the guayacan, self-liiniting: the ice advances, then retreats once again. The retreats may be

but the trees' golden-petal lucre is the result of global warming by atmospheric greenhouse gases, among them something of a cheat: the blos- carbon dioxide (CO,). Exposed rock continually draws COt out of the at- soms are not receptive to poUina- mosphere and chemically locks up the carbon. During an ice age, however, tors for more than a day, and they the more the Earth's landmasses get covered by ice, the less rock is exposed remain on the trees for only a few to CO,, and so the more CO, remains in the atmosphere. The atmospheric days before descending—like mi- COt eventually warms the Earth and reverses the march of ice. grating butterflies—to the forest But about 750 million years ago the continental tectonic plates hap- floor. Photographer Christian hazardly arranged themselves around the equator. That seems to have Ziegler found the guayacan tapes- turned an "ordinary" ice age into a runaway catastrophe. Even after the Uy pictured here not quite a rmle polar ice began advancing, continental rock remained exposed, and it from the Smithsonian Research continued sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. The warming effect of Station on Barro Colorado Island atmospheric CO, steadily diminished. By the time the ice reached the in March. Detecting a "light, tropics, it was too late. Ice quickly covered what was left of the Earth.

sweet smeU" in the air, Ziegler said Only the slow release of CO, by volcanoes eventually restored the green- he spotted leaf-cutter ants carting house warming and enabled hfe to get a fresh start. away clippings ot guayacan flow- There's clearly a hopefial message in that fresh start. April, at least in the ers—an easily digestible meal for temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, brings mud, blossoms, new the insects' symbiotic fiangi. Hfe—in short, the promise of spring. So, lest winter seem too prominent a Hours after dropping from the topic for an April issue of Natural Histoiy, two photographers bring us their branches, Ziegler noted, the trees' contrasting visions of renewal. Subhankar Banerjee portrays the robust safrron blossoms—even the ant's glory of the vernal Arctic, which must gather all its life forces in the short radiating trails—had darkened to months between breakup and freeze up (see "Arctic Covenant," page 58). yellow-brown. By the end of the Christian Ziegler, at the beginning of the Panamanian rainy season, docu-

day the flowers had lost all their ments the fi-agile beauty of falling blossoms that retain their color for just a brilliance, blending in with the few hours (see "So Fleeting a Spring," page 6).

leaf Litter of the forest floor. And there it is, the simplest, most bracing antidote nature has for all

—Erin Espelie our anxieties: Spring will come again. Count on it. —^Peter Brown

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Foresight and Hindsight in Africa and in all en- with elephantiasis, it helps bacteria, what their rela- After reading TV. Rajan's demic areas in the Ameri- to bind the aflected limbs tionship with the nema- article on lymphatic fila- cas, which include Brazil, with compressive bandages. todes was, and whether riasis ["The Worm and Colombia, Ecuador, That and, of course, the they might provide a new

the Parasite," 2/03], I Guatemala, Mexico, and practice of proper hygiene drug target. thought your readers Venezuela. helps reduce sweUing and Since that meeting the might like to know of on- One oral dose a year of discomfort. research community has going efforts to apply re- ivermectin (trade name, WHO ranks lymphatic been galvanized into ac- cent medical discoveries Mectizan) kills the micro- filariasis as the second lead- tion. Groups in Germany to the treatment and pos- scopic infant worms. ing cause of permanent and headed by Achim Hoerauf sible elimination of both Merck & Co., Inc., has long-term disability. But and Dietrich Biittner have filariasis and the related donated the drug to the WHO also considers the tested standard antibacter- parasitic disease onchocer- world for as long as there disease eradicable—one of ial drugs in animals and ciasis. Onchocerciasis (river blindness), characterized "Our hope is that filariasis can he eradicated [from by incessant, debilitating Nigeria] in the next years. " Carter itching and eyesight dam- fifteen —-Jimmy

age, is spread through the bite of a smaU black fly

that breeds in rapidly is a need, and our center only six infectious diseases started a long-term trial of flowing rivers and streams. has enabled the delivery in that category. The Carter tetracycline for onchocer-

of more than 40 million Center is now working in ciasis in Afirica. Their ini- treatments—about nine Nigeria, which has the tial results report a pro- million annually. Two greatest number of infected longed and significant years ago our center's task people in Africa, with the improvement in clinical

force for disease eradica- government, health author- status. (Note that it could

tion concluded that it is ities, and villagers. Our have been otherwise: If

feasible to kill the adult hope is that fdariasis can be the bacterium were just a vi^orms and eliminate river eradicated there in the next hitchhiker, a parasite of blindness in the Americas fifteen years. the parasite, treatment if at least 85 percent of Jimmy Carter with drugs might cure the Larva of the parasitic worm the people living in en- Tlie Carter Center parasite of its disease, and Wuchereria bancrofti, which demic areas are treated Atlanta, Georgia give rise to more human causes filariasis with Mectizan twice a disease.) Eighteen million people year. A more effective The Edna McConneU Those promising find- are infected with the dis- treatment of adult worms Clark Foundation for ings have prompted a ease worldwide. Adult will be needed to accom- many years sponsored re- search through records to victims can neither farm plish the same goal in search on onchocerciasis identify earlier experiments nor care for their children. Africa. (the spectrum of infections in which animals, treated Fertile bottomlands are Fortunately, the trans- including river blindness), with tetracycline for other abandoned for fear of con- mission of lymphatic filari- including meetings that reasons, were cured of fi- tracting the disease, and asis can also be halted by brought workers together larial nematodes. Mr. people move to less fertile treating infected individu- from many countries and Rajan suggests that such

grounds, disrupting farm als just once a year. The fields. The 1998 meeting experiments were ignored economies. A global effort treatment must continue highlighted a series of because the results did not

to fight this disease in- for four to six years with a findings suggesting that fit into a "reigning biologi- cludes the Carter Center, single-dose combination of Wolbachia were present in cal dogma." We would beg the Lions Clubs Interna- oral medicines, most com- human filarial nematodes. to differ: they were ignored tional Foundation, the monly albendazole and Many of us left the meet- because the experiments World Bank, and the ivermectin. Bed nets also ing determined to find out were not designed to mea- World Health Organiza- help control the transmis- whether the "bacteria-like sure the effects of drug tion (WHO). We at the sion of the infection by bodies" seen under the treatment. Filarial life cycles Carter Center work both mosquitoes. In patients microscope were in fact are difficult to maintain.

10 NATUR.^L HISTORY April 2003 —

and failures are common: eral, do not lack cell walls, centage of similarity be- same number Mr. Zimmer one particular crash in the as Mr. Rajan states. tween the two species' cites as today's consensus. cycle of infection would Claudio Baudi DNA sequences HM^eresti- Although Morris not be especially notewor- Uniivrsity of Milan mates hovif similar people Goodman was an early pi- thy. With hindsight one Milan, Italy and chimps really are in the oneer in molecular primate can now identify the cause panoply of nature. relationships, it was Vin- of the failure, but it was Family Ties At the other end of the cent M. Sarich and Allan not evident in the origmal It is not at all clear, as scale, two DNA sequences C. Wilson who, in 1967, experiments. Carl Zimmer writes in that share no common an- applied the concept of a

Mark Blaxter and Katelyn Feiiii "Searching for Your cestry, and are thus as evo- molecular clock, which set University of Edinburgh lutionarily different as they the stage for the current Edinburgh, Scotland can be, still probably match views of human evolution. at a fourth of their nu- Sarich and Wilson esti-

Mr. Rajan is correct that cleotides by chance alone. mated that humans and certain preconceptions (or (The DNA alphabet offers chimpanzees diverged misconceptions) on the only four "letters" to about five million years part of "Western" physi- choose from.) By that logic, ago, an estimate now sup- cians may lead to the re- human DNA is at least ported by much additional jection of clear evidence one-quarter identical to molecular data. Raniapithe- for the efficacy of nontra- carrot DNA, in spite of the ciis, dated at 14 million ditional or "nonsensical" fact that we are manifesdy years old and declared a disease treatments. Inner Chimp" ["The Evo- not one-quarter carrot. hominid solely on the basis

My colleagues and I lutionary Front," Thus, for distant relatives, of its jaws and teeth, was were the first to identify 12/02-1/03], that human DNA similarities oi^eresti- the first putative ancestor the filarial bacteria as Wol- beings and chimpanzees are mate biological similarities. to be deposed by the new bachia. Together with Nor- so "astonishingly similar" Jonathan Marks molecular approaches. But bert W. Brattig and his genetically. University of North Carolina the lessons of history are coworkers in Hamburg, DNA sequences are at Charlotte soon forgotten. Mr. Zim- Germany, we are now one-dimensional, inviting mer, like many others, studying the effect of Wol- decontextuaUzed compar- In the first half of the readily accepts the new bachia-denved molecules isons, but bodies are three- twentieth century there skull from Chad, dated on human and canine im- dimensional. So if human was little agreement about from between six and mune cells. Results show that Wolbachia proteins are in part responsible for pro- If human and chimp DNA differ by 1.58 percent, just what ducing such mediators of does that say about the difference between the two species? immune responses as cy- tokines. As Mr. Rajan rightly states, these cy- tokines cause many of the and chimp DNA sequences which animal is the closest seven million years ago, as symptoms of acute filariasis are 1.58 percent different, living human relative. Var- the earliest hominid, even

(fever, headaches, chills, is that more or less than the ious advocates promoted though the clock for ho- and so on). difference between a every known ape. The case minid evolution did not Two additional points: human femur and a chimp for the chimpanzee was begin ticking until at least First, the caption to the il- femur? If we put a person not fuUy made until the a miUion years later. lustration on page 32 states and a chimp next to a sea work by Charles G. Sibley Adrienne Zihlman that the person depicted is urchin, we can readily see and Jon E. Ahlquist on University of California, a victim of filariasis. But that the two primates DNA hybridization in Santa Cruz the worm being removed match up almost perfectly 1984. They measured sim- by the patient is likely Dra- bone for bone, muscle for ilarities between entire Carl Zimmer replies: cuncuhis medinensis, which muscle, organ for organ genomes, and determined Molecular clocks are infor- belongs to another super- and that in every case the that people and chim- mative but not as precise as family. Second, Wolbachia, sea urchin is the odd man panzees are 98.6 percent Adrienne Zihlman implies. and "rickettsiae" in gen- out. If anything, the per- identical, virtually the One recent estimate tor

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 11 the common ancestor of most damaging greenhouse make the important obser- Tropics: more than 60,000 humans and chimps puts gas in the atmosphere." vation that the interplay square miles of torest are the date between 4.6 mil- Indeed, methane is the sec- between plant and animal lost each year, creating a hon and 6.2 million years ond most damaging green- species is central to shaping patchwork of uncon- ago; another puts it be- house gas governed by the the diversity of tropical nected fragments. Studies tween 3.3 million and 8.3 Kyoto Protocol, but the forests. Their study of the such as Messrs. Leigh and million years ago. The age major greenhouse gases in Ziegler's underscore the of the Sahelauthroptis site in the atmosphere are, in value of preserving large

Chad is not certain either, order of their warming ef- tracts of land, and of con- because it is estimated from fect, water vapor, carbon sidering such a web of in- the dating of similar sites. dioxide, and then methane. teractions in making deci- That's why the discoverers Liice carbon dioxide and sions about forest of the fossil maintain only methane, water vapor has management and conser- that it can be tentatively many anthropogenic vation. Now is the time to dated to between six mdl- sources, from the burning make these critical land- Hon and seven million of hydrocarbons to the ex- use decisions before too years ago. Given the over- cess evaporation from fragmentation of a much of what they aptly lap and fuzziness ot these reservoirs, lakes created by Panamanian forest shows call a magic web is lost. estimates, Sahelanthropm is dams, and rice paddies. that the ehmination of Phyllis D. Coley and Tlwmas not ruled out as a honiinid. W.D. Benton some animal species can A. Kursar Albuquerque, New Mexico dramatically alter the sur- UniversitY of Utah Misting in Action vival ot certain plants and Salt Lake City, Utah In "Grain Gain," Reading the Tree Leaves the composition of species.

["Samplings," 2/03], Egbert Giles Leigh Jr. and Unfortunately, similar Messrs. Leigh and Ziegler Stephan Reebs states: Christian Ziegler "experiments" are taking offer an intriguing discus-

"Methane is the second ["Biosphere III," 2/03] place throughout the sion of the unintended

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I....I..I...IIII III.I..I...I..II...II...I.II consequences of the build- cies of moUusk blur the were no mutualistic associ- that were evidently ing of the Panama Canal. natural order, creating a bi- ations between plants and pierced by a large pierc- That an "upscale" rainfor- ological cacophony where animals analogous to the ing-and-sucking insect. est could be reduced in once a desert symphony ones observed today. In Furthermore, fecal pellets ninety years to a Jurassic- played. But there's a bright late Pennsylvanian de- in the same deposit con- like, low-rent district in side: electric power galore. posits (beginning about tain the same or similar terms of biodiversity is in- No'w we can catch the na- 298 million years ago), in prepollen. Do such find- structive. Public works ture channels in Phoenix which plant tissues are ings simply point to pollen eating, or was the insect providing a mutual- Fish may swim around Anasazi ruins flooded by dams, istic benefit to the plant as well? but at least the dams enable us to catch nature channels. Comnd C. Labandeira Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. projects in the United and see the lights of Las preserved in considerable

States offer similarly dra- Vegas from space. anatomical detail, there is Eri^iatum: The caterpillar

matic examples of these in- Daniel J. Lenihan evidence for intricate asso- pictured on page 55 of advertent experiments in National Park Service ciations. One example, "Biosphere III" (February ecology. Lake Powell and Submerged Resources Center from the Calhoun Flora of 2003) should have been

Lake Mead comprise 500 Santa Fe, New Mexico lUinois, is a seed fern that identified as belonging to square miles of lake where bears prepoUen (a kind of the family Saturniidae, not

once "a river ran through." I am not so sure, as Messrs. microspore) far bigger than Limacodidae. Now fish swim around in Leigh and Ziegler main- any known wind-dispersed Anasazi ruins, and exotic tain, that more than 150 pollen. The prepollen was Natural History'^; e-mail

vegetation and invader spe- million years ago there produced in large organs address is [email protected].

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IT'S so EaSV TO GET HERE CONTRIBUTORS

An acclaimed photographer as well as a tropical ecologist, Christian Ziegler ("The Natural Moment," page 6) spends part of the year based on Panama's Barro Colorado Island, where he recently collaborated with Egbert Giles mm Leigh Jr. on A Magic Web, a book about the biodiversity of the Peter Brown Editor-in-Chief island's rainforest. More of Ziegler's work can be seen at www.naturephoto.de. Mary Beth Aberlin Elizabeth Meryman Managing Editor Art Director

Gabrielle Walker ("The Day the Earth Froze Over," page f^" Board of Editors T. Kelleher, Avis Lang, Vittorio Maestro 44) has traveled to all seven continents in search of stories J. Michel DeMatteis Associate Managing Editor about science. She has been to the South Pole, chmbed trees Thomas Rosinski Associate Director in the Amazon rainforest, and pulled fresh lava from a volcano Art in Hawaii with a rock hammer. Walker, who earned her doc- Lynette Johnson Editorial Coordinator torate in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge, Erin M. EspeUe Special Projects Editor has been an editor at Nature and the features editor at New Sci- Richard Milner Contributing Editor

entist, for which she now acts as a consultant. Last fall she was a visiting pro- Graciela Floras, Marisa Macari Interns fessor in the geosciences department at Princeton University. Snowball Earth,

from which her article has been adapted, is her first book.

Mark A. Furlong Publisher

A transplanted Virginian, Laura Sessions ("Date with Ex- Gale Page Consumer Marketing Director

tinction," page 52) has lived in New Zealand since 1996. After Maria Volpe Promotion Director

earning her master's degree in botany at the University of Edgar L. Harrison National Advertising Manager

Canterbury in Christchurch, she began working on a doctor- Sonia W Paratore Senior Account Manager

ate in science communication, which she expects to complete Donna M. Lermnon Production Manager

this year. Sessions lectures on ecology and coordinates and Michael Shectman Fulfillment Manager leads tours for groups of American ecology students. "I was Tova Heiney Business Administrator first introduced to New Zealand through one of these programs," she says, "so Advertising Sales Representatives it is a great pleasure to introduce other students to such a beautiful place." Her New York—Metrocorp Marketing, 212-972-1157, article in this issue is her third contribution to Natural History. Duke International Media. 212-598-4820 De/roif—John Kennedy & Assoc, 313-886-4399

Minneapolis—Kicken Media, Inc., 612-920-0080 "You may be wondering how a young man from Calcutta West Corti/—Auerbach Media, 818-716-9613, ended up taking photographs during Arctic blizzards," says Parris& Co.. 415-641-5767 Toronto—American Publishers freelance photographer SuBHANKAR Banerjee ("Arctic Representatives Ltd., 416-363-1388 4 Covenant," page 58), now based in Bellevue, Washington. "In Atlanta and M/d/m—Rickles and Co., 770-664-4567 National Direct Response—Smyth Media Group, my life, there are no straight lines. In the American Southwest, 646-638-4985 where I went to pursue graduate studies in science, I was

drawn to the wide-open spaces. I began capturing nature on

film. I was lured north by a passion to witness polar bears in an untrammeled Todd Happer Vice President, Science Education landscape." Banerjee's work in the Arctic will culminate May 2 with the open- ing of a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural His- Natural History Magazine, Inc. tory in Washington, D.C., in and the publication of the accompanying book, Chaiu.es E. Harris President, Chief Executive Officer

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land (The Mountaineers Charles Lalanne Chief Financial Officer Books). The exhibition is scheduled to travel to New York City's American Judy Buller General Manager Charles Rodin Publishing Advisor Museum of Natural History in November.

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PICTURE CREDITS Cover, pp. 47 and 51: ©Lynn Davis/courtesy Edwymi Houk Gallery, NY; pp. 6-8: ©Christian (widoin US.) or (515) 247-7631 (from outside U.S.).

Ziegler; p. 16 (top): Minden Pictures; (bottom): ©Jean-Leo Dugast/Peter Arnold Inc.; p. 18: Hans Reinliard/Bruce For advertising information, call (212) 769-5555.

Coleman Inc; p. 21: Dallas Museum of Art, neproducrion authorized by the inheritors of the artist in support of the Fun-

dacion Olga y Rufino Tamayo, A.C.; p. 42: The Art Archive/Musee du Louvre, Paris/Dagli Orti; p. 43: Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, 45: NY; p. courtesy tlie artist and Galerie Lelong, NY; p. 46: map by Patricia J. Naiiiml History (ISSN 0028-0712) is publuhed monthly, except for combined issues

III July/August and Dtccmbtr/Janu:iry, by Natural History Magazine, Inc., at tlie Wynne; pp. 48-49: Norbert Wu 2/Peter Arnold Inc.; pp. 52-53: © Tui De Roy/The Roving Tortoise; p. 54: ©Rod AiuL-rican Museum ofNacuml History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New Yorit, Morris; p. 55 (top): ©Rosamond W Purcell; (bottom): ©Stapleton Collection/Corbis; p. 56: ©Gerald Cubitt; p. 57: Don NY 1002J, E-mail: [email protected]. Namtal History Magazine, Inc., is solely re- Hadden/Hedgehog House, NZ; p. 62: Science Museum/Science & Society Picmre Library; p. 66: ©A. Harrington sponsible for editorial content .ind publishing practices. Subscriptions; S30.00 a year;

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14 natural history April 2003 THE FIRST EUROPEANS TREASURES FROM THE HILLS OF

I i i NOW THROUGH APRIL 13, 2003

Bf\.;*V^

''''.' ^' WT» Co-organized by \ .gf v)^l|:p' v;^=/'- ''/ |jL|j|| the American Museum of Natural History r!/^^;"

1118119 5' and Junta de Castilla y Leon. If':; American Museum o Ma|ural History ^ OPEN DAILY CENTRAL PARK WEST AT 7,9TH STREET WWW.AMNH.OF. .. SAMPLINGS By Stephan Reebs

INCREDIBLE JOURNEY II Here's one for the record books: longest documented

travel In the wild by a wild mouse. The

new world-record holder is a three-quar- ter-ounce female white-footed mouse

that took just a month to travel at least 9.2 miles across a stretch of New England forestland. Chronicling the achievement was

Thomas J. Maier of the USDA Forest

Service's research station in Amherst, Massachusetts, who trapped, tagged, and recaptured the peripatetic rodent.

Most often it's the males that travel long

distances, generally to avoid other A vagabond's search rewarded males and to seek a mate, but Maier's

mouse, too, had good reasons for her A potential competing claim: another six forest roads, three small streams, a

trek: the local mouse population had white-footed mouse once ran the equiv- two-lane primary highway, and a power

burgeoned, autumn food supplies were alent of twenty-three miles in twenty- line right-of-way. ("Long-distance move- low (acorns were in particularly short four hours, but that was inside a well- ments by female white-footed mice, Per-

supply), and the females in nearby areas, oiled running wheel in a laboratory. omyscus leucopus, in extensive mixed- suffering equally scarce resources, were Maier's adventurer ran mostly through wood forest," Canadian Field-Naturalist in no mood to be welcoming. forest, but she also had to cross at least 116:108-11,2002)

YOUR PLACE OR MINE? Think of the word "household," and after all, and you double the number of households, even if the the associations that usually come to mind are positive: warmth, overall population remains constant.

safety, sharing, interconnectedness. But conservationists are be- For the most part, that's progress. Households get smaller when

ginning to understand the word in a negative way. The problem standards of living rise, when single people become more affluent,

is that in many "hotspots" of biodiversity— Brazil, south-central when women become more educated (which not only gives them China, Florida's Indian River County—where native species are greater access to paid work but also leads to fewer children), and

both abundant and threatened by human activities, the number when fewer generations live together under the same roof. But

of households is growing faster than the human population itself. there is a downside. As Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University in

That's because today's average household includes fewer people East Lansing and his colleagues at Stanford University have re-

than yesterday's: halve the number of people living as a unit. cently pointed out, more housing units consume more land and

more construction materials. And smaller households re- duce sharing: each individual uses up more resources. The consequent urban sprawl and energy consumption

strain ecosystems and erode biodiversity.

Analyzing United Nations data, Liu and his team

note that in sixty-five non-hotspot countries, house- holds and populations grew at similar rates between 1985 and 2000—about 1.7 percent annually. During the same period, though, seventy-six hotspots grew,

on average, at the annual rate of 1 .8 percent in popu-

lation but 3.1 percent in number of households. The

reduction in household size alone (from 4.7 to 4.0

people per household, on average) resulted in 155

million additional residences established in those

hotspots in the final fifteen years of the twentieth cen- tury—bad news for the flora and fauna. ("Effects of household dynamics on resource consumption and

Suburban households, proliferating in Asia biodiversity," Nature 421:530-33, January 30, 2003)

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MULTITASKING If you're lucky enough EAU DE DANGER Do animals smell few ounces of water from the pike to have a backyard vegetable garden this fear? Mostly the answer is no. Sight, not tanks. One of the new groups (the ex- summer, pull up a bean plant (or any smell, is what reveals a frightened crea- perimental group) also received a few other legume) and take a look at its roots. ture's (or person's) emotional state. But ounces of the water from the tank that

The little swellings you'll see are nodules for animals in a watery environment, the had been disturbed by the fake heron formed by the plant and inhabited by smell of fear does indeed act as a head. The second new group (the con- bacteria. But don't be alarmed: there's no strong signal—albeit more as a warning trol group) received the same amount disease. The plant needs nitrogen to to potential victims than as a giveaway of water from a tank containing charr make proteins, but the nitrogen in the to predators. that hadn't been disturbed. plant's environment takes a "raw" form It is known that frightened crayfish, When the charr in the experimental the plant cannot use. That's where the crabs, fish, and tadpoles spurt ammonia group then encountered a pike in a test bacteria come in: they "fix" the nitrogen in their urine and through their gills. For tank, they gave the unfamiliar predator in a molecular form that makes it avail- neighboring animals—even unrelated a wider berth and avoided capture for a able to the plant. In exchange, the plant species—the fluids serve as a kind longer time than did the charr in the supplies the bacteria with sugars and of universal "disturbance cue," causing control group. Mirza and Chivers con- other compounds. them to seek cover or become more clude that when charr detect disturb- The nitrogen-fixing partnership has long been the subject of intense scientific study— if only because so many of the world's protein-rich crops are legumes: al- falfa, soybeans, and peas, to name a few.

Now Rieko Nishimura, a molecular biolo- gist at the University of California, Berke- ley, and several of her colleagues at

Japanese universities have provided in- vestigators with a new tool: a mutant form of the legume Lotus japonicus, a "model" organism well known to plant geneticists around the world. The mutant form is called astray because it grows long hori- zontal roots that, with respect to gravity, have "gone astray." More to the point, the astray form gen- erates many more nodules than the plant's nonmutant form, and it makes them early in its life. Astray has aboveground abnor- malities as well. For example, its stem is Brook charr can tune in to the smell of fear. elongated and its color a washed-out green—^typical features of plants that lack circumspect, even though they may not ance cues, they pay attention to other access to light. Thus the astray gene is in- be able to sense the predator directly. odors in the vicinity and thereafter treat volved both in the plant's responses to Now two biologists at the University those odors as suspicious, and so they light, an attribute of the aboveground of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon have are more alert to potential predators world, and in the formation of roots and shown that disturbance cues can even and can survive longer. ("Behavioural nodules underground. And the gene's lead some fish to identify previously un- responses to conspecific disturbance multiple talents offer a window into the known predators. Reehan S. Mirza and chemicals enhance survival of juvenile evolution of nodulation in legumes: cer- Douglas R Chivers scared young brook brook charr, Sa/ve//nus fontinalis, during tain proteins that were operating in the charr (also known as brook trout) by encounters with predators," Behaviour light of day were co-opted for work within striking the water surface of the charr's 139:1099-1109,2002) the darkness of the soil. ("A Lotus basic tank with a fake heron head. Then they Stephan Reebs is a professor of biology at leucine zipper protein with a RING-finger collected a sample of the water. They the University of Moncton in New Brunswick, motif negatively regulates the develop- also collected water from tanks contain- Canada, and the author of Fish Behavior in mental program of nodulation," Proceed- ing predatory northern pike. Then they the Aquarium and in the Wild (Cornell Uni- ings of the National Academy of Sciences subjected two new groups of charr to a versity Press).

99-1 :. 206-10, November 12, 2002)

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UNIVERSE

Reaching for the Stars

Instead of counting smart bombs, perhaps we should count smart scientists.

By Neil deGrasse Tyson

the months since the space shut- rnissions, each more ambitious than If we are to win the battle that is now Intle Columhias fatal reentry through the one before, led to six lunar land- going on around the world between firee- Earth's atmosphere, it seems that ings. We walked on the Moon, just as dom and tyranny, the dramatic achieve- everyone has become a NASA critic. we said we would. Surely Mars was ments in space which occurred in recent clear all, After the initial shock and mourning, next. Those adventures sparked an weeks should have made to us as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of no end ofjournalists, politicians, scien- unprecedented level of pubUc interest this adventure on the minds of men tists, engineers, policy analysts, and or- in science and engineering, pumping everywhere, w^ho are attempting to make dinary taxpayers began to debate the eager, inspired students through the a determination of which road they past, present, and future of America's entire U.S. educational pipeline. should take. presence in space. Although I have al- What followed was a domestic boom ways been interested in this subject, my in technology that would shape our Clearly the president knew that al- recent tour of duty with the President's Hves for the rest of the century. though bravery may win battles, sci- Commission on the Future of the U.S. ence and technology can win wars. Aerospace Industry has further sharp- Abeautiflil story. But let's not fool And Kennedy was hardly the first ened my senses and sensitivities. ourselves into thinking we went leader to call for an expensive mihtary Amid the occasional new argu- to the Moon because we're pioneers program.

ments on the op-ed pages and TV talk or explorers or selfless discoverers. We But what about discovery for its shows were questions that get rolled own sake? Are the scientific returns out with every new woe in the space on a manned mission to Mars inher-

program: Why send people into space Let's not fool ently important enough to justify its

instead of robots? Why spend money costs? After all, any foreseeable mis- ourselves. NASA went in space when we need it here on sion to Mars wiU be long and im- Earth? How can we get people ex- to the Moon because mensely expensive. But the United

cited about the space program again? States is a wealthy nation. It has the of Cold War politics. Yes, excitement levels are low. But money And the technology is imag-

lack of enthusiasm is not apathy. In this inable. Those aren't the issues. case, the business-as-usual attitude went to the Moon because Cold War Expensive projects are vulnerable

shows that space exploration has passed politics made it the mihtarily expedi- because they take a long time and seamlessly into everyday culture, so ent thing to do. must be sustained across changeovers most Americans no longer even notice In 1961, just weeks after the Soviet in political leadership as well as

it. We pay attention only when some- cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the through downturns in the economy. thing goes wrong. first person to orbit Earth, President Photographs of homeless children and

In the 1960s, by contrast, space was John F. Kennedy told Congress: unemployed factory workers juxta- an exotic frontier—traversed by the posed with images of astronauts firol- I beUeve that this nation should connTiit it- few, the brave, and the lucky. Every icking on Mars make a powerfiil case self to achieving the goal, before this dec- gesture NASA made toward the heav- against the continued funding of ade is out, of landing a man on the moon ens caused a splash in the media the space missions. — and returning him safely to the earth. surest evidence that space was still un- A review of history's most ambitious familiar territory. But most people have forgotten the projects—the ones that have garnered For many, particularly for NASA rest of his speech. Kennedy never an uncommonly large fraction of a

aficionados and all of the people en- suggested the Moon landing be ac- nation's gross domestic product

gaged in the aerospace industry, the complished for its own sake. He was demonstrates that only three goals have 1960s was the golden era of American issuing a powerful appeal to vanquish won such support: defense (the Great space exploration. A series of space Communism: Wall of China); the promise of eco-

20 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 I nomic return (the voyages ot • We should explore Pluto Columbus and Magellan); and and its newly discovered the praise of power (the pyra- family of icy bodies in the mids of Egypt). And tor expen- outer solar system, because

sive projects that fulfill more they hold clues to our than one of these functions, planetary origins. money flows like beer from a freshly tapped keg. The 44,000 • We should probe Venus's miles of U.S. interstate express- thick atmosphere to un-

ways make a crisp example. derstand why its green- Conceived in the Eisenhower house effect has gone era to move materiel and per- awry, giving rise to a sur- sonnel for the defense of the face temperature of 900

nation, that network is also degrees Fahrenheit. heavily used by commercial ve-

hicles. That's why there is al- No part of the solar sys- vi'ays money for roads. tem should be beyond our In the current space program reach; we should deploy the empirical risk of death re- both robots and people to mains high. With two lost get there (robots make poor shuttles out of 113 launches, an field geologists). And no astronauts chances of not com- part of the universe should ing home are about 2 percent. hide from our telescopes; If your chances of death were 2 we should launch them into percent every time you drove orbit and give them the to the Piggly Wiggly, you grandest vistas for looking would never drive your car. To back at the Earth and at the the Columbia crew, however, rest of the solar system. the return was worth that risk. With missions and pro- I'm proud to be part of a jects such as those, the U.S. species whose members occa- can guarantee itself an acad- sionally and willingly put their emic pipeline bursting with lives at risk to extend the the best and the brightest boundaries of their existence. astrophysicists, biologists, Rufino Tamayo, El hombre, 1953 Such people were the first to chemists, engineers, geolo- leave the cave and see what was on the bombs, perhaps we should be count- gists, and physicists. And they will other side of the chff face. They were ing our smart scientists and engineers. collectively form a new kind of

the first to climb the mountain. They And there is no shortage of seductive "missile silo"—filled with intellec- were the first to sail the ocean. They projects for them to work on: tual capital—ready to come forward were the first to touch the sky. And whenever they are called, just as the • should search for fossils they wiU be the first to land on Mars. We Mars nation's best and brightest have al- But somebody has to write the and find out why hquid water no ways come forward in times of need. longer runs its surface. check. We've made it out of the cave on For the U.S. space program to die and up the mountain. Now explo- along with the crew of the space • We should visit an asteroid or two, ration costs real money. When no- shuttle Columbia—because nobody is and learn how to deflect them. If body writes the check, we stall on the willing to write the check to keep it one is discovered heading our way, last breached frontier. going—would be to move backward how embarrassing it would be for just by standing still. us big-brained, opposable-thumbed Actually, there may be a way to humans to meet the same fate as the Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is the direc- keep going places. But it involves proverbially pea-brained dinosaurs. tor of the Hayden Planetarium in Nav York a sHght shift in what the governinent City. He was a presidential appointee to the usually calls national defense. If science • We should drill through the kilo- tweli'e-nieniber Coi}unissioii on tlie Future of the and technology can win wars, as the meters of ice on Jupiter's moon Eu- U.S. Aerospace Industry (uwiv.aerospacecom history of military conflict suggests, ropa explore the liquid ocean and missio\i .gov) , whosefinal report ivas submitted to then instead of counting our smart below for living organisms. the Wiite House in November 2002.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 21 FINDINGS

Reimchen estimates that before the expansion of commercial fishing and industrial logging in the twentieth century, when salmon were more abundant throughout coastal streams, each of the 30,000 black bears living in the salmon watershed may have caught on average 500 fish a year. If half of each carcass was left uneaten on the

forest floor (a reasonable estimate), he figures the nutrient transfer into the rainforest amounted to more than 25,000 tons a year, of which 3.4 per- cent was nitrogen. And salmon carcasses are by no means the only way bears spread salmon-derived nitrogen to the terres- Leftovers from an ursine banquet: nutrients from trial ecosystem. Other field biologists, the parts that were eaten will also fertilize the such as Grant V HUderbrand, formerly plants . . . indirectly. of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and his colleagues, have docu- mented two other major means: urine How Bears Feed and feces. Hilderbrand, who studied brown bears in Alaska, maintains that

urine is particularly important. Bears to the Forest consume salmon in the late summer Salmon fall fat and to accumulate the reserves they will need to hibernate—and that females wUl need to birth and provide Trees get the table scraps a dinner. from fish mdlk for their cubs. Although some of the nitrogen from the salmon goes

Story and Photographs by Robert S. Semeniuk into building muscle tissue and meet- ing other physiological demands, the

bears' fat tissue is virtually nitrogen- Wearing night-vision gog- (the bears get most of their catch in free. Consequently, much of the nitro- gles, Thomas E. Reim- the dark). The field study is part of an gen in the salmon protein is excreted. chen maneuvers our in- investigation born more than a dec- "The bottom line," Hilderbrand says, flatable boat around rocks, deadfalls, ade ago at Bag Harbour in the Queen "is that if the bears leave half of each and barnacles as we pick our way in Charlotte Islands. One day in 1992, as carcass in the forest, the other, eaten

the dark up an estuary in Canada's Pa- Reimchen was sitting under giant half also is ultimately deposited in the cific Northwest. In our wake we leave Sitka spruce trees and looking at half- forest as well." brilliant bursts of bioluminescence, as eaten salmon carcasses strewn about schools of fleeing salmon agitate uni- on the forest floor, he realized that Reimchen's boat carries us out of cellular algae called dinoflagellates. the abundance of carcasses and the the salty estuary and up the

Why the "dinos" emit light is open abundance of giant trees adjacent to Klekane River into the conifer rain- to interpretation. One explanation, the river was probably no coinci- forest of the coastal mainland of British

Reimchen tells me, is that the light dence. Ever since that moment, he Colunibia. After the boat has been attracts fish that eat zooplankton such has collected evidence that the au- safely tied up at the bank, Reimchen as copepods, which are predators of tumn return of salmon from the Pa- leads me and two of his coworkers, the dinoflagellates. cific Ocean to the streams of their Deanna D. Mathewson, also of the

A biologist at the University of birth is much more than just the an- University of Victoria, and Daniel R. Victoria in British Columbia, Reim- nual migration of fish. The run of Klinka, a graduate student of Reim- chen specializes in predator-prey in- salmon constitutes a major flow of chen's, along a creek into the pitch- teractions. We are here to observe marine nutrients into estuaries and black woods. To avoid surprising any black bears catching spawning salmon coastal watersheds. bears, Reimchen trudges steadily for-

22 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 I ward, uttering low guttural sounds. appears into the forest with a big chum The bear returns in about fifteen Then, at the edge of the creek we stop salmon in its mouth. minutes and starts fishing again, and wait quietly; I scan the forest on Black bears favor the bigger chum by swatting and grabbing. Bears exer- the opposite bank. salmon to the smaller pink salmon; cise various techniques. Some pa-

"There is a bear downstream walk- they are more apt to eat pmk salmon tiently wait in the shallows and then just flop into the water on their bellies. Reimchen says that by day at Bag Har- Some bears have a taste for salmon brains; bour, black bears would just wade in others eat everything but the fish's testicles. and snorkel, or search overhangs and logs, and catch fish without any great motion. Salmon are more quiescent at ing towards us," someone whispers in the stream, and usually carry chum night, he adds, and can readily be ap- softly. The splash of the footsteps salmon into the forest. At Bag Har- proached in the water. "At night I can sounds closer than the animal appears bour Reimchen had predicted that pick up big chum salmon; as long as I through my night-vision goggles. The bears would take larger and thus more don't take them out of the water, or bear lunges forward, crashes through valuable catch farther into the forest, squeeze them too hard, they allow me the water, but misses a fish. The bear where other bears and scavengers to hold them." moves upstream slowly, to within per- would be less likely to interfere. That Reimchen notes that black bears haps fifty feet of us, and takes another led him deeper into the forest in catch more male fish than females. lunge. Again, no catch. On its fourth search of carcasses. Occasionally he "Males are always darting around," he try, the bear succeeds. I hear the found them as far as 200 yards away notes, "fending off other males and crunch of fish skuU, and the bear dis- from the streams. chasing females," whereas females are

A grizzly catches pink salmon in Knight Inlet of the mainland coast, near Vancouver Island

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 23 more likely to hide in the shadows, draped over a rock or a mossy log. to be scavenged successively by eagles,

say, under a log. The distinguishing The sperm are made up mainly of nu- martens, ravens, crows, guUs, beetles, hump on the male's back may also cleic acids (DNA), and they are meta- and fly larvae. Even deer and squirrels

make it easier to see or catch [see "Fin bolicaUy hard to digest because they feed on salmon carcasses. Tuning," below]. may yield high levels of nitrogenous Reimchen and his colleagues ex- Some bears eat only parts of the toxins. In contrast, eggs are mainly amine, weigh, and take a broad range fish—they bite out the brain, or strip yolk—in other words, oils. Often of data about each carcass: lower jaw out just the eggs. Other bears leave bears delicately skin and eat only the length; body length; sex; weight of nothing except a pair of intact testicles fattest parts of the fish, leaving the rest testes, or the number of eggs in the

Fin Tuning death. Thus the energy reward for the bears is much greater if they kill a salmon that has just entered a stream—particularly a female salmon, whose lipid-rich eggs are the bears' choic-

By Scott M. Gende and Thomas P. Quinn est meal. Bears may be able to distinguish energy-rich fish by

their appearance because the loss in lipid and protein also Bears that live near salmon streams and spawning grounds leads to a loss of skin color and an increase in body fungus. tend to grow larger, have more cubs per litter, and belong By contrast, in larger or more structurally complex streams,

to denser populations than do bears without access to salmon. bears do not or cannot selectively target the larger fish or the

No big surprises there. But what difference do the bears make most recent arrivals.

to the salmon? Does being the prey of bears measurably affect The results of bear predation are evident in the salmon them-

salmon ecology, behavior, or evolution? Three criteria must selves. Compared with the salmon in large streams, the ones in

hold for the answers to be yes. First, bears have to kill a "high small streams where predation is high tend to be smaller and to

enough" proportion of a salmon population. Second, preda- spawn their eggs sooner after entering the stream.

tion can't be random; some fish must be

favored, or ignored, according to some nother effect of the bears is reflected

morphological or behavioral trait. Third, a;in the dorsal humps of male sockeye and most important, predation must influ- and pink salmon: they are smaller than the

ence salmon fitness, or in other words suc- humps of salmon not exposed to bears. cess at reproduction. Because salmon re- Usually—even accounting for differences turning to freshwater streams will soon die in body length—males with relatively large

anyway, whether killed by bears or not, the humps win out in the competition for fe-

answers are far from obvious. males. The hump may serve the practical

Having observed the interactions of Pink salmon in Knight Inlet purpose of making the fish's profile too fat

bears and salmon for many years, we have for another male to bite, but it is also used

concluded that the three criteria can be met only at small in display. To some extent, too, females may prefer a larger

streams. First, in small streams, bears can kill a high proportion hump in their mate. Other things being equal, a larger hump

of the salmon; the fishing requires less effort there than it does would seem to be the way to go.

in wider and deeper streams. The back-to-belly thickness of a male sockeye salmon may

Second, perhaps because of the greater visibility or "catcha- range from four to ten inches. Yet some of the streams they

bility" of large fish in shallow water (or because of the simple spawn in can be as shallow as three and a half inches deep. In

preferences by the bears) large salmon (at least in small streams) those streams, the larger the hump, the more it will stick out of

are more likely to be killed than smaller ones. By targeting the the water. Such a hump may be more readily visible to bears,

large fish, bears may be maximizing the energy they gain from and it may make maneuvering harder for the fish (in small

food, compared with the energy they spend in catching the fish. streams, stranding is a more severe problem for large-humped

Third, in small streams bears preferentially kill salmon that males than for small-humped ones). Either way, the large-

have not yet spawned. The reason is that salmon do not eat humped males are the ones more easily captured. Here, too, once they enter freshwater; instead, they draw on their own bear predation becomes a powerful source of natural selec-

stores of fat, or lipid, as well as protein, for the energy to mi- tion, countering the selective pressures that otherwise would

grate upstream and reproduce. Consequently, the longer a maintain a large hump.

salmon has been in a stream, the lower its energy content. Salmon just entering streams carry as much as 90 percent Scott M. Gende is an ccologist at tlie Pacific Nortliwest Research Sta- lipid more and 50 percent more protein than do salmon that tion in Juneau, Alaska. Tlwnias P. Quinn is a professor in the School have spent some time on the spawning grounds and are near ofAquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington in Seattle.

24 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 8

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tion of the carcass and its distance Montreal, suggested that Reimchen makes it fairly straightforward to mea- from the stream; body condition and measure the relative proportions of ni- sure the relative contribution marine intactness; presence or absence of the trogen isotopes in the tissue of forest nutrient sources such as salmon make brain. In addition, the biologists col- plants. Specifically, Rasmussen noted. to trees and other plants. lect tree cores and plant-tissue sam- ples in as many watersheds as possible. Nitrogen isotopes in tree rings record During his initial investigations in changes in the annual run of saknon. Bag Harbour, Reimchen had reckoned he could gauge historical trends and fluctuations in the flow of Reimchen should measure the pro- Although other investigators were

salmon by examining the yearly portion of nitrogen that is made up of already measuring nitrogen 15 to esti- growth rings of trees. The number of the isotope nitrogen 15. (By far the mate the contribution of salmon-de- salmon entering Bag Harbour has var- most common form of atmospheric or rived nitrogen to aquatic habitats,

ied enormously during the past half- oceanic nitrogen is made up of the iso- Reimchen was one of the first to apply century, ranging from 500 to 35,000 a tope nitrogen 14, so called because the procedure in terrestrial plants. For year. Presumably, Reimchen reasoned, each atomic nucleus of nitrogen 14 example, to isolate the contribution of trees grew faster, and their growth contains a total of fourteen protons salmon to the forest nutrient mix, he rings became thicker, in the years in and neutrons.) Nitrogen 15, which has has compared the nitrogen- 15 pro- which salmon were more abundant. an extra neutron, becomes more con- portions in vegetation growing above But he didn't know how he could rule centrated in marine life-forms at pro- and below waterfalls that are barriers out some independent external factor: gressively higher levels of the food to migrating salmon. Similarly, he

after all, tree growth might be largely chain. Hence in salmon, a fourth-level has looked at the proportion of

determined by rainfall. consumer, the concentration of nitro- nitrogen 1 5 to see if it falls off as one

Then a colleague, Joseph Rasmus- gen 15 is relatively high, compared moves inland from the salmon-charged

The rainforest on Princess Royal Island, northwestern British Columbia, gains marine nutrients when salmon return to their natal waters to spawn.

26 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 1

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Streams. The results have confirmed where the salmon have now become experience. that trees closest to the salmon streams rare or have even vanished. Many such draw the largest share of marine nutri- stories are largely rejected by fishery

Pacific Deliglit Tours' ents. In fact, fuUy half of the nitrogen biologists as exaggerations. After all, tradition of superb quality in some old-growth trees near salmon how could anyone say whether salmon

and innovation is reflected streams comes from salmon. existed in some now-quiet stream, in our GoldVacations®- But Reimchen's goal has remained sometime in the past? "Now, for the

extraordinary the ambitious one he started with: to first time, we have a method of an- examples of chronicle the annual ups and downs swering that question," says Reim- personal discovery of marine-derived nitrogen. To do chen—and perhaps of determining the and life-enriching that, he had to measure the propor- abundance of such salmon in the past.

journeys. tions of the nitrogen isotopes in each Reimchen's work is not the only

Travel in style with a growth ring. Together with the age of window into that past. Hilderbrand

small, select group. Enjoy the ring, he reasoned, that difficult and his colleagues analyzed hair speci- distinguished deluxe hotels measurement would give him the mens from grizzly bears that existed in and the comfort of cabin data he sought. Oregon's Columbia River Valley until

suites on the Yangtze River, with private Reimchen and his colleagues set 1931. The investigators have shown

shore excursions daily. Exceptional out to drill and extract half-inch that an average of 58 percent of the

culinary and cultural experiences further cylindrical cores from old-growth grizzlies' diet came from salmon. Even enhance each GoldVacation. cedar, spruce, and hemlock trees. At grizzly bears as far as 800 rrules from first, the For details see your travel professional however, no mass spectrometer ocean consumed salmon. Reim- could measure the trace quantities of chen's research could add a new di- I -800-22 -7 i or call 1 79. US^^ iCmSUMER fWIKIIOK nitrogen 15 present in the minute mension to those findings. Mapping wood samples cored from a single trees enriched with salmon nutrients PACIFIC DELIGHT TOURS growth ring. After four years of false would reveal vital arteries that link AWor\d of Difference^ starts, though, Reimchen found a lab- marine and terrestrial habitats; in prin- www.PacificDelightTours.com oratory in Davis, CaHfornia, that has ciple, that could be done with remote been systematically able to resolve dif- sensing by sateUite. ferences in nitrogen- 15 levels in sam- THEY WERE ORIGINALLY DESIGNED ples as small as one or at most just a we come to the end of our TO KEEP PEOPLE OFF — As few—tree rings. As one might expect, nighttime observations, Reim- OUR ISLANDS. the greatest annual swings in concen- chen speaks about how his work feeds r YOU THINK? tration occur in the trees closest to the into the formulation of conservation streams. Independent historical data of policies. "People act as if they harvest salmon abundance correlates well the surplus, and are the only har-

with nitrogen- 15 signatures in rings vesters. They think that all the dead

during the past fifty years. Because it fish in the stream are wasted." But the takes a year or so for nitrogen to be work of Reimchen and other investi- incorporated into a tree, however, the gators shows that not only do salmon nitrogen- 15 fluctuations lag the fluctu- replenish the forest; they also revital- ations in salmon by one to three years. ize streams and estuaries with carbon, Reimchen's team has also found high nitrogen, phosphorous, and other total nitrogen levels in the rings of minerals. Among salmon themselves,

trees nourished by salmon, suggesting the circle of Hfe is particularly inti- that such trees grow relatively fast and mate: nearly half of the nutrients con- large. The investigators are currently sumed by juvenile salmon comes examining watersheds where the from their dead parents. "In ecosys-

salmon populations have dropped ofl^ tems there is no surplus," says Reim-

sharply, and expect to document the chen. "Everything is used." general chronology of those changes.

Robert S. Scmciiiuk is a freelance writer and records of early European set- The photojournaiist based in Bowen Island, British tlers—even the memories of Na- Columbia. For further information about the

tive American elders—recall rivers that work of Reiinclieii and iiis colleagues, see ran with thousands of salmon, rivers web.uvic.ca/reinilab/.

28 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Photo: New Brunswick Tourism and Parl

This spring, treat yourself to a trip of a lifetime!

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Got a day? Try our incredible Day Village Historique Acadien!

Adventures! Kayak to see a sandbar Shop for unique local crafts like full of seals, explore caves, learn to dip blown glass, pottery as well as sculp- candles or how to catch and cook a tures and paintings by renowned Mar- lobster! There are also our amazing itime artists! Visit distinctive Econo-

Top Attractions! From visiting the fic- museums like The Olivier Soapery, tional village of Le Pays de la Sagouine where you learn both the history and to crossing the world's longest covered the art of making soap (the gift shop bridge in Hartland, it's the "A" list of has a huge variety of products!). everything there is to see and do in the Visitors from the United States are TOP: PONTOON BOAT EXCURSION province! And no stop would be com- always amazed at how affordable it is THROUGH GRAND FALLS GORGE;

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In New BrunswIcK Canada^ Bay of Fundy Just the Beginning ofthe Wonder Next Door!

^34ii£fii

Uncdverthe Ecd-treasures of v3ome of the Continent"^ .^ J- f Mostpistlnctf J

- V Irving Eco-Centre, Visit the Irving Eco-Centre, La Dune de Bouctouche, and tour .La'bune de Bouctouche, Saint-Edouard-de-Kent the botany and biology of one of the last sand dunes on the northeastern coast of the continent. Search for fossils and seashelis on our Discovery Beaches... the undiscovered treasures of New Brunswick's over 2,065 kilometres (1,200 miles) of coastline. Experience the .fa.ij.r )Vll ii^:/ mf jjijj yj.l.iiflilj!.t.ifv BayofFundj One of the Marine The St. John River reaches from the Bay of Fundy #fond up beyond the breathtaking Grand Falls Gorge! The legendary Miramichi calls fly fishers from around The world's highest tides... they H the world to challenge miles of salmon-fishing happen here twice every day! paradise. On the Restigouche, you can canoe See so many different species Grand Falls Gorge, through the unspoiled wilderness for days on end. of whaies! Walk on the ocean Grand Falls/Grand-Sault floor and only hours later, ayak above the same spoti Irs our Bay of Fundy... |in incredible natural

phenomenon.,, it's Just the The Appalachians are a mantle of wondrous natural beauty ^^gimlMg of the wonder in and you'll be awed by their untouched vastness. Bw Brunswick, Canada! Canoe the lakes and rivers that the mountains frame. Hike endless trails to lookouts that are not only breathtaking... they are inspiring. Grand Manan Island Appalachian Range ,^f^v.

From the world's highest tides to whales, wildlife and some of the oldest mountains on the planet... there's a world of wonder waiting for you next door in New Brunswick, Affix Canada! Fill in and mail this reply card to receive your FREE Vacation Planning Kit and get on your way today! Sufficient Q Mr. a Mrs. Ms. Postage Name:

Address:.

. Apt#:

State: .Zip Code:. Department of Tourism and Parks Telephone: ( ]_ Dept. 142 E-mail: P.O. Box 12345

Have you visited New Brunswick before? Q Yes No Campbeilton, New Brunswick What year was your most recent visit? Canada How many times have you visited NB? # times ESN 3T6 Have you ever purchased a vacation package? a Yes No

In the future, please send me additional information on travel to New Brunswick.

Q YES, enter me in the "New Brunswick's One Week of WONDER!" corrtest

---^ NewaSS Nouveau BrunswickCANADA *4< ;^'W^'

#1y/- K:^^ SwRicdVasTl

* ''f\ ' y <2^1 Come for the humour of our lively dinner theatre, ' -f * ^^m Le Pays de la Sagoulne, and visit the Village Historique Acadien - a living ISin-century French

villagel Come for traditional cuisine, folk tales, and old-fashioned hospitality. And for the dramatically beautiful Acadian coast... the perfect >i- setting for our extraordinary Acadian culture.

#1

.-*

^ nage Historique Acadien, Caraquet

The Acadian coast is also home to hundreds of

thousands of birds as they congregate in places such Itt^H^f as Lameque's Ecological Park of the Acadian Peninsula, ii^"^ and Irving Eco-Centre, La Dune de Bouctouche. An uncommon culture - an unforgettable vacation...

and it's right next door, in New Brunswick, Canada!

^R?

In 2004, New Brunswick will celebrate the 400*

, The Hopewell Rocks, anniversary of the first French settlement Hopewell Cape, in North America, which occurred atlc 45^ on St Croix Island. Thus began the great Acadian adventure.

.^f There's so much seafoocfrvTiromT^reshly caught lobster to king-size Atlantic

salmon... all cooked in unique local recipes or just the way you like It!

When the day is through, spend a night tucked away In a cosy seaside inn, a downtown hotel or a luxurious B&B! Where else could you find world-class Grande-Anse cities with so much to offer, so close to incredible Natural Wonders! Served Up From the Sea! _^ '-^\

New. Brunswic

CFrederlctofi'

New Nouveau -^^ r We're right next door- just a day's drive from New York, www.TourismNewBrunswlck.ca/Natural halfa dayfrom Boston!

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With Its wild, dramatic NORWAY by fjords and a backdrop of landscapes, Norway mountains. Over a thousand

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Norway's cosmopolitan cities in- Then, Drive to the Wonderl

Drive to St. Andrews and spend two luxurious nights at clude its colorful capital, Oslo, framed Photo: Mattias Persson / NorwegianTourist Board the renowned Faimiont Algonquinl Package Includes two nights' accommodation, golf lesson, 18 holes of golf, buffet breakfast daily, and three-course dinner at The

Clubhouse Grill. Enjoy a whale-watching adventure with Quoddy link Marine, and see More Kinds of Whales More Often Than Anywhere Else in the Bay of Fundy, One of the Marine Wonders of the Worid! Includes a Photo CD of your experience.

Then spend three febulous nights at The Ship's Lantern

Inn In Hillsborough! Includes three nights In a whirlpool

suite, full breakfast each morning and candlelight dinner each night for two, one picnic lunch for two, a welcome package and bottle of wine. Also includes admission to Albert County Museum and The Hopewell Rod(s, where you'll experience The Worid's Highest Tides and Walk on the Ocean Floor! Plus, your choice of two activities such as kayaking, horseback riding, personal guided tour, and more!

Next, you're off to Shediac for a two-ni^t stay at the fine LAuberge Cabriole Inn! Package includes

accommodation with private bath and ocean view, full breakfast for two each morning lobster supper with

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Yourself into It

Were the weights held by Greek long jumpers a help or a hindrance?

By Adam Summers ~ Illustration by Patricia J. Wynne

Jumper holding weights, Greek red-figure m/*i/si/^y^^7!/s/o<2rvyzr^^

cup, Evergides Painter, fihh century B.C.

the Summer Olympics of in Alsager, England, is fasci- At1968, in the dry, thin air of nated with human loco- Mexico City, Bob Beamon motion. He has explained why redefined the hmits of human per- small children Uke to skip but formance. The altitude of the venue adults don't, how toddlers tod- had led many sportswriters to specu- dle, and what a strolling gait

late that records would fall, and the would look like on another '/z/ii^/*i/!i^/^M^JS/^i/yQ/z/^ys/!iAiA>/*m../s/:y^yi long-jump record was certainly in planet. Now, with his col-

jeopardy. Jesse Owens 's mark of 26 league Luca Ardigo, he has feet 8.5 inches had finally been sur- turned his attention to the role of an- them back behind his body. But were passed in 1960 after having stood for cient Greek sporting equipment. In the halteres carried to encumber, and twenty-five years; in the ensuing the process he has unraveled a minor thus handicap, the best athletes? Or

eight years it had been pushed eight archaeological puzzle. were they, somehow, performance en- inches. But no one was expecting Records of the eighteenth Greek hancers? Minetti and Ardigo, working what was to come. In the Mexico Olympiad, held on the plain of with mathematical models and mea- City long-jump finals, in a transcen- Olympia in the city-state of Ehs in sures ofjumping performance, have

dent display of physical coordination, 708 B.C., are preserved as detailed found that the latter is the case. Beamon jumped twenty-two inches paintings on the sides of vases. farther than anyone ever had. At Documented in some of the sporting The distance covered in any jump 29 feet 2.5 inches it remains the scenes are athletes holding peculiar depends on three factors: the

Olympic record, the oldest one still stone or lead implements called hal- angle and the velocity of the takeoff standing; even now, thirty-five years teres. The function of these imple- and the starting point of the jumpers

later, the long-jump world record is ments had never been entirely clear. center of mass. Although handheld just two inches greater. From the paintings on the vases, ar- weights don't increase the jumper's

Given Beamon's achievement, it chaeologists had gathered that in the velocity (indeed, intuitively one would seems ludicrous to say he could have standing long jump (not to be con- think they had the opposite effect) or done even better. But a new study of fused with the running long jump, for change the launch angle, they do affect

Olympic long jumping suggests that which Beamon is celebrated), the the center of mass. if he had been carrying a gallon jug athlete would hold one haltere in each Consider our depiction ot an an-

of milk in each hand, he might stiU hand. During takeoff, he (the ancient cient jumper moving his arms \see il- have the world record today. Olympics were not co-ed affairs) lustration above]. As the athlete swung Alberto Minetti, a biomechanist at would swing them both forward; his arms forward, his center of mass Manchester MetropoUtan University then, while landing, he would swing would move forward and upward be-

42 NATURAL HiSTORY April 2003 i fore his feet had even left the ground. added force of the muscle would ac- may not seem like much, but even In effect, the jumper gained the tually generate more power, leading for the untrained jumpers of the ex-

advantage of leaping from a shghtly to an increase in jump distance. periment, it would add seven inches higher position, set a httle past the Using a computer model of a or so to a ten-foot standing long takeoff hne. As the jumper then jumper, the two investigators deter- jump. The last time the standing came in for a landing, he would inined that adding between eight and jump was an Olympic event, at the swing his arms backward. That frfteen pounds ot weight did increase 1912 games in Stockholm, the three motion did nothing to change the takeoff velocity. Heavier weights than medal-winning jumps were sepa- trajectory of his center of mass, those offset the increase in muscle rated by less than four inches; the which traced a parabola as the force, leading to takeoff velocities ei- winner leapt just over eleven feet.

jumper moved through the air. But it ther equal to or slower than those of Assuming a modern long jumper did enable the athlete to push his feet an unburdened jumper. The model could master the awkward matter of farther out in front of his center of predicts improvements in jumpers' swinging both hands together during mass than he could w^ithout the launch velocities of about 2 per- a running start, a similar gain would halteres. As long as the extra weight cent—an enormous gain in perform- add about a foot to the distance. hadn't slovi^ed his takeoff, that push ance at elite levels of competition. Perhaps Mike Powell, the current

M/!i'iS/'Z/:y:y:i/!i/:y^UtfZ/'yy7i/2

would have enabled him to go far- The predictions of computer world-record holder, would be in- ther, much as if he had swung over a models are often more com- terested in coming out of retirement fence and, at just the right moment, pelhng than the empirical results with to try out a well-used set of stone

pushed off the top rail. living, breathing (and misbehaving) hand weights.

In spite of all the swinging and human beings. But in this case quite

weight-shifting, the extra weight might the opposite is true. People untrained Adam Summers ([email protected]) is an

still seem an obstacle for a jumper. in long jumping were asked to select assistant professor of ecology and evolutionar)' After aU, the kinetic energy of any ob- a set of randomly weighted halteres, biology at die University of California, hvine.

ject—a jumper included—is equal to and then to jump while swinging half its mass multiplied by the square of their arms from a platform that mea-

its velocity. It might seem that adding sured takeoff forces. Jumpers carrying mass would reduce takeoff velocity, weights ranging from two to about and, that because of the squared veloc- twenty pounds managed to increase

ity, such a trade-off would be far less their takeoff power by more than 5

efficient for the jumper. Yet there is percent. Minetti and Ardigo attrib- good reason to suppose that takeoff uted the improvement over the com- power might actually increase with puter model to the energy-storing increasing weight—at least within effect of the body's elastic tissues: ten- Umits. The more slowly muscles con- dons, Ugaments, and muscles. Such tract, the more force they are able to tissues stretch hke rubber bands when

deliver, which is why heavy weights loaded. When the jumper takes off, can only be Ufted slowly. Perhaps they spring back and return the en-

with some small increase in weight, ergy to the jumper. Jumping youth holding weights, Greek red- Minetti and Ardigo reasoned, the Such a small increase in power figure cup, fifth century B.C.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 43 The Longest Winter

A series of deep freezes descended across the Earth 750 miUion years ago, each lasting miUions of years. The spring thatfinally took hold

may have triggered the present bloom of multicellular life.

By Gabrielle Walker

Look around, take in the intricacies of life on ordinary—the biggest climate catastrophe the Earth, and then consider this: complex life is Earth has ever known. That idea has been lurking a very recent innovation. For billions of in the scientific shadows for nearly sixty years, but

years the only earthlings were made of goo. Hud- Hoffman has now brought it firmly into the lime- dling together in the primordial sludge, they coated light. Marshaling evidence in rocks from AustraHa the seafloor and inched their way up the shore with and Namibia to Russia and Newfoundland, Hoff-

the tide; they clustered around steaming hot springs man contends that life's richness, diversity, and and soaked up rays from the faint young Sun. DuU sheer overwhelming complexity arose from a green or brown, excreting a gloopy glue that prodigious disaster known as "snowball Earth."

bound them into mats, these creatures were little more than bags of soup. Each was just a single cell. Some 750 million years ago, says Hoffrnan, ice Each had mastered the rudiments of how to eat, began to creep southward and northward from

grow, and reproduce, no more. Each was its own its strongholds at the North and South Poles. Indi-

cottage industry in a society that had no interest in vidual crystals of ice first appeared in the sea Hke collaboration or specialization. The Earth was tiny floating snowflakes. They were smashed to- Slimeworld, just about as gether by wind and waves, simple as life gets. their fragile arms broken Then, suddenly, roughly For a few thousand years, ice and their debris turning 590 million years ago, the water slick. The surface something shook the Earth crept from its strongholds at thickened and froze. In out of its complacency. the Poles. But when the ice some places, the ice con- That event—whatever it gealed into large pancakes, reached the Tropics, its slow was—gave rise to the be- with raised edges like those ginnings of eyes, teeth, creep became a sprint. of giant lily pads where legs, wings, feathers, hair, they bumped and crashed

and brains. For Ufe, it was against one another. the Industrial Revolution. Forget the old cottage For perhaps a few thousand years, the ice stole

industries where each single cell had to perform all unheeded toward the equator, while most of the the tasks of living. Now factories with specialized Earth's life-forms bathed in the warmth of the departments could thrive. From that moment, sim- shallow, equatorial seas. Geysers blew. The Sun

ple slime yielded its preeminence to the complex shone. Rain fell. There was no hint of the devasta- creations that heaved their way out of the sludge and tion to come.

started life's long march toward modernity. What- But when the ice reached the Tropics, its slow ever triggered that chain of events was ultimately re- creep became a sprint. In a matter of decades, ice sponsible for the existence of you and everyone engulfed the tropical oceans. It spread out from you've ever known. shallow bays and grew a skin, then a carapace,

Paul F. Hoffman, a geologist at Harvard Univer- over the oceans. It clung to the beaches and

sity, thinks the culprit was something truly extra- scraped against the microbial mats coating the

44 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 - . -a-a

with water from dripping ice, liollow Andy Goldsworthy, Thin ice. made over two days, welded inside, Scaur Water, Dumfriesshire, W-ll January 1987

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 45 seafloor. In some places the shell of ice stayed thin brian seafloor are occasional giant boulders,

enough to crack and seal again. In others it was dropped by icebergs that were once passing over- thousands of feet thick. head. Only one agent could have transported so

At first the land itself remained bare. Then ice many kinds of rock such long distances: glacial ice.

began to accumulate there, too, condensing out of Hoffinan was far from the first person to imagine the thin air of mountain ranges, creat- an ice-encased world—which isn't sur- ing great frozen rivers that prising, since the "ice rocks" flowed down to fdl the are ubiquitous. Haifa cen- surrounding valleys. In tury earlier an English the end, the whiteout geologist named Wal- was complete. Earths ter Brian Harland had surface looked like begun to develop the the frigid waste- outlines of a "great land of Mars, or one infra-Cambrian ice of Jupiter's ice-covered age." And in the late

moons. Instead of adding its 1980s, by examining mag- J3£^ia;^;i^*;,^,^^:^^vp-.^tUt.^i^g^ warmth, sunlight bounced netic iron particles in Aus- off the bright surface and A proposed distribution of Earth's landmasses 750 tralian ice rocks, Joseph L. million years ago (Laurentia would become part of was dazzled back into space. Kirschvink, a geologist at North America, Baltica part of present-day Europe). The average temperature Caltech, had shown that ice Geologists now speculate that this continental —40 plummeted to degrees arrangement may have created conditions that had reached the equator in Fahrenheit. Clouds by and gave rise to "snowball Earth." Precambrian times. Even so, large disappeared, except few geologists believed the perhaps for minute ice crystals high in the atmos- entire Earth could have frozen over. Snow and ice phere, which scattered sunsets into blue and green reflect sunlight much more eSectively than rocks. rimmed with vibrant pink. No rain fell, and little A shiny white icebound Earth ought to send the snow. Every day brought silent, unremitting cold. Sun's rays bouncing back into space, and if the Hoffman's snowball wasn't just another brief planet ever got into such a state—so the reasoning cold blip in an otherwise fairly comfortable world, went—it should never be able to get out of it. like the ice ages of the more recent geological past. But in 1992 Kirschvink presented a brilliant so-

Instead, it was the coldest, most dramatic, most se- lution to that conundrum. The snowball, he sug- vere shock the planet has ever undergone. The en- gested, was melted by volcanoes. Then as now, tire world was coated with a layer of ice nearly a volcanoes studded the Earth, periodically spilHng mile thick, and for perhaps 100,000 successive out heat, gas, and molten rock. Whether beneath centuries the Earth was a frozen white ball, deso- the sea or on land, they were perfectly happy to late and all but lifeless. erupt under ice—as they do today in Iceland [see There may have been as many as four snowball "The Ice Above., the Fire Below," by Robert S. White, episodes until 590 million years ago, when the last with photographs by Ragnar Tli. Sigurdsson , June one melted. Some microorganisms survived the 2002]. And one of the main gases to come from deep fireeze, of course—if they hadn't, they wouldn't the heart of a volcano is carbon dioxide, CO,, the stiU be around today. Maybe they huddled around gas that threatens us all with global warming. Car- undersea volcanoes or near hot springs, or found bon dioxide lets sunlight in but prevents the Earth's fissures and cracks in the sea ice where the Sun's body heat from escaping, and so provides an efl^ec- rays could slip through. But for many, perhaps most tive way of warming up a planet. Each volcanic of them, the snowball was disastrous. eruption, Kirschvink realized, would pour a little more CO2 into the sky, eventually turning the air Evidence for the snowball is written in the only into a thick blanket. And after millions of years of surviving record from the late Precambrian: frigid stasis, the ice would finally succumb, melting rocks. All over the world, on every single continent, within perhaps just a few centuries. rock outcrops contain mad jumbles of pebbles and The aftermath of the melting would have been stones of every shape, size, color, and provenance. hell on Earth. Dante, says Kirschvink, would have

They are scratched and scarred from having been been proud of it. To lock the CO, back up in the bulldozed out of their home territory and dragged rocks and clear ofi^ the blanket would have taken hundreds of irdles across the landscape. And lodged tens of thousands of years. In the meantime, aver- in siltstone outcrops that used to form the Precam- age annual temperatures soared to 100 degrees F

46 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 —

or higher. Intense hyperhurricanes brought floods the carbonates showed up wherever the ice rocks of acid rain. The Earth had leapt from the freezer were deposited, on every single continent. And into the fire. that is peculiar, because one of the first lessons

Although Kirschvink's inferno was a stirring idea, every geologist learns is that the Earth is emphati- he didn't pursue it. Before moving on to other cally not one big layer cake. Individual regions end things, however, he not only invented the term up layered with quite different kinds of rock. You "snowball Earth" but also mentioned his ideas to simply aren't supposed to get single events that Paul Hoffinan. A few years later the spark ignited. blanket the entire planet with the same kind of rock. Period. Except that on every continent, ice In the mid-1990s Hofiiiian was working among rocks are capped by carbonates. Precambrian ice rocks in Namibia and becom- So how could an icehouse turn into a hothouse? ing increasingly baffled by a mysterious layer of The answer came from Hoffinan's colleague Daniel

Lynn Davis, Iceberg 30, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000

carbonate rock immediately on top of them. This P. Schrag, a geocheinist also at Harvard. Schrag rea- "cap" of carbonate bore no pebbly interlopers, no soned that the cap carbonates were a direct conse- boulders, no signs of ice at all. And carbonate quence of the snowball and its aftermath. The way rocks form at the bottom of balmy seas, so finding Schrag envisioned it, the acid that rained onto the carbonates right above signs of ice was bizarre ground in torrents after the snowball ended fell onto like seeing palm trees in Antarctica. What's more. a thick layer of dust, left behind by millions of years

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 47 of grinding by the glaciers. In the post-snow- ball world, that combination of ground-up rock and acid rain was a chemical factory wait- ing to happen. (Think how much taster sugar

dissolves when it's not bound up in a lump.) Rock dust and acid met, mated, and were swept off into the sea. They set the waters fizzing and foaming, creating a Coca-Cola ocean. Oceans frothed and bubbled with dis- solved CO2; rocks dissolved like baking pow- der. All around the world, the post-snowball ocean turned milky with flakes of white. They poured down onto every inch of the ocean floor. From the chemistry of acid rain and rock dust had come a massive outpouring of car- bonate, blanketing the entire planet. The flakes squeezed together, hardened, and turned back into rock. They became the cap carbonates.

HofiiTian and Schrag put their ideas to- gether with Kirschvink's and published the amalgam in the journal Science in August

1998. That fall Hoffman went from one insti- tution to another, purveying the good news in impassioned lectures. He had never, he said repeatedly, been so convinced that something was right. But some in his audience were disturbed by the sheer extremity of the snowball vi- sion. To buy into the snowball, you had to think of our home planet acting like some eerily alien world. You had to imagine oceans freezing over completely, even at the equator; an ice age that spanned 150 million years; a planet that plunged from the coldest

temperatures it had ever undergone into an intense hothouse within a few centuries; CO, hile Hoffinan continues to bolster his geo- levels hundreds of times higher than have ever wlogical case, he has had to leave the biolog- been seen in the geological record; and rates of ical implications of the snowball theory to the rock weathering like nothing on Earth today. work of other specialists. How, for instance, did How could anyone accept a theory that was so the earlier Hfe-forms survive the deadly ice? And far out of the box? could the snowball have provided the creative

In the past half decade, plenty of adversaries spark for the new, complex life that followed?

have attacked the snowball theory, and HofEnan To answer the first question, you need to think

has had to answer their objections. Yet so far, the about heat. Any hot spring or volcano on a shallow

theory has survived every challenge with its core enough ocean floor would have created at least a

intact. And HofSnan's proselytizing has brought small hole in the ice above it. So there would have about a sea change in scientific attitudes. Virtually been at least a few puddles and cracks in which liv- everyone now agrees that the period from about ing things could have grabbed their chance to make 750 million until 590 miUion years ago was a time and store food, as they do in Antarctica today. And of extraordinary ice, cold, and catastrophe. Even according to Douglas H. Erwin, a conservation critics who think the tropics had at least some re- modeler and the interim head of the Smithsonian's maining open water—a scenario appropriately National Museum of Natural History, all you would called "slushball Earth"—admit that ice went al- have needed to get virtually all the extant species most all the way around. through the snowball epoch was about a thousand

48 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003

:.5wKi!iSff^T-?' -"i-'iSssS&C;- .'. »*r>ri? , printing press marked the begin- ning of language. Complex, multi- cellular lite-forms could easily have been around tor millions ot years before the Cambrian, and just not

left such a clear record of them- selves in the rocks.

If Hoffinan is right, if the snow- ball truly triggered the invention of

multicellular life, the world's first complex creations must have ap- peared shortly after the ice re-

ceded. The question is, did they?

ine way to answer the ques- O;tion is to supplement fossil hunting with a more oblique ap- proach: the molecular clock. The genetic material inside every hving

cell carries information about its ancestry. But DNA changes slightly with each generation, with each tick of the genetic clock. If you measure how much DNA has changed from one species to an- other, and if you know how fast the clock was ticking, you can track evolution backward even

^ without the help of fossils.

- , Most molecular clocks have indi- cated that complex animals emerged long before the snowball,

'•°° ^g'3 for it to have triggered > x^ffis! ^°^o ^^HmRI their appearance. Ditferent clocks, yielded radically Norbert Wu, Sea Ice Lead, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica however, have also different dates: some said biological havens of open water, with about a thousand indi- complexity began 800 million years ago; others said viduals in each. What's more, because snowball-era more than a biUion. That inconsistency frustrated a at Dartmouth College creatures weren't exactly gargantuan, each haven Kevin J. Peterson, biologist could have been no wider than a dinner plate. in Hanover, New Hampshire. Determined to prove

But the second question is trickier. Until re- once and for all that the beginnings of complexity cendy, most biologists had assumed that complex, had nothing to do with the snowball, he decided to multicellular Hfe-forms arose about 545 milhon make the most accurate molecular clock he possi- years ago, during an event called the Cambrian ex- bly could. plosion. But that event couldn't possibly have been Peterson chose echinoderms, a family of creatures triggered by Hoffman's snowballs. They ended that includes urchins and sea stars. Working back- around 590 million years ago, and 45 million years ward, checking each result against the substantial

is far too long to sit around with a lighted fuse number of well-dated available fossils in that family waiting for the bang. In fact, fame has come to (until he ran out of fossils), he finally had his answer. Cambrian creatures mainly because they invented He was stunned. The last common ancestor of all skeletons, scales, shells, spines—in short, all the complex animals hved sometime around 700 mil- various bodily supports that stick around long lion years ago. In other words, the appearance of enough after death to turn into clear, unambigu- that ancestor coincided almost exactly with the end

ous fossils. But they needn't have been the first of the first icehouse episode of snowball Earth.

complex animals, any more than papyrus or the Recall that Hof&nan thinks he is dealing with a

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 49 series of events, not just one. Perhaps complex an- the planet. Now Schrag has taken that idea a few imals were triggered by the first freeze-over and steps further. When continents spread out to the far

then survived the remaining episodes of ice. It's north and south, they act as a brake on the spread also possible that despite Peterson's care, his clock of the polar ice caps. White ice reflects sunlight, overestimates the age of complex animals; some which causes coohng, and that breeds more ice. biologists think that genetic changes happened Rocks, by contrast, normally prevent the Earth more quickly in the past, and that all molecular from overheating: in the chemical reaction known clocks yield older times than they should. as weathering, rock and water combine with at- If an icebound Earth really did trigger complex- mospheric CO2, thereby removing one of the

ity, encouraging hte to diversify and experiment, major greenhouse gases that volcanoes pump out.

how could it have done so? New species often arise But if polar ice starts to spread, the rocks of high- when a single population of creatures becomes iso- latitude continents no longer soak up CO,. Instead

lated from its fellows for a long time, perhaps a irdl- the gas stays in the atmosphere to do its greenhouse Hon years or so. Or perhaps the ice opened up a thing, warming up the Earth and melting the ex- niche for complexity by wiping large areas of the cess ice. That's what happens in the reassuring con- planet clean of hfe. UntU the enveloping mats of tinental arrangement we have today.

sHme were kept from hogging all the resources, Now imagine what would happen if all the con- there might have been no way to innovate. tinents were arranged in a band around the equator. The most popular idea about how to trigger The polar ice caps could spread with impunity. By

complexity, how^ever, is to shock the system with the time ice reached the equatorial continents, a

When the continents hunch together near the equator, an alternating icehouse-hothouse cycle may ensue—until the continents move on.

oxygen—the agent that "burns" food and enables snowball would be unstoppable. And as long as the animals to develop large and complicated bodies. continents stayed in the tropics, the alternating For millions of snowball years, when life would icehouse-hothouse cycle would continue—until have been restricted to a few small refuges, unused eventually the continents moved on.

nutrients would have built up in the sea, making it into a tasty chemical soup. As soon as the period of The good news is that another snowball is un- ice was over, the white planet would have become likely to be imminent. ReassembHng the con- green. Massive colonies of bacteria and algae tinents into a band around the equator will take at would have soaked up sunhght, made food, and least a few hundred million years. But the bad belched out oxygen as a waste product. That sud- news—at least if the threat is a snowball—is that den pulse of oxygen may have been just what the Earth has come a long way since the simple

complex Hfe was waiting for. days of Slimeworld, and life is now a complex web of interdependent creatures. If another snowball One question remains outstanding: Why did should ever engulf the Earth, many—perhaps the snowball ever happen at all? The answer most—of those creatures would perish. may lie in a peculiar alignment of the continents. Perhaps our descendants will be so unimagin-

As the world's tectonic plates drift over its surface, ably advanced that they wUl be able to prevent a

the continents sometimes scatter and sometimes snowball. But the Earth is a powerful and stubborn

bunch together. On rare occasions they arrange force. It Hmits our resources, and its geological will themselves in a band around the equator—and is extremely hard to check. there's reasonably good data suggesting that might If distant descendants of the human lineage can- have been the case during Hoffrnan's snowball. not stop another snowball, could they weather it?

More than a decade ago Kirschvink suggested That, too, is hard to imagine. Getting a few simple

that if all the available landmasses were collected in marine creatures through the ice is one thing, but the tropics, they would reflect more of the incom- the complex creatures that inhabit our planet today ing sunlight than seawater does, and so help cool present a much bigger challenge. Antarctica is the

50 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 Lynn Davis, Iceberg 34, Disko Bay, Greenland, 2000 most hostile place on Earth. Unless you take your Through geologic time, the Earth has constantly own Hfe-support system of food, fuel, and shelter taken on remarkable new identities. One moun- along with you, you die. And on a snowball planet, tain range rises; another falls. Oceans open here Antarctica takes over everywhere in the world. For and close there. Change doesn't alarm the Earth; it any truly complex creatures, the result would is a fundamental part of its nature. We human be- surely be disastrous. Norse mythology has a word ings, and the other creatures that share our slice of for it: after the catastrophe of Fiinbulwinter comes geologic time, are the fragile ones. Ragnarok, the end of the world.

But a new snowball would not be the end for all Tliis article has been adapted from Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Hfe on Earth, any more than the earlier ones were. Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life As We Know It, by Cabrielle

Our planet is, after all, a master of invention. Walker, which is being published this month by Croum.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 51 Date with Extinction

For a thousand years before people settled in New Zealand, a small alien predator may have been undermining the islands' seahird populations.

By Laura Sessions

,..,1

"-«»i' ^ •."->' ^ya?'^^^^^' S^

HuUoii's shearwater, a species of petrel, is still abundant near the shores of New Zealand's South Island. Here the birds rest on the sea within sight of their nesting

area, about 5,000 feet up in the Seaward Kaikoura Range.

52 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 Our yellow Zodiac bobbed across the chop- species from the mainland on the en py sea and made its way slowly through croachments of civilization. But m the clouds of seabirds that wheeled and reality, the early Polynesian settlers soared around us. Albatross, cape pigeons, diving were not responsible for the de- petrels, mollymawks, mottled petrels, and sooty struction of many of the seabiid

shearwaters all took their turns skimming our bow populations. Even before people set-

wave for fish. In the distance my boat mates and I tled this southern land, other visitors could see the fmal stop on our sub-Antarctic tour: may have already irrevocably altered the Snares Islands, about 130 miles south of New the New Zealand environment. Zealand's South Island. The chorus of screeching Those earlier arrivals on the New A Mutton's shearwater skims the birds drowned out our runibHng boat motor, and Zealand mainland were Pacific rats ocean surface, a habit that gives shearwaters their name. even from several miles away we could smell the (Rattns exidans), or kiore, as they are

acrid white guano that coats much of the Snares 's called in the Maori language. It has rocky coasts. During the summer breeding season been known for almost a decade that these small the Snares, whose entire area stowaways helped drive some of the native bird - -—- totals not much more than one species from the mainland, or, in some cases, to and a quarter square miles, are outright extinction. According to the standard ac- home to more than 6 miUion count of the invasion, the rats arrived in New seabirds—as many as nest along Zealand between 800 and 1,000 years ago, in the the coasts of Great Britain and canoes of the first Polynesian settlers. But in 1996, Ireland combmed. Richard Holdaway, an independent extinction bi-

.'•...;. ,,; Today in the New Zealand ologist, presented evidence that the rodents first

' ,/•• , .( .: „ , archipelago, such dense seabird landfall perhaps a years earlier. . made thousand colonies persist only on small That date has called into question the entire se- offshore islands, but at one time quence of prehistoric events that shaped New much of the coastline of the Zealand—and, not surprisingly, has fueled much North and South Islands (by far debate in New Zealand about the strength and va-

New Zealand's two largest is- lidity of Holdaway 's evidence. lands, commonly called the But even more, Holdaway has hypothesized that a mainland) would have been rat-generated crash in island bird populations could equally pungent and raucous. have led to "a cascade of damage" and even to a New Zealand once supported change in the nearshore oceanic food web: seabird one of the most diverse seabird colonies generate a prodigious quantity of guano, faunas in the world; the coun- which can form a kind of organic bridge between try was particularly rich in spe- sea and shore, enriching soil and promoting plant cies of petrels. Nowadays those growth. If the seabird populations crashed, Hold- populations have crashed, and away argues, so did this bridge. The islands would

many species have been extir- have lost a major source of nutrients. If Holdaway is pated on the mainland. One right, the rats had accidentally landed on a choke

can only imagine what it must point of the ecosystem, causing a ripple effect that have been hke for ancient Poly- went far beyond the destruction of seabirds. j^"^ - i'*:^-^:^ a —., nesian seafarers reaching the shores of uninhabited New Thanks to their remoteness—New Zealand lies Zealand. The archipelago, no 1,200 miles east of its nearest neighbor, Aus- doubt a welcome sight after tralia—the North and South Islands faced the on- -i^ months of arduous ocean sail- slaught of invaders considerably later than did many s 4 ing in a double-huUed canoe, other islands around the globe. But just as they have would also have presented a far on Hawaii and Guam, alien species that were sud- different scene from that of denly introduced onto the islands have had devastat- most of New Zealand today. ing effects. New Zealand birds were particularly at But did these colonizers en- risk, because they had evolved for millennia in the counter a truly pristine environ- absence of mammalian predators (indeed, the only ment? It would be easy to land mammals of prehistoric New Zealand were "round up the usual suspects" three species of ground-feeding bats). Many of the and blame the loss of so many native birds were flightless and seminocturnal, mak-

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 53 ing them easy prey for the rats and the eleven other discovered at non-archaeological sites, that is, sites introduced species of predatory mammals that even- without evidence of human settlement, with accel- tually prospered in the archipelago. Even seabirds erator mass spectrometry (AMS)—a relatively new were vulnerable; though they can spend months of and particularly sensitive method of radiocarbon dat- each year at sea, many of them nest in ground bur- ing. To his astonishment, the AMS readings showed rows and are helpless against terrestrial threats. that some of the bones were as old as 2,000 years. As an ecologist and environmental writer, one That may sound recent by the standards of North

of my main interests is to understand the damage American or European archaeology, but it is ancient that relatively recent introductions—from stoats to history for New Zealand, the last large habitable wasps to possums—have wreaked on native plants landmass to be settled by people. The early date

and animals. Often enough, I have discovered, suggested that rats had not only occupied New even one such invader can set in motion a spiral of Zealand before any other introduced land mammal, but that they had appeared on the scene more than a millennium before any human settlers.

ow firm are Holdaway's findings? H;How likely are they to stand up to further scientific scrutiny? The late as- tronomer Carl Sagan once remarked that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The implications of Holdaway's theory of early rat arrival are far-reaching, both for ecology and for the protohistory of Polynesian migrations. And sure enough, his findings have been hotly contested by some archaeologists, who have questioned the accuracy of his radiocarbon dates. AthoU Anderson, an archaeologist at the Australian National University in Canberra, argues vigorously that dates earlier than 800 A pair of Pacific rats feed on fruit. But given the chance, these years ago, as determined by AMS measure- mouselike rats readily devour small adult birds, chicks, and eggs. ment, can be explained by contamination of Evidence suggests that Pacific rats were the first mammalian predators bones in the deposits. Recently, however, introduced to New Zealand. Holdaway published the results of a compar-

ill effects [see "A Floral Twist of Fate," September ison between radiocarbon dating and a second tech- 2000, and "New Zealand Sweet Stakes," May 2001]. nique, known as optical dating, carried out by

It was through those interests that I first met Hold- geochronologist Bert Roberts of the University of away, and became acquainted with his work, in Wollongong in Australia. Optical dating determines 2001. Holdaway not only shares my concerns when the quartz grains in the sediments containing about the current state of New Zealand's ecosys- the fossilized bones were last exposed to sunlight.

tems; he also adds perspective by looking to the The technique made it possible to estimate how past. He hopes to document the species of prehis- long the sediments and the rat bones had been toric New Zealand, how its ecosystems worked, buried. The results of those tests confirmed the ra- and what they can say about the islands today. diocarbon chronology for the Pacific rat fossils. From 1991 until 1995 Holdaway took part in a Archaeologists also point to the lack of evidence collaborative study to examine fossils for signs that for human colonization of New Zealand before early Polynesian settlement had led to changes in about 800 years ago. Known for their intrepid voy- animal populations and the mix of animal species. ages throughout the Pacific, the people who first When rat bones were discovered at some of the fos- permanently settled New Zealand were eastern

sil sites, he decided to test the assumption that the Polynesians in language and culture, and they were rats had arrived in New Zealand with the people to become the direct ancestors of the Maori who settled in the islands about 800 years ago. (Ar- people. Holdaway believes that any population of chaeologists have established the dates of those set- more than about fifty people occupying New tlements on independent grounds.) Zealand for any length of time would have left Holdaway measured the ages of the fossil rat bones clues to their presence, such as bones of large flight-

NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 —

less birds killed for food, or the Tthe idea that intermittent remains of cleared forests—as visitors carried rats to the the first settlers did. Yet no evi- islands several times is borne out dence for settlements more by a study of the mitochondrial than 800 years old has ever DNA of Pacific rats by Lisa Ma- come to Hght. tisoo-Smith, an anthropologist So if the colonizers didn't at Auckland University in bring the rats, how could the Auckland, New Zealand. Mati- animals have come to New soo-Smith compared genetic se- Zealand? Pacific rats originated quences in Pacific rats from in southeastern Asia. Could New Zealand with the same se- they have made the trip on quences in rats of the same spe- their own? The answer is surely cies from other Pacific islands. no. The animals are reluctant Random mutations in mito- swimmers, unable to cross chondrial DNA accumulate at a water barriers more than 200 slow but relatively constant rate. yards wide, even in the tropics. Matisoo-Smith reasoned that

And it is unlikely that they the mutations could serve as a rafted on vegetation to New clock for determining the ar- Zealand from some far-off rival dates of rats on various is- Skeleton of the neck and head of a moa, a South Pacific isle. In spite of lands across the Pacific. Assum- long-necked flightless bird that grew as tall their relatively long tenure in ing the rats arrived with early as six and a half feet. Native to the islands the North and South Islands, Polynesians (or perhaps with of New Zealand, moas were rapidly hunted they did not reach some of to extinction fay the Maori. (Photograph by the Lapita), the rodents' mito- the offshore islands of New Rosamond Purcell) chondrial DNA could serve as Zealand until quite recently. an independent record of pre- Holdaway agrees with that scientific consensus: historic human migrations. Her data show that the people brought rats to New Zealand. In fact, the rats living in New Zealand today carry genetic her- Polynesians are known to have sometimes trans- itages from various Uneages of R. exidans, suggest- ported Pacific rats—perhaps at times for food ing that they were introduced to New Zealand throughout the vast Pacific triangle, from Hawaii more than once, from various geographic sources. to Easter Island to New Zealand. But Holdaway Ecologists have only recently come to recognize thinks the people who brought the rats to New that the rodents could have fundamentally altered Zealand were earlier seafarers known as Lapita, who were prob- ably the ancestors of the Polyne- sians. The Lapita left no archaeolog- ical evidence of their presence in New Zealand, Holdaway argues, simply because their visits to such southern latitudes were so transient. They may have touched on New Zealand shores intermittently for centuries before they, or other early

Polynesians, decided to stay. And for rats to have arrived, become feral, and established themselves in the new habitat, they need not have "jumped ship" or been purposefully introduced in great numbers. Pacific rats, after all, are rodents, and so they are prolific reproducers; arriv- Maori seafarers power a war canoe in inshore waters, as depicted in this engraving by ing at the right time of year, one Paulo Fumagalli and his assistants. The Maori, a Polynesian people, were the first pregnant rat could eventually have group to establish permanent settlements in New Zealand. Their oceangoing vessels, populated an entire island. unlike their war canoes, were double-hulled and had triangular sails.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 55 —

New Zealand. Indeed, Holdaway and his col- leagues have found evidence that within a hundred years or so of their arrival, Polynesian settlers had hunted the giant flightless birds known as moas to

extinction. But if Holdaway 's work is on the mark. New Zealand was far from pristine when the Poly- nesians came to stay. Rats that arrived 1,000 years before any permanent human occupation would have had more than twice as long as people had to alter their adopted ecosystem.

Although Polynesians might occasionally have killed and eaten Uzards and the small flightless wrens that were once widespread throughout the islands, they would hardly have hunted such smaller prey to extinction. The Pacific rat was the only small feral mammalian predator in New Zealand before the European era began with the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1769. (Archaeol- ogists think that Polynesian dogs, also introduced by Polynesian settlers and kept for food, had Utde impact on native species.) The blame for those ex-

A kakapo, New Zealand's ground parrot, uses its stubby wings tinctions clearly rests with the rat. for display but not for flight. Adults are too large for Pacific rats When Pacific rats arrived in New Zealand, they to threaten directly, but their eggs are a manageable mouthful. found themselves in a land of plenty. Milli ons of seabirds nested in ground burrows. Other birds, New Zealand's ecosystems. Until a decade ago, such as the flightless wrens, emerged at dusk to most biologists thought that Pacific rats, unlike forage, the rats' favorite time to hunt. The rats Norway rats (R. noivegicus) and black, or ship, rats simply did what any hunter would do. Their vic-

(R. rattus), were vegetarians. Pacific rats do feed fire- tims were well-adapted to avoiding birds of prey, quendy on plants and insects, but they are also avid which had always occupied the islands. But preda- meat eaters when the opportunity arises. More- tory birds attack from above, relying on their ex- over, because rats are nocturnal, few people had ac- cellent vision to sight prey during dayUght. The

By indirectly disrupting the jiow of nutrients from the sea, the small Pacific rat may have altered island wildlife throughout the Pacific.

tually seen them in the act of predation untU in- rats hunted by night, on the ground, with their frared video captured them at their gruesome tasks. keen sense of smell. But by now biologists have observed them at- A series of inadvertent natural experiments, in- tacking adult saddlebacks (a native songbird whose volving the mix of people, rats, and wUdHfe on numbers are dwindling) and devouring eggs of the some of New Zealand's oSshore islands, suggests little shearwater (a native petrel). Petrel chicks are in even greater detail how rats may have affected sometimes skinned ahve and their eyes eaten out. native fauna over time. For example, on off- And Pacific rats are voracious. In New Zealand shore islands such as Aorangi and Stephens they weigh in at less than half a pound but can de- which became home to Polynesians but never vour any prey as large as they are and eat eggs two- to Pacific rats—petrels, other small birds, inverte- and-a-half inches long. They can even threaten the brates, frogs, and Uzards still abound. Those species eggs of such large birds as the kakapo, the heaviest have largely disappeared from islands inhabited for parrot in the world and now one of the rarest. long periods by Pacific rats.

The Polynesians themselves are usually blamed It is the petrels, though, that most dramarically il- for irrevocably changing the landscape of a pristine lustrate the magnitude of the damage that rats prob-

56 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003

ably inflicted in New Zealand. Thirteen species ot tebrates, Uzards, birds, bats, and other herbivores. petrel once bred on the South Island. Today only six Take the case of Hutton's shearwater. Holdaway es-

still breed there, and only one, Hutton's shearwater, timates that a remnant colony of these birds on the remains on the island in great nunrbers. The seven South Island stiU suppUes more than 1,000 pounds extirpated species certainly disappeared before the of guano per acre in each breeding season. Extrapo- Europeans arrived and may have been gone even lating fi-om that estimate, he maintains that before before the Polynesians settled in New Zealand. the appearance of the rats, seabird colonies could The petrel species that became extinct were pre- have suppUed two niiUion tons of fertilizer a year. cisely the ones whose size and habitat made them The possible implications of the loss of such a most accessible to the Pacific rats. Petrel species that nutrient flow are astonishing. Pacific rats have were too big a mouthful for rats persisted on the spread to hundreds of islands and have eliminated mainland, even in lowlands, where rats were com- hundreds of seabird populations. If those changes

mon. In contrast, the smaller petrel species all disap- have equally disrupted hundreds of food webs, it peared, even where their breeding habitats re- could be that these small rodents have altered island mained intact. Scarlett's shearwater, for instance, wUdUfe across the entire Pacific. Holdaway's next

disappeared from the west coast of the South Island, step is to collaborate with investigators from a vari- even though the area retains some of the largest ety of discipHnes to examine the possible connec- tracts of relatively undisturbed forest in the country. tions between petrel disappearances and changes in The only small petrel species that survived were the those food webs. The Pacific rat may be the only ones that nested on rat-free oflshore islands or in mammal in the world, besides our own species, that cold mountainous regions, inhospitable to subtropi- has fundamentally altered an ecosystem on a conti- cal rats. Many ot those refuges were later invaded by nental scale. other, even feistier rat species and by stoats introduced by Europeans.

If rats were responsible for killing off" petrels and other native species, what additional effects might their depredations have had? By eHminating huge colonies of seabirds, for instance. Pacific rats could have generated eco- logical damage far beyond the extinc- tion of particular species. Holdaway has drawn particular at- tention to the amount of organic waste once generated by the seabird colonies—mainly guano, but also lost eggs, dead birds, spilled food, and molted feathers. That waste would have constituted a bonanza of nutri- ents that flowed continuously from the sea to the land. (Miners on other oceanic islets, such as Nauru and Christmas Island, have come across guano-derived phosphate rock de- posits as thick as seventy-five feet.) The massive wastes of the seabird colonies on the mainland would have added phosphorus, nitrogen, and car- bon to relatively nutrient-poor soils,

and lowered the pH of the soil. The birds would also have aerated the soil as they burrowed to shape their nests. The Westland petrel, big and mean enough to fend off even large Norway

The nutrients would have fostered the and black rats, is one of the few petrel species that still breeds on the New growth of plants that sustained inver- Zealand "mainland, " and whose numbers are on the rise.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 57 Photographs by Subhankar Banerjee

ere the summer sun lingers above the horizon from mid- May until mid-August. Here the sky of the long winter night dances with the luminous curtains of the aurora

borealis. The setting is the Arctic Na-

Capitate lousewort, temporarily tional Wildlife Refuge, in the north- shrouded by a summer snowfall eastern corner of Alaska. Its 30,000 square miles of wildlands straddle the Continental Divide, including the four highest peaks and most of the glaciers in the Brooks Range. Waterways that flow northward cross the tundra of the coastal plain and empty into the Beaufort Sea; waters flow- ing southward pass through forests of spruce and birch to join the mighty Yukon River or the Porcupine River, one of the Yukon's tributaries. In May and early June the coastal plain serves as the principal calving ground for the Porcupine herd of caribou. Musk oxen give birth on the plain a bit earlier, from mid-April until mid-May. In the past few years, apparently as a result of global warming, the coastal plain has had more snow than usual and, as a consequence, a later spring thaw. Driven to the foothills to fmd forage, the musk oxen are more often giving birth there, even though that makes them and their young more vulnerable to griz-

zly bears. The net result is that their numbers are in decline.

Altogether the refuge is home to thirty-six species of land mammals

and nine marine mammals that frequent its coast. About seventy species of birds nest on the coastal plain; another sixty-five make their annual pilgrimages from lands as distant as South America and Southeast Asia, just to feed on the clouds of early summer insects. The refuge was created in 1980, enlarging a national wildlife range es- tabhshed in 1960. Nearly 14,000 square rrdles are designated as wilderness and are governed by the 1964 Wilderness Act. Mining and timber cutting

are forbidden, and recreational equipment is circumscribed. But the coastal

plain, despite its pivotal ecological role, is not classified as a wilderness area. Owned by the citizens of the United States, the Arctic National Wild-

life Refuge is now managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (www.r7.fws.gov/nwr/arctic/arctic.html). More than 300 archaeological

sites, however, attest to the priority of an indigenous human presence. Exploiting the tundra and the sea are Inupiat Eskimos, traditional hunters of bowhead whales, while in the interior forests live the Gwich'in Athabascan Indians, whose fate and culture have long been joined with the herds of caribou. Inhabiting settlements on the periphery of the

refuge, these people remain among its best-informed guides. —ViTTORio Maestro

58 NATL'PvAL HISTORY April 2003 Arctic Covenant

In the springtime the Arctic National WildUfe Refuge ofAlaska comes to life.

Mount Michehon looms over caribou on the coastal plain. As many as 120,000 animals belong to the Porcupine herd, named for the Porcupine River, which flows across the southeastern corner of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Each spring the animals travel northward and congregate

on the coastal plain in the refuge and in adjacent Canadian territory.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 59 Marsh fleabane grows in the vailey of the East Fork of the Chandalar River, which flows south of the refuge to join the Yukon River. In the distance, Nichenthraw Mountain and spruce trees are

reflected in an unnamed lake.

Arctic {ox in its summer coat In the fall 300,000 snow geese stop in the coastal plain of the refuge to bulk up on the root stalks of tall cotton grass before heading south to their wintering grounds.

vv -- » Standing among sharp-edged

peaks, at the convergence of

mountain and sky, I am alone at

a place withotit roads or people,

not even trails except those

trodden by wild sheep and

caribou; there is nothing to violate

the peace, with the mountains

still unaffected by humankind.

Here one can recapture the

rhythm of life and the feeling of

belonging to the natural world.

—George B. Schaller

Rock lichens in the valley of the Hulahula River, which flows northward across the coastal plain and empties into the Beaufort Sea.

Big predator species such as the polar bear and wolf

A male buff-breasted sandpiper makes his courtship signify the biological health of the Arctic ecosystem. display. The world population of the species is only about 15,000. The birds migrate each year from But to me, in such a harsh environment, the smaller Argentina to the coastal plain of northeastern lifeforms such as the American dipper, a songbird I Alaska and adjacent Canada. saw feeding on the open waters of the Hulahula

River in November, signify its spiritual health. SUBHANKAR BaNERJEE

Tlicsc pItoicqT.iplis by Subhatiljar Bmterjcc wilt soou be published in

Arctic Narional Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life jnd Land (Setjltlc:

Vic MonntMiiccn: Boo/ji. 2003f.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 61 "

REVIEWS

Happy Birthday, DNA!

Return with us now to those thriUing days of discovery, fifty years ago this month.

By Everett I. Mendelsohn

Watson and DNA: D. Watson opened his irrev- 1953 and its impHcations for how ge- James Making a Scientific Revolution erent and at times malicious popu- netic information is repHcated marked by Victor K. McElheny lar book, Tlie DotMe Helix, with the opening of a major shift in how Perseus Publishing, 2003; $27.50 the comment: "I have never seen generics would be practiced. Prior to Francis Crick in a modest mood." 1953 the rephcation process was "black Rosalind Franklin: Watson was referring of course to his boxed." In contrast, following the The Dark Lady partner in the discovery of the struc- of DNA work of Watson, Crick, WUkins, and by Brenda Maddox ture of DNA. The narrative is clear: Franklin, genes were understood as $29.95 immodesty led to success. It is that HarperCollins, 2002; molecules, and the search for how the

singular success that is now being cel- molecules functioned and how they ebrated, the fiftieth anniversary of the their discovery does mark a critical influenced the development of the three papers on DNA (one by Watson milestone in the coming age of molec- structures and processes of Uving or-

and Crick, one by Maurice Wilkins ular biology. The combined effort is as ganisms became the focus of the new, and two coauthors, and the third by important as any discovery in twenti- very active, and very large field of Rosalind Franklin and a coauthor) eth-century science. The detailing of molecular biology. Numerous Nobel originally published in the journal the double hehcal structure of DNA in Prizes were awarded for the scientific Nature on April 25, 1953. discoveries that resulted, and numer- The tone of the papers, obviously ous patents were granted for the apph- constrained by the editorial policies cation of the new science to medicine, of what was at the time indisputably agriculture, and commerce. the premier journal of science, was subdued if not comically understated: Victor McElheny s book Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolu- We wish to suggest a structure for the salt tion is the first fuU biography ofWatson of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). (Crick has yet to be the subject of a fiill This structure has novel features which biographical account). In McElheny 's are of considerable biological interest. account, Watson s is a long and eventfiil Watson and Crick knew, however, hfe in science: the DNA discoveries; that if their structure was correct, the appointment at Harvard; the years they were on to something very big, as director of the Cold Spring Harbor and in one of the last paragraphs of Laboratory on Long Island, New York, their "Letter" to Nature they stated during which Watson oversaw its re- their claim: construction as a leading center for bi- ological research; and the vigorous ef- It has not escaped our notice that the spe- forts he made as the first director of the cific pairing we have postulated immedi- Human Genome Project. ately suggests a possible copying mecha- In their initial paper Watson and nism for the genetic material. James Watson and Francis Crick's 1 953 Crick conceded that they had not molecular model of DNA, made up of metal One could almost say, "The rest is done experimental work on DNA, plates and rods, arranged helically around a history." The details sketched by Wat- nor had they collected X-ray data; retort stand. Each plate represented one son and Crick relatively rapidly stimu- rather, they relied on previously pub- of the four bases whose complementary lated enormous amounts of experi- arrangement "suggestfedj a possible copying lished data. In their final paragraph mentation and further theorizing. Yes, mechanism for the genetic material. they note:

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1 New York State vacation! and river cruises all with the accent experience imaginable. We have also been stimulated by a Yet I'm not sure either of them is en- knowledge of the general nature of the tirely comfortable sharing the Hme- unpublished experimental results and Hght with Franklin. The irony is that ideas of Dr. M.H.F. Wilkins, Dr. R.E. Franklin looms as large as she does Franklin and their coworkers at King's today in part because of the way Wat- College, London. son portrayed her in Tlie Double Helix. Maurice Wilkins, who did important Maddox recounts Watson's first en- work on the X-ray crystallographic counter with Franklin, which took analysis of DNA, went on to share the place at a lecture she gave as part of a Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick colloquium at King's College. Wat- in 1962. RosaHnd Franklin, a col- son, in recalling the lecture for his league of Wilkins 's at King's who had book, betrays something of his atti- produced some of the clearest X-ray tude toward women: "Momentarily I pictures of DNA, died young, of wondered how she would look if she ovarian cancer, on April 16, 1958. Watson (right) and Crick in 1 953, shortly after took oflher glasses and did something working out the structure of the DNA molecule Frankhn had been a focus of parody novel with her hair." But he says little in Watson's Double Helix, but her pic- or nothing about the stunning X-ray tures had been shared with Watson is fitting that these two biogra- pictures she had made and which he It and Crick, and they proved to be cru- phies are part of the public record hoped would give him the evidence cial in confirming their structural of the fiftieth-anniversary celebra- he and Crick needed to support their analysis of DNA. Unable to defend tions. And there is Httle doubt that developing theory of a helical struc- herself from the grave, she became a Watson and Crick will get the Hon's ture for DNA. feminist icon and the subject of two share of attention—after all, they are Instead, Watson went on to belitde biographies; Brenda Maddox's Ros- both still ahve and active, and both Franklin's dress and her lack of "Hp- alind Franklin: Tlie Dark Lady of DNA have enjoyed long and quite successful stick to contrast with her straight black is the more recent. careers since their youthful discovery. hair." Maddox concludes that "Watson could not have given the world his 'Rosy' if RosaUnd had been ahve." A number of scienrific colleagues, as well Human Wildlife as friends and family of Franklin's who were sent copies of the draft manu- The Life That Lives on Us script, protested Watson's account of Dr. Robert Buckman Franklin, as well as his references to others. In response to his critics Wat- "In Human Wildlife, Dr. son added what Maddox calls "a pious Robert Buckman takes us on epilogue," which was pubKshed with

an engrossingly detailed the first edition of the book in 1968. journey through the hoards of From that historical vantage, Watson organisms that thrive within, writes, virtually everyone mentioned

still with on, and uncomfortably close in the book was ahve, "one .:" unfortunate exceprion. . . to our bodies. The voyage

includes a mix of humorous Rosalind Franklin died at the early age of text and astonishing photo- thirty-seven. Since my initial impressions of her ... (as recorded in the early pages of graphs. From bedbugs to this book), were often wrong, I want to say bacteria, the doctor reminds something here about her achievements. us that even when we think we are by ourselves, we are The rest of the paragraph and the

never alone."—Jeffrey C. May, concluding one that followed tried to make amends, but the text in the body author of My House is Killing of the remained unchanged. Me! book But if Watson had been so clearly 208 pages, 270 color photos nasty and catty about Franklin that he $21.95 paperback now sought to apologize, he seemed The Johns Hopkins University Press unmoved by the anger both Wilkins

Available at bookstores • 1-800-537-5487 • www.jhupbooks.com

66 NATUR.\L HISTORY April 2003 Advertisement

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and content. In a vivid section of his Genes, Girls, and Gamow, is further il- vited to give at Harvard in George biography, McElheny chronicles their lustration of the type.) Wald's introductory course on biol- reactions. Wilkins thought The Double McElheny has known Watson for ogy, on the day after Watson's Nobel

Helix should not be published. It was more than four decades, covering him Prize was announced in October

"extremely badly written, juvenile, first as a science reporter for Tlie Boston 1962. The book closes as Watson is and in bad taste." Crick, McElheny Globe during Watson's years at Har- made an honorary Knight of the notes, was even more savage: "It vard. He also spent four years working Order of the British Empire, in Janu- shows such a naive and egotistical for Watson at Cold Spring Harbor. Al- ary of last year. In between, McEl- view of the subject as to be scarcely though he thanks Watson for years of heny does a thorough job of pulling

credible." And perhaps most teUingly, friendship, he is also at pains to point together an account of the 1953 dis-

it "grossly invades iny privacy. ... [It out that "Watson did not participate in covery of the structure of DNA, inte-

was] a violation of friendship." Several this project." That may be literally grating into it the views of many oth-

years later, in an article in Molecular Bi- true, yet Watson clearly gave his bless- ers, both contemporary and later. ology celebrating the twenty-first an- ing to this biography. He steered Taken together with the "formal" niversary of the 1953 paper. Crick histories of that discovery (by Robert confessed that he too had contem- C. Olby of the University of Pitts- plated writing a book. He had gotten burgh and by Horace Freeland Judson

as far as a title, Tlie Loose Screu', and the of George Washington University), opening hne: "Jim was always clumsy McElheny's book adds valuable ele- with his hands. One had only to see ments to the story of how that impor- ." him peel an orange. . . tant work was accomplished. But to his credit, McElheny also

the text Double Helix is gives fuU rein to the many manifesta- If of The what brings these two biographies £1 tions of "brat/genius" behavior (his together at one moment in time, there words) and the criticisms of it. Ac-

is no question that both of them go far cording to McElheny, Watson's "bad

beyond that text. Both are fiUed with boy" image is richly deserved, and in

detail, much of it previously unknown part self-inflicted (perhaps self-crafted

or only hinted at. Each one provides is more accurate) in Watson's two au-

valuable historical appraisals of both tobiographical volumes. McElheny is Watson and Franklin by members of also well aware of the controversy the founding generation of DNA X-ray diffraction photograpti of DNA. This arising out of Watson's (and Crick's) image of the B form of DNA was obtained by studies, as well as by subsequent gen- failure to appropriately recognize the Rosalind Franklin in 1 953, and was a crucial erations of practitioners. The inter- work of Franklin, as well as the con- piece of evidence supporting the structure views noted by each biographer are tingent nature of the discovery itself. proposed by Watson and Crick. prodigious and in many cases add He notes Watson's own retrospective

context and color. McElheny to many colleagues who judgment: "We were lucky. I don't

But the two books are also quite gave extensive interviews and who think it was any great intellectual in-

different. McElheny 's is one of hero- helped review the manuscript. He still sight." And elsewhere, Watson said: ism mixed with quirkiness; Maddox's directs the archives at Cold Spring "The DNA structure was ready to be

one of tragedy and attempted recon- Harbor, and made sure McElheny solved. I can't imagine two years struction. Both directly and implicitly could make good use of them through going by [after 1953] without some- offer accounts of how science oper- unencumbered access. Accordingly, one else making the discovery."

ates, how its practitioners behave, though Watson and DNA is not an how its institutions function (or mal- "authorized" biography, it is one com- Brenda Maddox moves directly function), and how myths are made posed from deep within the molecu- into the territory that McElheny

and destroyed. McElheny's focus is a lar-biology community. eschewed in his volume. She explores

man who is at once both immodest the life, work, and personality of and iU at ease. Although McElheny is McElheny wants to insist that Franklin. A strong-minded, complex, at pains to avoid discussion of Wat- there is much more to Watson and highly intelligent woman, Frank-

son's private life and family, his sub- than his reputation as "biology's bad lin was born into a prominent, well-

ject's personal immaturity and curious boy," and the book is bracketed with to-do and well assimilated Anglo- attitude toward women cannot be tales of honor and scientific recogni- Jewish family. Her biographer locates overlooked. (Watson's most recent tion. McElheny opens with an ac- her in time, in place, and in culture. 4 6'3 j NATURAL HISTORY April 2003

I

Her father's family had come to Eng- peraments of the personalities in- land from Breslau, in Silesia (now part volved, the science on which they of southwestern Poland), in 1763 and were working was yielding answers to prospered through the generations in each one of them. The history of the

banking and publishing. One ot her discovery is certainly linked to indi-

relatives was the first high commis- viduals, but, in this case particularly, it sioner of Palestine. Her mother's fam- also transcends them. One indication ily included the first Jewish professor of how far along the research was on at an EngHsh university and the first several fronts was the simple fact that Jewish lord mayor of London. There a single step taken by the original were suffragists and socialists, a trade group (Watson and Crick) was able to union organizer, and a London city meet with such complete success. As councillor in her heritage. the biochemist John Edsall remarked Maddox looks at length at in 1962: "No fundamental revision of Franklin's early career and provides a the picture has been required since detailed and sympathetic account of the early formulation of Watson and her unhappy (albeit, coincidentally, Crick." That assessment remains highly productive) years from 1951 Rosalind Franklin in an undated portrait largely true to the present day. until 1953. She spent those years at Of course, even after fifty years key

King's College working with Wilkins, Franklin is well served by Maddox's elements of the molecular processes of and most of her encounters with Wat- intelligently written and eminently reproduction and development are stiU son and Crick took place there. They fair biography. being sought. Efforts to modify or- were stiff and unfriendly meetings, ganisms through molecular manipula- and led Crick to refer to Franklin as Many commentators have asked tion—genetic engineering—are being "that dark lady"—the phrase Maddox whether Franklin would have widely practiced in agriculture, and adopts as a subtide. Franklin's move in shared the Nobel Prize with Wilkins, more circumspectly experimented

1953 to Birkbeck College, London, Watson, and Crick had she been alive with in medicine. Virtually all these and to the laboratory of the crystaUo- in 1962 (the Nobel Prize is never developments have been controversial. grapher J.D. Bernal, provided a much awarded to a deceased scholar). Still Genetically manipulated foods have friendlier and more supportive envi- others have contested whether she been greeted with stiff resistance in ronment, where her talented research would have deserved it. Counterfac- Europe, even while they have been continued. tual history seldom yields adequate much more readily accepted in the

But by then Franklin's work with answers, and I see little point to in- United States. Genetic manipulation DNA had ceased. Instead, she began dulging in it here. But the wisdom of in humans—gene therapy—has met to carry out quite successful studies of fifty years of hindsight does allow sev- with only mixed success, as well as the structure of tobacco mosaic virus eral incontrovertible observations. with some highly visible failures. It (she located the infective element of The very fact that the Nobel Prize has also brought into sharp focus the the virus in its ribose nucleic acid). for physiology or medicine was spUt ethical issues raised by seeking to treat

Part of what is known about three ways and the chemistry prize in genetically linked diseases via the ge- Franklin's work of that period comes the same year was shared by the bio- netic engineering of human beings. from two obituaries Bernal wrote at chemists Max Perutz and John Not yet tried, but even more contro- the time of Franklin's death, one for Kendrew for their work on the struc- versial, would be any scheme to engi- T?!e Times of London and the other ture of proteins, illustrates how much neer the future by genetically manipu- for Nature. In both he recounted her scientific activity was focused on lating the reproductive cells. The scientific work, and dealt delicately cracking the structures of important genetic revolution begun in 1953 is but fairly with how credit had been biological molecules. The chemist unlikely to have run its course, either assigned for the discovery of the heli- Linus Pauling, already a Nobel laure- scientifically or culturally, by the time cal structure of DNA. As Bernal ate for work that led to the elucida- our grandchildren celebrate its one- summed up her contributions: tion of the helical structure of pro- hundredth anniversary, in 2053. teins, was also racing to find the As a scientist Miss Franklin was distin- structure of DNA. guished by extreme clarity and perfec- Everett I. Mendelsohn is a professor of the his- Although the high drama in the tion in everything she undertook. Her tory of science at Harvard University. He lias photographs are among the most beauti- story of Watson, Crick, Wilkins, and worked extensively on aspects of the social and ful X-ray photographs of any substance Franklin arises, in part, from the re- sociological history of science and the relations ever taken. markably different styles and tem- between science and modern societies.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 69 BOOKSHELF By Laurence A. Marschall

From the start it was Katherine's since been convincingly linked to Stone Giants: Among show. Although she had little formal Polynesian cultures to the west, mak- Katherine Rotitledge The Life of training in archaeology, she knew ing Easter Island seem a bit less mys- and Her Remarkable Expedition what to look for and how to Usten. In terious and remote. But Katherine Easter Island to her party's seventeen months on the Routledge's work stands the test of byJo Anne Van Tilburg island she made drawings and water- time. In a letter to her mother, writ- Scribne,; 2003; $26.00 colors of each landmark. She sat daily ten as she was packing to leave the is- with village elders, compiling note- land, Katherine wrote: "If people ask Almost a century has passed since books of their replies to her questions you if we have 'solved the riddle,' you Katherine Routledge and her about the old ways, the ancient gods, can say that we do not claim to have

husband Scoresby raised the anchor how the island and its people came to done that, but we have found much

of their custom-built ninety-foot be. While Katherine sketched and that is new & interesting." That is an

schooner Mana and set sail for adven- scribbled, Scoresby collected artifacts apt description both of Routledge's ture. Few Europeans had ever visited from caves and burial sites, and mem- work and of Van Tilburg's elegant and Rapa Nui, as the local residents called bers of the Manas crew photographed compeUing biography.

Easter Island, but all Victorians with an and mapped with inihtary precision. It ounce of romance in their soul knew was the first true attempt to conduct Tycho & Kepler: of the island's alluring riddle. Kather- an archaeological survey of the island. The Unlikely Partnership ine hoped to solve it. That Forever Changed Although Rapa Nui had no trees, it Van Tilburg has dug deeply mto Our Understanding had a forest: hundreds of huge stone Katherine's family records and of the Heavens statues scattered across its barren the notebooks of the Mana expedition were by Kitty Ferguson landscape. had carved these to present a convincing picture of sci- Who Walker & Company, 2003; $28.00 otherworldly monuments? And what ence as it was practiced in an era when purpose—religious, ceremonial, com- natural history was a popular sport of memorative—could justify such a the moneyed class. Because govern- When Copernicus first proposed large investment of labor and re- ment funding Avas rare, wealthy ama- a universe with the Sun at its teurs, rather than professional associa- center in 1543, most of his sixteenth- tions and peer reviewers, set research century contemporaries regarded the agendas. Today's field-workers may idea as interesting but hardly revolu-

employ far more culturally sensitive tionary. Geometrically, it made httle and environmentally sound tech- difference whether the Sun or the

niques than did the Routledges, who Earth stood still, and the crude obser- looted gravesites with abandon and vations of the time offered precious spaded Hke gardeners through delicate little evidence for telling one case layers of artifact-bearing earth. But a from the other. Even those parrial to a well-managed expedition today sun-centered scheme hedged their would be hard-pressed to provide as bets by harrumphing, at least in pub- colorfiil a cast of characters, or grist he, that, yes, this Copernicus was a for such a Hvely story. clever fellow, but whatever the merits

Scoresby was arrogant and tactless; of his model, it was, after all, only a the crew of the Mana was mutinous model. God could have chosen to

(usually in response to Scoresby 's out- make the Earth revolve around the rageous behavior); Katherine was Sun—but simply didn't. often sidelined by bouts of hallucina- In private, though, some of his Oldest Easter Island statue, on the tions and depression. The islanders contemporaries believed He did. slope of the volcano Rano Raraku staged an armed revolt during Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman and

sources? The Routledges, possessed of Katherine's stay. By the time the cou- amateur astronomer, thought Coper- Katherine's inherited fortune as well ple's seventeen months came to an nicus might be on to something. as the Victorian mania for collecting, end, war-torn Europe must have Tycho had seen a new star appear in were determined to find out. Their seemed like a haven. the heavens in 1572, and he deter- expedition made landfall on Rapa Later archaeological surveys did mined that it lay far beyond the Nui, after an eventful year at sea, on better work than the Mana expedi- Moon, in a region of the firmament March 29, 1914. tion, and the history of Rapa Nui has where, according to the conventional

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wwwLSWisshiking.corri 800-628-8747 I www.zeco.com Iquitos-Peru astronomy of his day, nothing ever continue his father's royal indulgence changed. Convinced that the old pic- of Tycho's expensive hobby. Smokechasing

ture of the Earth-centered universe So Tycho packed up and wandered by Stephen J. Pyne needed repair, Tycho proposed a hy- through Europe, eventually stopping Tlie University of Arizona Press, brid system in which the Sun carried in Prague. There he found a patron 2003; $37.50 the orbiting planets around a station- in Rudolph II, the Holy Roman ary Earth. But Tycho knew that his Emperor—and, just as important, a When the harmattan blows south proposal would be just another clever new assistant named Johannes Kepler. from the Sahara, nighttime model without the support of careful Twenty-five years Tycho's junior, satellite images of Ghana and Nigeria astronomical measurements—mea- Kepler was an impoverished German Hght up like fireflies on a summer's surements Tycho, with the right re- mathematician on a quest to prove evening: West Africa is burning. The

sources, would be happy to make. his own pet theory about the mo- harmattan is a dry wind in a dry sea- tions of the planets. son. Later, when the rains return, fires King Frederick II of Denmark pro- Science writer Kitty Ferguson be- can stiU be sparked by Ughtning, but vided the money Tycho needed gins her book with this meeting of most of the harmattan fires are set by for his purposes, and granted him the Kepler and Tycho, and continues in rural agriculturists, who recognize

little island of Ven (formerly Hven), at flashbacks of the lives of the two great and welcome their help in clearing the mouth of the Baltic Sea, within figures viewed against the unsettled and fertilizing their fields. The fires view of Hamlet's fabled castle, Elsi- backdrop of post-Reformation Eu- complete a cycle as old as respiration

rope. Taken separately, as itself, for both the carbon-rich detri-

many earlier biographers have tus and the oxygen that burns it ulti- done, the stories of the two mately come from plants, making astronomers seem merely ec- wildfire a closing step in the process of centric: Tycho's artificial nose respiration. From a global perspective,

and Kepler's mother's trial for fire is an integral element of the bio- witchcraft are the only details sphere, an essential cog in the mar-

my students usually reniem- velous engine that gives life on Earth

ber. But Ferguson's approach, its dynamic stability. enlivened with the dramatic For those of us who live in cities,

pacing of a mystery novel, that truth is far from obvious. In an

shows beautifully how the urban setting fire is a disaster, but in obsessions of the pragmatic, the wilderness, fire takes on quite a

imperious Brahe meshed per- different function. It is best regarded fectly with the obsessions of as a tool of control, not an evil to be Observatory of Tycho Brahe, 1546-1601 the idealistic, pensive Kepler. eliminated. One of the paradoxes of

nore. There Tycho erected a battery of They were an odd couple, indeed, rural fires is that, by trying to eUmi- precise sighting devices (the telescope and Tycho, weary and wary of the nate them, we make them worse had not yet been invented); for almost world by the time they met, resisted when they do occur: in the year 2000 thirty years, he and a staff of assistants full collaboration with the young wildfires in the United States burned

compiled nightly observations of the Kepler to the very end. As it was, he at least seven million acres, called out positions of the planets. died scarcely a year after their meet- 30,000 firefighters, and cost the na- As the data accumulated, however, ing, and Kepler became heir to the tion more than $2.5 billion. Many Tycho found he lacked the mathemat- finest observations of the planets ever were kindled in areas where dry un-

ical skills, not to mention the time made. From those, he showed con- dergrowth had accumulated for away from his aristocratic lifestyle, to clusively that the Earth and the plan- decades, the result of aggressive fire make the calculations he needed to ets orbited the Sun—though in ellip- control. Smokey Bear should have prove his point. By the last decade of tical orbits, not the circular ones been sued for negligence.

the sixteenth century, the fifty-year- Copernicus preferred. Kepler's laws If informed opinion is more sensi- old astronomer was facing a midlife led, in turn, to Newton's laws of nro- tive to such issues nowadays, the credit

crisis, afiraid that immortality was sUp- tion, which laid the groundwork for is due in large part to Stephen Pyne, ping from his grasp. Nicolaus Reimers modern physics and cosmology. If the our most eloquent narrator of the nat- Bar, a former assistant, had written a story of Tycho and Kepler was, as ural history of fire (a branch of litera- scurrilous book claiming Tycho's sys- Kitty Ferguson's subtitle states, an ture he almost single-handedly

tem as his own. Worse, Denmark had "unlikely partnership," it was none- created) . His style is recognizable by its a new king, who was not inclined to theless a marriage made in heaven. heavy load of metaphor and by its

72 N.^TUi^AL HISTORY April 2003

—

William Buckleyesque use ot re- Yet Pyne remains on message, condite, albeit evocative, language. always returning to his point that

(As I read the book, my notepad good public fire policy must quickly fiUed up with unfamiliar strike a balance between total words and phrases: "swiddeners," suppression and uncontrolled "impauperate," and "lithic hori- burning, and urging that such a zon," to menrion a few.) policy be set locally, to meet Readers of Pyne's earlier books local needs. Whether or not wUl hear echoes of many familiar you've heard all this before, it's themes in Swokechasiiig, a collec- rewarding to hear it again, if only tion of miscellaneous essays from for the pleasure of a prose style recent journals and magazines. that slices through tangled thick- Some show how the approaches of ets like a bulldozer clearing a fire developing countries must differ line, and lights up the darkness Forest fire in Spain from those in the industrialized like a blazing forest. world, both in learning to manage tire iTiix" fires that burn in places such as Laurence A. Marschall, author of The Su- and in reconciling the priorities of the canyons of California, where pernova Story, is the W.K. T. Sahm professor public forest preserves with the con- urban sprawl has turned forested areas ofphysics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylva- cerns of private industries that depend into residential compounds. And a few nia, and director of Project CLEA, which pro- on forest products. Other essays deal of the essays are just rousing good sto- duces widely used siimilation software for edu- with the growing problem of "inter- ries of fires and of firefighters. cation in astronomy.

nature.net the expense of extracting a barrel of low-sulfur crude

from rock formations. Iraq's reservoir is so shallow that Oil to Burn? the lifting cost is under a buck. Compare that with $2.50 in Saudi Arabia and between three and four dollars in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. The ease with which

By Robett Anderson Iraqi oil shoots to the surface doesn't bode well for the environmental devastation that will take place if these Daniel Yergin, writing at the end of the 1990-91 fields are set ablaze. Gulf War, concluded his monumental history of Regardless of its scale, such a disaster wouldn't make oil. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Pou'er, much difference to global petroleum stocks, which took with this prediction: "The fierce and sometimes violent hundreds of millions of years to accumulate. By most quest for oil—and for the riches and power it conveys reasonable estimates, peak world oil production is just a will surely continue so long as oil holds a central place." few years away. For detailed background on oil as a finite

How long that would be, he made no bets. As I write, a resource, go to hubbertpeak.com, named for the petro-

second war with Iraq is contemplated. According to leum geologist who correctly predicted the 1970 peak some expert prognostication on the Web, the king ot in U.S. production. The information on the site makes it natural resources may, once again, be consumed and disturbingly clear that oil will follow the pattern typical

wasted in spectacular wildfires. of other finite resources: its extraction rate will reach a

At its height, the Kuwaiti inferno burned oil at a rate high and then dwindle to nothing. Similar dire predic- equivalent to 10 percent of total world demand. Jonathan tions (but more attractively displayed) are outlined by "Oil as a Finite Resource: Lash, president of the World Resources Institute (www. James J. MacKenzie in When wri.org), foresees the possibility of a similar catastrophe if Is Global Production Likely to Peak?" (www.wri.org/ war comes again, as he writes in his article "The Envi- wri/climate/jm_oil_001.html), another page on the ronment: Another Casualty of War?" (cUck on "About WRI site. Don't ituss the hnks on the right for the text

WRI," at left, then click on "From the President"). and slide show of MacKenzie's project "Thinking Long Forbes magazine's Paul Klebnikov (forbes.com/global/ Term." Humanity wiU soon be on the downward slope 2002/ 1028/024_print. html) sketches the mammoth size of the oil age. How we all cope with that will be the of the Iraqi reserves, which may ultimately exceed those story of the century. of Saudi Arabia. He also notes that the fields currently

producing in Iraq have the world's lowest "Hfting costs": Robert Anderson is a freelance science writer living in Los Angeles.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 73 a

OUT THERE

have shown that a number of physical

processes can warp a galaxy, so it's a matter of figuring out which scenario applies. Now an innovative new analy- Warp Factor sis of the problem by Jeremy Bailin, an astronomy graduate student at the University of Arizona in Tucson, has A spinning dwarf may have twisted our galaxy's disk. impHcated a small satellite galaxy, cur- rently being ripped to shreds by the gravity of the Milky Way. By Charles Liu

The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy, so named because of its shape, size, and location in the sky,

was discovered in 1994. It appears to be in a roughly polar orbit around the

Milky Way—that is, above and below the galactic disk—about 50,000 light- years from the galactic center. That orbit brings the dwarf galaxy far too close to the huge gravitational tidal forces of the Milky Way for the dwarf to remain intact. As a result, the Sagittarius Dwarf now looks some- thing like strands of spaghetti spiUing from the front of a pasta-making ma-

An edge-on view of the spiral galaxy ESO 510-GT3, in the constellation Hydra chine, the galaxy's matter being (visible from the Southern Hemisphere), shows the warp in its disk, much like drawn out over hundreds of millions the warp in our own Milky Way. The warp suggests that ESO 570-G73 may have of years by intergalactic tides. swallowed another, smaller galaxy in its past. Gravitational collisions between small satellite galaxies and big spiral Astronomers sometimes de- of matter streaming around a common galaxies have long been regarded as scribe the shape of our home center of gravity. (The swirling pattern possible culprits in the warping of a galaxy, the Milky Way, as a of a hurricane far better resembles our larger galaxy's disk. The best known thin-crust pizza with a plum stuck in spinning galaxy than a flying Frisbee satellite galaxies orbiting the MUky the middle. The plum is the slightly does.) For another thing, our galaxy's Way—the Large and Small Magel- oblong central bulge, protruding disk isn't flat; it's warped, Uke an old- lanic Clouds—are too far away, and about 3,000 light-years above and fashioned phonograph record left out have the wrong orbital characteris- below the galactic plane, comprised in the hot sun. Picture that sun-baked tics, to have warped our galactic mostly of older stars; it makes up the record spinning on a turntable—or a home. The Sagittarius Dwarf seems a core of the Milky Way, and includes disk of pizza dough spun into the air much more likely candidate, simply

a black hole two and a half million by a skilled chef: our galaxy goes because it is only a third as far from times the mass of the Sun. The crust through the same kind of floppy, the center of the MUky Way as the of the pizza is the galactic disk—the wobbly gyrations, though at a rate Magellanic Clouds. But in astron- source of most of our galaxy's light. best measured in revolutions per hun- omy—unlike in real estate—location Thin and flat, the disk is 100,000 dreds of miUions of years. isn't everything; to show a direct light-years across, about 1,000 light- Why does the Milky Way have such connection between warp and dwarf, years thick, on average, and includes an odd-looking warp? We astronomers the orbital motion of the Sagittarius more than 80 percent of the galaxy's have been puzzUng over that question Dwarf must be linked to the rotation hundred billion or so stars. for decades, but no definitive answer of the Milky Way's disk.

The plum-and-pizza picture works has emerged. One thing we do know: Bailin 's study is the first to find such

well enough, but like most simple when it comes to warps, our galaxy is a link. His analysis of the galactic warp metaphors, it breaks down if you push hardly unique. About half of all spiral is based on angular momentum— it. For one thing, the galactic disk isn't galaxies are warped to some degree. measure of how much a system is spin- a rigid body, but a loose agglomeration Theoretical and computational models ning or rotating. Just as objects moving

74 NATURAL HISTORY April 2003 THE SKY IN APRIL By Joe Rao in a straight line have momentum, ob- jects spinning or orbiting around an Mercury climbs the center of the faint zodiacal constel- axis have angular momentum; and just progressively high- lation Cancer, the crab. On the 3rd,

as the momentum of two objects er above the west- Jupiter reverses its retrograde, or west- combine when they collide, so too ern horizon every ward, motion among the stars and be- does their angular momentum, hirag- evening at dusk in gins moving slowly east, away from the ine two figure skaters coming together the first half of Beehive. The waxing gibbous Moon for a combination spin. When they the month, but the slowly approaches Jupiter from the make physical contact, their individual improving view is west—falling for another of Jupiter's spirahng motions combine to produce offset by the plan- famed seductions—in the overnight a single, unified whirl. et's fading bril- hours between the 10th and the 11th. liance. On the 1st the planet shines at Starting with the latest measure- magnitude -1.4; about thirty minutes Saturn rides the constellation Taurus, ments of the structure and spin of after sunset, it is very low above the the bull, into April. The planet is the Milky Way, Bailin deduced the west-northwestern horizon. On the readily visible, shining pale yeUow at angular momentum of the warped following evening the Moon—visible magnitude in the west-northwestern portion of the Milky Way's disk. He as an exceedingly thin sHver—hovers sky during the first half of each night then compared that measure with the about 4 degrees below and to the left of the month. On April 7, the same angular momentum of the Sagittarius of Mercury. On the 16th the planet night a fat crescent Moon gHdes well Dwarf—and found for the first time, reaches its greatest elongation (20 de- above Saturn, the Earth will finally at- within the margins of measurement grees east of the Sun) and appears no- tain its maximum Saturnicentric lati- error, that the two angular inomenta ticeably higher in the sky, but shines tude. Translation: Saturn's ring system

are identical in both quantity and di- more dimly, at magnitude +0.2. For win list at its greatest possible angle to- rection. Such a coupling of the angu- the rest of the month Mercury sinks ward the Earth, 27 degrees—making lar momentum of two bodies almost back down to the horizon while fad- for a stunning, brilliant display even

never happens by chance; usually, it ing rapidly, and is out of sight well be- through the lens of a small telescope. takes place only when two spinning fore the end of April. The last such event took place in Sep- systems, like the skaters, come into tember 1988, and the next one isn't contact. The coupling isn't enough to Venus rises like clockwork about an due until October 2017. The rings

prove cause and effect by itself, but it's hour before the Sun all month. The appear to hide the north end of the solid circumstantial evidence that the planet lingers low in the eastern planet, and stick out a bit behind the

interaction of the Sagittarius Dwarf predawn sky. south end. Don't miss it! with the MUky Way disk created the warp in our galaxy. Mars—god of war—glares ever more The Moon is new on the 1st at 2:19 With enough spinning, warps in fiercely at the Earth. The pumpkin- P.M., Eastern Standard Time. It disks eventually disappear. That's why colored planet rises in the southeast reaches first quarter on the 9th at 7:40 a pizza chef spins pizza dough, tossing about four hours before the Sun and P.M., waxes fuU on the 16th at 3:36

it into the air again and again: in time, nearly reaches culmination by sunrise. RM., and wanes to last quarter on the

the thick lumps get spun out, leaving Mars is one magnitude, or roughly 23rd at 8:18 A.M. Our satellite reaches the disk smooth, even, and thin. Some two-and-a-half times, brighter now perigee at 1:00 A.M. on the 17th, or-

day, that will probably happen to the than it was on January 1. If your daily biting just 221,937 miles from Earth. Milky Way, too. Sooner or later—the routine this month rouses you while Beachcombers, take note. Very high

latest calculations range from a few the sky is still fairly dark, look to the tides can be expected from the coin- hundred miUion years to a few billion southeast to watch the planet brighten cidence of perigee with the full years from now—our galaxy will over April's course from magnitude Moon—a phenomenon known as an

work out the kink in its disk. That is, +0.5 to magnitude 0. At midmonth it astronomical spring tide. unless another dwarf galaxy like Sagit- stands just 104 million miles from tarius appears, coming along with just Earth. The planet leaves the constella- "Spring ahead" in much of Canada the right orbit, giving the Milky Way tion Sagittarius, the archer, for Capri- and the United States, as daylight

disk just the kick it needs to start corn, the sea goat, on the 21st. saving time returns on Sunday, the

warping all over again. 6th. Remember to set clocks ahead Lordly Jupiter, high in the southern one hour.

1st, descends toward Charles Liu is an astrophysicist at the Hayden sky at dusk on the Planetarium and a research scientist at the west. It starts the month just to the Unless otherwise noted, all times are given Barnard College in New York City. east of the Beehive star cluster, near in Eastern Daylight Time.

April 2003 NATURAL HISTORY 75 —

American Museum S Natural History <£;

AN INTERVIEW WITH Melanie Stiassny

Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life Reopens May 17

Melanie Stiassny is Axelrod Research Curator of Ichthyology in the Division of Vertebrate Zoology and a lead curator of the renovation of the Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life. She spoke with us about the oceans, the new hall, and the blue whale.

Q: You've said that we know more able to say how many species exist on that can unravel very, very, quickly. about the dark side of the moon than the planet. But probably about 80 to So I also want visitors to the hall to

we know about the ocean. 90 percent of all life on Earth is found be empowered in a sense, to have an

A: Which is sadly true. As terrestrial in the ocean. And it's not just the idea of how their behavior as individu- creatures, we tend to think of life on our quantity or "biomass"—the actual als can impact the oceans but how it planet as being essentially life on land. amount of living material—it's also the can also help to save them.

It couldn't be further from the truth. diversity the number of different kinds

A little over 70 percent of the Earth's of living things. Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the surface is covered in water. We've The people visiting the new Hall of renovation?

seen the blue marble from outer Ocean Life are going to be exposed A: I hope people are going to be very space. It's blue because there's so to kinds of organisms that they've happy when they come back to the much water on Earth. And 362 million never heard of, they've never even hall. This is one of the most beloved square kilometers of that is marine imagined. And yet these organisms halls in the museum—for good rea- the world ocean. Yet perhaps as little all work together to create some- son. We want people to experience as 1 percent of the ocean floor has ac- thing incredibly diverse and funda- all the wonder they felt in the older tually been explored. The ocean as a mentally important for life on the en- version, but to be amazed by the new. whole is very much the "final frontier," tire planet. We didn't want to change it beyond the last truly wild place on our planet. recognition, but we did want to tell a

It's a place that is not only extraor- Q: When people leave the hall, what much richer story. By giving the dinary in its dimensions and all of do you want them to think? oceans a proper introduction and a the implications of its size but it's A: Well, that's really difficult because real explanation as to what they are, also the place that was the cradle of there are so many different things. But where they came from, how long

life on Earth. But instead of every- I want people to walk away with an un- they've been around, what's living thing leaving the cradle, in fact, most derstanding of how remarkably su- there, and that it all functions as a things have stayed in the ocean. perlative the oceans really are. Not complex whole, I think that's going to

Most of the life on Earth is still living just in terms of sheer size and beauty, be an eye-opener for many visitors. in the ocean. but also in their ecological complexity It's also going to be tremendously and the tremendous biological wealth beautiful.

Q: / think most people are surprised they contain. Perhaps above all, I want I think we steer a very nice path be- by the amount and diversity of life them to understand how absolutely tween being absolutely state-of-the-

under the water critical ocean health is to the health of art, but at the same time, keeping this

A: It's phenomenal. Estimates vary all life on Earth. The oceans are a se- kind of majesty and splendor of the old and, believe it or not, we're not even ries of interconnected ecosystems style of exhibit. I really hope people

The contents of these pages are provided to Natural History by the American Museum of Natural History. appreciate how much thought actually Hits went into that because we do know Starry Nights the Airwaves how dear much of the old hall was.

Q: What can you tell us about the

centerpiece of the hall, the blue whale model?

A: As you l

kind of "jewel in the crown" for this in- stitution. An incredible animal, the largest that ever lived. Ours is a fe- male (they are slightly larger than males). When she was installed in

1969, we knew so little about blue whales that we actually got some of the anatomical details wrong. She WGBO's Gary Walker introduces Antonio Hart and The Antonio Hart had been modeled from a specimen Quintet during the February 7 live broadcast of Starry Nights. about to be butchered and decompo- sition had already begun to distort After three years of crowd- Jimmy Heath, The Jazz Passengers, her frame. We've now corrected that, pleasing performances, Starry Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache and we've metaphorically released Nights, the American Museum Band, and Ray Barretto and New World her back into her habitat—the open of Natural History's jazz performance Spirit. The first WBGO broadcast aired ocean. Now, when you come into the series, burst onto the airwaves this in February 2003 with the Grammy- hall and see this beautiful animal winter. The Museum and WBGO Jazz nominated alto saxophonist Antonio you'll not only learn about blue 88.3 FM have teamed up to broadcast Hart and The Antonio Hart Quintet. whales, and whales in general but select Starry Nights performances live Nearly 1 ,000 jazz enthusiasts attend also about work being done in whale from the spectacular Rose Center for Starry Nights each month, and have conservation throughout the globe. Earth and Space where two sets—at been treated to a wide spectrum of And you're going to learn about the 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. —take place on the today's best jazz, ranging from Afro- habitat that the whale lives in. In first Friday of each month. Tune in at Cuban fusion to Latin and blues short, we have really tried to insert all 5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 4, for this rhythms. A selection of authentic tapas, of the organisms that live in the month's broadcast. sparkling water, sangria, wine, and beer ocean into their ecological context. WBGO, the only full-time jazz sta- combined with the sounds of hot jazz So that now the blue whale in a tion in the New York metropolitan and the cool blue, "otherworldly" glow of sense becomes the ambassador to area, will carry a total of six live broad- one of New York's boldest architectural the open ocean—^the largest habitat casts this year of Starry Nights. Feb- treasures, makes Starry Nights one of on our planet. ruary 7 inaugurated the collaboration, the city's most popular attractions.

and future broadcasts will take place WBGO 88.3 FM serves the New The magnificent restoration and rejuvenation of on April 4, June 6, August 1 , October York/New Jersey metropolitan area tlie Museum's beloved Milstein Family Hall of 3, and December 5, from 5:30 to 6:30 with straight-ahead jazz, blues, and Ocean Life is made possible by the generosity award-winning and public affairs of Paul and Irma Milstein. The Museum grate- p.m. Gary Walker, WBGO's Morning news

fully acknowledges the critical role of the City of Jazz host for 13 years and winner of programming. Non-commercial WBGO

New York, the New York City Council, the De- the 1 996 Gavin Report Jazz Radio is supported by over 14,000 members partment of Cultural Affairs, and the Borough Personality of the Year award, will host and has 400,000 weekly listeners. President of Manhattan in the realization of this the hour-long broadcasts. WBGO also streams its broadcast project The Museum deeply appreciates major Starry Nights was launched soon signal to audiences worldwide at support from Edwin Thome and from Swiss Re. Significant support has also been provided by after the Museum opened its acclaimed www.wbgo.org. It was named Jazz The Marc Haas Foundation, Ruth Unterberg, Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Station of the Year for 2001 by the MetLife Foundation, and Mikimoto. Additional Rose Center for Earth and Space in Gavin Report and also is the recipient generous funding was provided by Jennifer February 2000. The series kicked off of the Blues Foundation's Keeping the Smith Huntley Patricia S. Joseph, William H. with Ray Vega's Latin Jazz Sextet. Blues Alive Award for Achievement in Kearns Foundation, Denise R. Sobel and Nor- Since then, over 35 celebrated jazz Non-Commercial Radio. man K. Keller, Mrs. Frits Markus, Jane and James Moore, David Netto, Mrs. John Ungar, groups have appeared, including Media sponsorship for Starry Nights is pro- and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inc. Bobby Sanabria and Quinteto Ache, vided by CenterCare Health Plan. EXHIBITIONS Ttie First Europeans: Treasures FILMS Vietnam: from tlie Hills of Atapuerca A Dream In Hanoi Journeys of Body, Mind & Spirit Through April 13 (In Vietnamese and English with Through January 4, 2004 Gallery 3, third floor English subtitles)

Gallery 77, first floor The mysteries of ancient humans in Tuesday 4/1 , 7:00 p.m. This comprehensive exhibition pre- western Europe are revealed through Two theater companies, one sents Vietnamese culture in the early exquisitely preserved hominid and American and one Vietnamese, work

21 St century The visitor is invited to animal fossils found in the hills of together to stage the first perform-

"walk in Vietnamese shoes" and Atapuerca in northern Spain. ance in Vietnam of A Midsummer explore daily life Vietnam's Night's Dream. among Co-organized by the American Museum of more than 50 ethnic groups. Natural History and Junta de Castilla y Leon. The Season of Guavas

Einstein (In Vietnamese with English subtitles) Through August 10, 2003 Thursday 4/10, 7:00 p.m.

Gallery 4, fourth floor Since falling from a guava tree as a

This exhibition profiles this extraordi- youth, Hoa, now in his fifties, has

nary scientific genius, whose been trapped in his childhood memo- achievements were so substantial ries. His obsession with returning to

that his name is virtually synonymous his childhood home leads to a series

with science in the public mind. of unforeseen events.

Organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York; The Hebrew Chac Vietnamese clay toys depicting zodiac symbols University of Jerusalem; and the Skirball (In Vietnamese and English with Cultural Center, Los Angeles. Einstein is Organized by the American Museum of English subtitles) made possible through the generous support Natural History, New York, and tlie Vietnam Saturday 4/19, 2:00 p.m. of Jack and Susan Rudin and the Skirball Museum of Etiinology, Hanoi. Ttiis exhibition The director embarks on an emo- Foundation, and of the Corporate Tour and related programs are made possible by tional and physical journey to dis- Sponsor, TIAA-CREF ' the philanthropic leadership of the Freeman cover what caused her mother to Foundation. Additional generous funding pro- The Butterfly Conservatory flee Vietnam with an American man. vided by the Ford Foundation for the pollabora- tion between the American Museum of Natural Through May 26, 2003 History and the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology More than 500 live butterflies fly freely PERFORMANCES

Also supported by the Asian Cultural Council. in an enclosed tropical habitat. Creativity in Moschen Planning grant provided by the National Saturday 4/5, 8:00 p.m. The Butterfly Conservatory is made possible Endowment for the Humanities. through the generous support of Bernard and Juggler Michael Moschen brings Anne Spitzerand Con Edison. his innovative object manipulation Biodiversity of Vietnam to the Museum.

Through January 4, 2004 Experience the sights Akeley Gallery, second floor Spring Essence: Poetry and and sounds of a bustling This exhibition of photographs high- Preservation lights Vietnam's remarkable diversity Vietnamese Sunday, 4/13, 2:00 p.m. of plants and animals. Selected poems from the 18th-century Marketplace Spring Essence sung in the original This exhibition is made possible by the Arthur Ross Foundation and by the National Vietnamese, and read in English. at the throughout Science Foundation. Museum, the run of the Vietnam exhibition. When You're Old Enough Sample traditional foods Saturday 4/26, 4:00 p.m. and take home A dance-theater work in which a a one-of-a-kind handicraft. young Vietnamese American woman

77th Street Lobby, first floor searches for an identity.

The contents of these pages are provided to Natural History by the American Museum of Natural History. 1

LECTURES Undersea Fossils LARGE-FORMAT FILMS The Genomic Revolution: Unveiling Sunday 4/27, 10:30 a.m.-l :30 p.m. In the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak the Unity of Life IMAX" Theater

Tuesday, 4/1 , 7:00 p.m. Origami Birds A discussion about the scientific, so- Sunday 4/27, 10:30 a.m.-l :30 p.m. Opens April 12 cial, and ethical implications of the Coral Reef Adventure Human Genome Project. The Magic of Science

Sunday 4/27, 1 1 :30 a.m.-l 2:30 p.m. Ongoing Science and Society: Academic Pulse: a STOIVIP Odyssey Freedom vs. National Security HAYDEN PLANETARIUM

Wednesday, 4/2, 7:00-8:30 p.m. PROGRAMS Through April 1 A panel discussion on the topic of Strange Worlds: Radar Encounters Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa intellectual freedoms versus national with Earth-Approaching Asteroids security concerns. Monday 4/7, 7:30 p.m. INFORMATION

With Steven J. Ostro, Jet Propulsion Call 212-769-5100 or visit Krakatoa: The Day the World Laboratory NASA. www.amnh.org. Exploded: August 27, 1883 Thursday 4/10, 7:00 p.m. City of Stars TICKETS AND REGISTRATION Simon Winchester discusses his Sunday 4/13, 12:00-3:00 p.m. Call 212-769-5200, Monday-Friday latest book. References to the cosmos in New 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., and Saturday

York City, with Neil deGrasse Tyson. 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., or visit World Monument Preservation in www.amnh.org. A service charge may Hue, Vietnam ^^spr"*^ apply- Wednesday 4/23, 7:00 p.m. S'-'''iy^^^ Einstein in Berlin With MinjaYang, Deputy Director of ^MBHhII Monday 4/14, All programs are subject to change. the World Heritage Centre, UNESCO. I^HmHl^ 7:30 p.m. m/^K^fWt ~roni Levenson AMNH eNotes delivers the latest in- Operation Babylift:The Adoptee ^^H^^ discusses his book formation on Museum programs and Experience H^^^^P^ on Einstein's years events to you via email. Visit Saturday, 4/26, 2:00 p.m. ^MM^^r in Berlin. www.amnh.org to sign up today! Roundtable discussion with I^Pff Vietnamese who were adopted by

American families in 1975. 2003 Isaac Asimov Memorial Become a Member Panel Debate of the American Museum Land Mines: The Legacy of War The Big Bang of Natural History Wednesday 4/30, 7:00 p.m. Tuesday 4/22, 7:30 p.m. Activists and advocates discuss inter- The world's leading cosmologists As a Member you'll enjoy: national education and community debate how the universe was born. • Unlimited free general assistance initiatives. admission to the Museum Celestial Highlights and special exhibitions, and GUIDED WALKS Tuesday 4/29, 6:30-7:30 p.m. discounts on the Space Show Spring Bird Walks in Central Park A view of May's night sky. and IMAX® films

Eight-wee.k , sessions begin 4/1 2 & 3 • Discounts in the Museum SPACE SHOWS Shop, restaurants, and on KIDS AND FAMILY The Search for Life: Are We Alone? program tickets Vietnamese Woodblock Prints Narrated by Harrison Ford • Free subscription to Natural Sunday 4/6, 1 1 :00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. History magazine and to Passport to the Universe Rotunda, our newsletter Printmaking a Hand-Book Necklace Narrated by Tom Hanks • Invitations to Members-only Sunday 4/6, 1:00 p.m. special events, parties, and Look Up! exhibition previews Mummies Saturday and Sunday 10:15 a.m. For further information call 212- Sunday 4/13, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. (Recommended for children ages 6 ^>* y^ ^^ ^~ ^\ y^ j^ *j 1 769-5606 or visit www.amnh.org. and under) I

ENDPAPER

Both a God and a Rogue

By Ravi Corea

feel a sense of great loss at the sight of a dead know him as Ganapathi and pray to him for wis- elephant. Its colossal size, thick eyelashes, wrin- dom; Hindus invoke the blessings of Ganesha at the I kled skin, long prehensile trunk, and huge cal- beginning of aU enterprises. loused footpads evince an animal of magnificent proportions. On a deeper level, what also come to Today the elephant in Asia is at a crossroads. mind are the things I've learned since my childhood Fewer than 50,000 remain. (Within a far more in Sri Lanka—the myths, folklore, and all the fan- restricted range, their African cousins number more tasies of supernatural powers attributed to ele- than 600,000.) In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, the ele- phants. The stories form an integral part of the cul- phant's mythical and worldly roles are in conflict. ture in my country. Every year for the past decade, between 100 and 150

I stiU remember the first time I saw an elephant. elephants have been killed in their increasingly in-

It was a huge male, with sweeping white tusks. I tense competition with people for land. Still revered

was about three years old. I thought the elephant as a god, the elephant has now become a rogue that never ended! He took over my entire visual world. steals crops, destroys property, and plunders villages

in the dark of night, kilUng farmers and settlers. TilWfpi^ifa Two years ago in a village in the island's North Central province, a young woman named Sudu Menika went to her temple to pray. There she made a special offering to Ganapathi on behalf of her old- est son. Later that night a call went out that an ele- phant was on the rampage. Sudu Menika was run- M ning for shelter, her second-born son in her arms, when the elephant appeared and rushed at her firom

the side, striking her with its trunk. The infant landed on a heap of straw, which probably saved his

hfe. Sadly, though, his mother died a short time later. In one night she had both prayed to the elephant god

and met her death from its earthly counterpart.

The conflict between people and elephants is The royal elephant Dal Badal chasing his attendant, most often measured by such physical loss, but Mewar, Rajasthan, India, c. 1750 there is also an emotional price to pay. The ele-

According to an ancient Sri Lankan behef, if you phant's godly status is deeply ingrained in the local creep under an elephant's belly, you will be safe culture and religion, yet, to protect themselves, the from graha dosha (bad planetary effects) and deva Sri Lankans persecute the animal. That internal

dosha (the evil eye), and you will drive away your conflict takes its toU: whenever a marauding ele-

fears. With a sense of wild adventure and intense phant is killed, the entire village gathers to pay its excitement—and urged on by my nanny— solemn respects. Most of the mourners are seeing a crouched down and crawled under its seemingly wild elephant in the hght of day for the first time,

infinite mass. I will never forget how it felt: as an animal that lived and breathed, but that they also

though I were crawUng forever. Only when you are •worship as a god. In our relentless push for devel-

underneath an elephant can you appreciate its size. opment we have displaced this hving symbol of the

Ekphas maxiinus has been domesticated in south divine and turned it into a rogue. Asia for more than 4,000 years, and from time im-

memorial the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha has Raui Corea studies at Cohdtnbia University's Environmental

occupied a place in the Hindu pantheon. Both Research Center, and is the president of the Sri Lanka WildHfe Hindus and Buddhists revere the god: Buddhists Conservation Society (imni'.SLWCS.org).

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