Natural History articles from July 2003

Natural History archives from July 2003

Turf war. (The Natural Moment).
July 1, 2003... Staking out the boundaries of your spread can be a heedless act: In a Gary Larson cartoon a man points out a chirping sparrow to his son--emphasizing that territorial behavior occurs only among "lower" animals--while he stands amid a maze of...

Tracks of war. (Editor's Notebook).
July 1, 2003... After the disastrous looting of archaeological artifacts in Iraq, reported by our correspondent David Keys in our June issue, any positive news sounds virtually miraculous. So it was a relief to learn that many of the antiquities that had been...

Water for all. (Letters).
July 1, 2003... In her review of two books about Earth's supply of freshwater, Sandra Postel ["Hydro Dynamics," 5/03] writes of the need for a program that "fairly allocates the available water among all the parties." She speaks of a lasting Mideast peace...

Too close? (Letters).
July 1, 2003... Although outstanding, Duncan Murrell's photograph of a feeding humpback whale in Alaskan waters ["The Natural Moment: Bubble Feast," 5/03] troubled me. The image and its accompanying text suggest it is acceptable to closely approach whales and...

Wondrous strange. (Letters).
July 1, 2003... Adam Summers has cleared the air about a memorable encounter I've wondered about for decades ["Biomechanics: Serpents in the Air" 5/03]. Walking alone along a jungle path on the Philippine island of Bongao, I spotted, coming from the high green...

Magnificent monitors. (Letters).
July 1, 2003... Adam Summers's essay on how monitor lizards can effectively breathe while running ("Biomechanics: Monitor Marathons" 6/03) could have discussed other unusual, but related, biological features of these most advanced of all lizards. Many monitor...

Small farmers. (Letters).
July 1, 2003... Jessie Gunnard, Andrew Wier, and Lynn Margulis ["Mycological Maestros," 5/03], having discovered that some populations of the termite Heterotermes tenuis consume spores of the fungus Delortia palmicola, suggest the termite might be a "missing...

Little engines that could. (Samplings).
July 1, 2003... It's hardly news that for many species, raising offspring takes a lot of energy. Add to that the wide variations among individuals, and you might well ask, What accounts for differences in energy, and do they affect reproductive success? ...

Ocean dwellers of Avalon. (Samplings).
July 1, 2003... Paleontologists once thought the shells and bones left by the organisms that emerged from the Cambrian explosion, some 545 million years ago, were remnants of Earth's earliest complex life-forms. But then fossils of earlier, soft-bodied...

Experiment of the month. (Samplings).
July 1, 2003... Chances are that the birds breeding in your backyard this summer are the same individuals that did so last year. Some might have traveled thousands of miles to return to the red maple next to your rosebushes. But how could you prove your...

Bones of contention. (Samplings).
July 1, 2003... In 1856 two quarrymen found an ancient cranium in the limestone-rich Neander Valley near Dusseldorf, Germany. Anthropologists have been arguing about Neanderthals ever since. One controversy centers on the utility of the Neanderthal thumb....

Up in smoke. (Samplings).
July 1, 2003... Grassland fires are often deliberately set by ranchers to remove dead, unwanted vegetation. Richard W.S. Fynn, a soil scientist at the University of Natal, and his colleagues can now reassure ranchers that for the most valued native grasses,...

Earth, wind and fire: the fruit bats of Montserrat have had to contend with most of nature's torments. (Naturalist At Large).
July 1, 2003... It was July 1997, and a long night, which had followed a long day, was finally nearing its end. A volcano was grumbling, and rain had just begun... again. My right boot was quickly filling with water and sinking deeper into cold mud, and a...

Extreme forestry: what does bungee jumping say about parasitic vines? (Biomechanics).
July 1, 2003... It is May, time for naghol--a centuries-old fertility ritual practiced on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, in the South Pacific. The participants--the island's young men--perform land dives to obtain a blessing for their people's crops. As a crowd...

The birth of war: an archaeological survey concludes that warfare, despite its malignant hold on modern life, has not always been part of the human condition. (Cover Story).
July 1, 2003... Thirty years ago all the anthropologists studying war would have fit into one small room. Granted--and guaranteed--that room would frequently erupt in heated debate, but few outside would notice or care. Tribal warfare? Exotic, maybe, but so...

The chocolate tree: growing cacao in the forest can provide a living to small farmers and a habitat to diverse creatures.
July 1, 2003... To most North Americans the word "chocolate" probably conjures visions of a fragrant, nut-studded brown slab, or a box full of small but elaborate variations on gooeyness, or one of those outrageous dark desserts with names such as "mud pie" or...

Summer flings: firefly courtship, sex, and death.
July 1, 2003... The fireflies, twinkling among leaves,/make the stars wonder. --Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) As light slips from the summer sky, an army of male fireflies awakens from its daytime slumber. One by one, the insects march up blades of...

Valley high: a California forest harbors cobra plants and other treats for plant lovers willing to get their feet wet. (This Land).
July 1, 2003... When I first read about Butterfly Valley in an issue of Fremontia, the journal of the California Native Plant Society, I knew I had to see it. The valley's boggy areas, seeps, and ponderosa-pine forests are home to more than 500 kinds of...

The Mismeasure of science: in his last book Stephen Jay Gould argues it is a mistake to judge the "magisterium" of science for its failure to engage ethical questions.
July 1, 2003... The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities by Stephen Jay Gould Harmony Books, 2003; $25.95 My most vivid memories of Stephen Jay Gould date back to December 1981. The place was Little...

How the Cows Turned Mad.
July 1, 2003... by Maxime Schwartz University of California Press, 2003; $24.95 English farmers first sounded the alarm in April 1985, when otherwise healthy cattle started acting edgy, showing random fear and aggression, and kicking their handlers. The...

An Obsession with Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect.
July 1, 2003... by Sharman Apt Russell Perseus Publishing, 2003; $24.00 Butterflies, as nature writer Sharman Russell aptly observes, can be practically invisible at times, as though they inhabited a separate dimension; they flutter among us in full view...

Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World.
July 1, 2003... by Nick Lane Oxford University Press, 2003; $35.00 Our Earth is an odd place. No other planet in the solar system has so much oxygen in its atmosphere. Although oxygen is a relatively common element in the universe, its atoms are so...

Big-fish drought. (nature.net).
July 1, 2003... On a recent deep-sea fishing trip--my first--off the coast of southern California, the yellowfin tuna were nowhere in sight. We were surrounded instead by scores of other boats, all equally idle, and the only fish I saw all day were the silvery...

Hazy, hot, and hidden: dust-laden clouds at the centers of some galaxies may enshroud titanic starburst or baby quasars. (Out There).
July 1, 2003... Galaxies illuminate the universe, and not just with visible light. Think, for a moment, about an incandescent light bulb--it's not only bright, it's hot, too; and the heat we feel comes mostly from infrared radiation emitted by the bulb's...

The sky in July and August.
July 1, 2003... Mercury makes an evening appearance, albeit a poor one, during late July and early August. The little planet shines above the west-northwestern horizon about forty-five minutes after sunset, then follows the Sun behind the horizon fifteen...

Young Naturalist Awards 2003: scientific discovery begins with expeditions. (At The Museum).
July 1, 2003... Over the past 134 years, American Museum of Natural History scientists have mounted thousands of expeditions to observe, gather, and analyze data to further our understanding of the natural world and human culture. Now in its sixth year, the...

Museum events.
July 1, 2003... EXHIBITIONS Chocolate June 14-September 7 Gallery 3, third floor The delicious story of chocolate spans more than two thousand years. This fascinating exhibition will explore the legends, history, ecology, economics, and...

On hostile ground. (Endpaper).
July 1, 2003... Only once have I been seriously embarrassed while searching for lichens. The incident took place in 1999, a more innocent time, before it became pretty much unthinkable to "wander onto" a military installation. I was poking around the perimeter...