Natural History articles from February 2002

Natural History archives from February 2002

Survivors. (Up Front).(tree protection)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... When I was a child, my family lived on the southeastern outskirts of Denver, then a relatively small city just beginning its sprawl onto the Great Plains. The land was flat and treeless except for the occasional streamside cottonwood. We...

Be afraid, be very afraid. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... I'm not afraid of numbers, but I'm afraid Neil deGrasse Tyson got his numbers wrong in the final paragraph of "Fear of Numbers" (12/01-1/02). Unless the recent census undercounted the U.S. population by more than 25 billion (the equivalent of...

Art and history. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... I read Jay Xu's "The Enigmatic Art of Sanxingdui" (11/01) with pleasure. Having always been interested in early art, and Chinese art in particular, I found this article one of a kind in nature and scope. Thomas Presbie Waterbury,...

Giving thanks and credit. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... I was delighted to see the photograph of the wild turkey hen sheltering her poults ("The Natural Moment," 11/01), but I was disturbed by the caption below it. The text clearly blamed hunting and loss of habitat for the turkey's decline but did...

Musical note. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... I really enjoyed Susan Milius's article about possible biological bases for music ("Face the Music," 12/01-1/02). But Milius does not mention the great aid that music gives us in memorizing information and stories. We all know how much easier...

Erratum. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2002... ERRATUM: The editors regret that in the feature article "Face the Music," the omission of a word on page 54 inverted the sense of a passage. It should read: "The German pipe... dates back to about 36,000 years ago--toward the FARTHER end [that...

Going with the flow: a Texas river winds through town and country. (This Land).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Texas's San Marcos River has its source in the city of San Marcos, halfway between San Antonio and Austin, where clear water emerges from a series of limestone springs. In the mid-nineteenth century the headwaters of the river were dammed,...

Remembering ewe. (In Sum).(Sheep intelligence)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Sheep have long been regarded as lost without a guide, ready prey for sly foxes and wolves in familiar clothing. But recent research demonstrates that rather than being stupid, they might have elephantine memories. Keith Kendrick and...

Little lizard. (In Sum).(sphaerodactylus ariasae)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A new species of lizard so small it can turn on a dime or stretch on a quarter--that's Sphaerodactylus ariasae, discovered on Beata Island (off the southwest coast of the Dominican Republic) by herpetologists S. Blair Hedges, of Pennsylvania...

The great lemur mystery. (In Sum).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... One of the biggest puzzles in primate evolution is how and when lemurs first arrived on the island of Madagascar, the only place they're found today. Though ancient remains of their close relatives, the lorises, have been found throughout...

Mite life. (In Sum).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Around the world, birds harbor symbiotic mites of the suborder Astigmata. For the most part, the so-called feather mites live a quiet life, hanging out on the surface of bird feathers, feeding off oil and fungi. Once a year, though, when the...

Cool customers. (In Sum).(discoveries of human life in the Arctic)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Scientists have long believed that the Arctic reaches of Eurasia were uninhabited by humans until the final stages of the Ice Age, 13,000 to 14,000 years ago. Now researchers report signs of human life dating back almost 40,000 years during...

Beetle juice. (In Sum).(stenocara)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Scarcely any rain fails in the Namib Desert, on the east coast of southern Africa, but the dense fog that blows across it from the Atlantic Ocean several mornings each month is a source of water that can be harvested--with the right equipment....

Flowers of evil: potent chemicals lurk behind some of South America's most alluring blossoms. (Naturalist At Large).
February 1, 2002... In 1857 the French poet Charles Baudelaire published a collection of poems entitled The Flowers of Evil. Being a botanist, I once searched through the volume, curious as to which flowers he had in mind. I should have realized that poets don't...

Grand opening: coming this spring to a woods near you: breaking buds. (In The Field).
February 1, 2002... By the end of January, those of us who live in the Northeast have been looking out on starkly bare trees for three months. "Only four more months," we think, before the buds break and trees are again resplendent in green. The wait seems all the...

Remembrance of pathogens past: a physician ponders suggestive evidence that periodic infections are needed to foster a normal immune system. (Findings).
February 1, 2002... I was sitting downstairs having quiet cup of tea when I heard screaming from one of the bedrooms above. It was my daughter Tara. Between shrieks were occasional bursts of words: "Omigod, omigod! Daddy!" she was yelling in the signature diction...

Museum events.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... FEBRUARY 2 AND 3 Demonstration and concert: Following the Beat series, introduced by ethnomusicologist Benjamin Lapidus. "New Fusions": Percussionist Satoshi Takeishi, flutist Steve Gorn, and violinist Jason Kao Hwang demonstrate...

Keeping up with the cones: chased by evolutionary biologists and pharmacological researchers, a tropical mollusk redefines "a snail's pace.".(venomous cone snails)
February 1, 2002... In the early 1900s a U.S. marine stationed in the Philippines found a beautiful shell near a coral reef. Thinking it would make a nice gift for his girlfriend back home, he carried it off, placing it on his shoulder to show his friends. As the...

The unsung ancients: very old trees aren't necessarily as rare-or as big-as you think.(old growth woodlands)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A priceless legacy was lost with the logging and clearing of America's virgin forests: massive, majestic trees growing on productive soil were cut nearly to oblivion. Not all were destroyed--a scattering of big timber survives. Many ancient...

Slender in the night: long unstudied, the slender loris of South Asia emerges from primatology's shadows.
February 1, 2002... What is a slender loris? Given the name, one could hardly be blamed for thinking it's something out of a Dr. Seuss book. And a quick glance at the animal's lithe body and pencil-thin arms might suggest it's a rat or a squirrel (and might...

Why are there no lobsters on lands or bats at sea? The answer appears to be a biological version of beginner's luck.(branching of land, sea organisms)
February 1, 2002... I can't help noticing them. With every sweaty step I take along a trail in the magnificent rainforest on Panama's Barro Colorado Island, insects of every description make their presence known. The piercing shrieks of cicadas high overhead drown...

Hairy noses: it's a small, sticky world out there. (Biomechanics).(stomapods smell by sampling water)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Mantis shrimp, or stomatopods, are creatures out of a sci-fi flick. They have a pair of raptorial appendages armed with (depending on the species) either wicked spikes or a crushing mallet. Their elongate, jointed carapace sports stalked eyes,...

What has been will be again: newly forming stars and planets bejewel Orion's sword. (Celestial Events).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... It might be true that there's nothing new under the Sun, but what about under the suns, the hundred billion other stars throughout the Milky Way? Not only is what's "under" them often new--planets are still accreting out of disks of dust, for...

The sky in February.(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Mercury shines low in the east southeast at mid-dawn for much of February. It is at its highest and easiest to see during the third week of the month, when it rises only a few minutes after the start of morning twilight. On February 21, this...

Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life. (Review: what's it all about, Alfred?).
February 1, 2002... Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life, by Peter Raby (Princeton University Press, 2001; $26.95); Historians rediscover the quirky genius of evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace. A contentious correspondent once characterized Alfred Russel...

In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace. (Review: what's it all about, Alfred?).
February 1, 2002... In Darwin's Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace, by Michael Shermer (Oxford University Press, 2002; $30); Historians rediscover the quirky genius of evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace. A contentious correspondent once...

Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology. (Review: what's it all about, Alfred?).
February 1, 2002... Infinite Tropics: An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology, edited by Andrew Berry (Verso, 2002; $27); Historians rediscover the quirky genius of evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace. A contentious correspondent once characterized Alfred...

The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader: A Selection of Writings From the Field. (Review: what's it all about, Alfred?).
February 1, 2002... The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader: A Selection of Writings From the Field, edited by Jane R. Camerini (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2001; $42.50 hardcover; $18.95, paper) Historians rediscover the quirky genius of evolutionist Alfred...

Now playing: "Fly Morph-O-Genesis". (nature.net).(Society for Developmental Biology site)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Nothing in biology is as amazing as the process by which a single cell becomes a fully formed organism. But the mystery is rapidly fading. A visit to the Web site of the Society for Developmental Biology gave me a glimpse of the remarkable...

Bookshelf.(Brief Review)
February 1, 2002... What Shape Is a Snowflake? Magical Numbers in Nature, by Ian Stewart (W. H. Freeman, 2001; $29.95) A mathematician explores pattern systems and explains the underlying framework of natural phenomena--from rainbows to the shape of liquid...

The feeding is mutual. (The natural moment).(ant-plant relationship)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... To a small tropical ant, the spore containing disks of a Phymatodes sinuosa fern are big orange dinner plates. Philidris (formerly known as Tridormyrmex) ants supplement their carnivorous diet by harvesting the disks, which are packed with oval...

Dinosaur dreamer. (Endpaper).(Los Angeles in the dinosaur age)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... As odd as it may seem, Los Angeles is a particularly good place to become a paleontologist. As a young boy, I didn't always appreciate this. But on rare days when a hair-dryer wind from the desert blew the smog offshore, I would lope up to a...