Natural History articles from March 2006

Natural History archives from March 2006

Nap time.(gaint anteaters' behavior)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The Pantanal is an immense floodplain that percolates through parts of Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. About 80 percent of the land is deeded to cattle ranchers, yet remarkably, the area's patchwork of meadows and swamps still supports jabirus,...

What little memories are made of.
March 1, 2006... Mitzi. Two syllables across time, and for Eric R. Kandel, the memories rush in. She sits on the edge of his child's bed, touches his face, opens her blouse. Would he like to touch her? She is the family housekeeper, from the working class, "an...

Flying reindeer.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... Piers Vitebsky ["A Winter Hunt," 12/05-1/06] provides a solid grounding in the history and ecology of place, and transports the reader through his descriptions: the tinkling of frozen tea crystals and someone "crunching off" as they walked...

Symbiosis and evolution.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... The November 2005 issue on evolution makes a conspicuous omission. None of the articles mention symbiosis as a major driving force of evolution, as articulated by Lynn Margulis's serial endosymbiosis theory. Margulis makes the compelling...

In real time.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... In his article "Evolution in Action" [11/05], Jonathan Weiner does an excellent job showing that evolutionary change can be rapid and can be studied as it occurs. He does, however, repeat an incorrect conclusion when he states that the story of...

Flexibility is enough.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... One of the examples cited as a classic case of rapid evolution, in the chart on page 50 of Jonathan Weiner's article, warrants clarification. Our research has shown that increased shell thickening in the marine snail Littorina obtusata can be...

No such animal.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... In his otherwise outstanding article, "On Darwin's Shoulders" [11/05], Douglas J. Futuyma states that one species of whiptail lizard includes "both sexual and asexual types of females, yet the asexual type does not seem to come to dominate the...

Darts and Laurels.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... I was disappointed by Neil deGrasse Tyson's article, "The Perimeter of Ignorance" [11/05]. I'm not a proponent of intelligent design; in fact, I strongly disagree with much of it. But the tone of the article seemed to attack more than just...

Teaching the controversy.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... I find Peter Brown's editorial, "Disciplined Change" [10/05] a bit disturbing. That scientific debate is "not for the uninformed" and that "scientific controversy is for scientists," seems to imply that we should not acknowledge that any...

How does the greenhouse grow?
March 1, 2006... "Everyone knows" that plants are helping to put the brakes on global warming by absorbing greenhouse gases. But two new studies show that the plant kingdom won't brake the warming trend quite as hard as everyone has assumed. Astonishingly,...

Immigration reform.(evolution of native americans)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Who were the New World's first inhabitants? The ancestors of present-day Native Americans are thought to have come from northern Asia, but new research bolsters the theory that another group arrived first. Walter A. Neves and Mark Hubbe,...

Thumbs up.(survival of panda species)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Only two panda species survive, but thanks to the late Stephen Jay Gould, their "thumbs" are immortal. For Gould, the panda's curious extra digit illustrated how natural selection solves problems by refashioning new body parts out of old ones....

Ain't no ocean wide enough.(evolution of locusts)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... In October 1988, ships off the coast of Africa reported massive swarms of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) flying west over the Atlantic. A few days later some of the insects turned up on Caribbean islands, exhausted but alive. That 1988...

Cannibal canard.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Three years ago a well-publicized study suggested that consumption of human flesh might have been widespread among our early ancestors. New research shows, however, that we may not be descended from cannibals, after all. The evidence that...

Worm sperm.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... For some worms, sex is a prickly affair. During copulation, specialized bristles on the worm pierce its partner's skin and inject a substance. The role of the substance has remained mysterious--but it isn't sperm, which is transferred...

Scent of a mushroom.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Organisms that give advance notice to would-be attackers about their toxic defenses are no evolutionary paradox: a predator's attack, even if ultimately thwarted, can still harm a poisonous organism. So why, asked Thomas N. Sherratt, an...

Love potion.(male elephants' sexual activity)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Musth is the annual season of sexual activity and aggression in male elephants. Glands on the male's face release frontalin, a pheromone that comes in two highly similar forms. In fact, the molecule of one is simply the mirror image of the...

Three stars in one.(SAMPLINGS)(North Star)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... The most familiar twinkle in the night sky has been keeping a secret. The North Star, it turns out, is not just the two stars (Polaris and a smaller companion) that were already known. Astronomers have now caught sight of number three--though...

Jamming the signal.(SAMPLINGS)(moths give signals to confuse bats on the hunt)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Most moths' ears have evolved for one purpose: to help the moth avoid being eaten by a bat. Moth ears are tuned to hear bat echolocation calls, which trigger behaviors in the moth that help it escape. Many moth species may even foil bat attacks...

Sneaky genes.(SAMPLINGS)(Pseudomonas syringae)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Some bacteria are masters of deception. Take Pseudomonas syringae, the species that causes halo blight, a devastating disease in bean crops. When the bacteria infect a bean plant, they release proteins that disable the plant's defense system....

The great outdoors: this spring, experience nature's grandeur first-hand on an outdoors vacation.(special advertising section)(Advertisement)
March 1, 2006... TEXAS The Lone Star State has towering mountains, miles of coastline, and endless terrain that once was the setting for cattle drives, stagecoaches, and buffalo hunts--and is still a great destination for outdoor adventures. With...

When the shark bites: teeth that stab or crush to match their meal.(BIOMECHANICS)
March 1, 2006... If you could travel back in time some 370 million years and snorkel over shallow reefs in Devonian seas, you would, of course, see alien creatures--the antiarchs (armored fishes), perhaps a long-snouted lungfish, and the spiral shells of...

Learning to find your way: the biochemical pathways underlying spatial memory is the brain are giving up their secrets.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2006... For all living creatures, knowledge of the surrounding environment and their position within it is key to behavior and critical to survival. At the simplest level spatial "knowledge" may encompass no more than the ability to orient toward or...

Maryland: it's a natural.("Landfall along the Chesapeake: In the Wake of Captain John Smith" )(Book Review)
March 1, 2006... Eagle-watch and fossil hunt, camp near the wild ponies of Assateague and crab along Chesapeake Bay, stroll the sandy beaches of Ocean City and hike through areas of major historical significance, all in Maryland, the place for those with a...

Smart weapons: with an arsenal of quills and chemicals, the porcupine mounts one of nature's most robust defenses against predators.
March 1, 2006... It is a clear, midsummer midnight in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, and I'm trying to capture Loretta, an adult female porcupine. In preparation, I'm wearing heavy vinyl gloves to protect myself from Loretta's bristling armor of...

Mesa country: Independence Creek creates a wetland oasis in an arid Texas landscape.(THIS LAND)
March 1, 2006... The largest geographic region in Texas is the Hill Country, or, more formally, the Edwards Plateau, an elevated plane the size of Pennsylvania laced with canyons and flat valleys. The dramatic Balcones Escarpment bounds the plateau to the east...

Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2006... Aglow in the Dark: The Revolutionary Science of Biofluorescence by Vincent Pieribone and David F. Gruber Harvard University Press, 2005; $24.95 Wombats don't normally glow in the dark; neither do albatrosses. Except for a small assortment...

The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets.(Book Review)
March 1, 2006... The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets by Kathy Sawyer Random House, 2006; $25.95 ALH84001 is its name, a fist-size lump of rock discovered near the Allan Hills in Antarctica back in 1984. At NASA's Johnson Space Center in...

Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold.(Book Review)
March 1, 2006... Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold by Michael Benanav The Lyons Press, 2006; $23.95 What am I doing? Michael Benanav asks himself rhetorically, about halfway through this travelogue. "A Jewish guy raised in...

First animals.(study of cambrian age)
March 1, 2006... The geologic timescale was one of the great achievements of nineteenth-century science. Yet the oldest named division of geologic time was the Cambrian, beginning 540 million years ago. All time before the Cambrian was a great unknown, simply...

Slammin' the Milky Way: the majestic calm in the stellar disk of our galaxy may conceal a history of intergalactic collisions.(OUT THERE)
March 1, 2006... NEW GALAXY SLAMS INTO THE MILKY WAY, blared the headlines in January. At the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society, a research team led by Mario Juric at Princeton University announced that they'd found a dwarf galaxy, a gathering...

FYi: reader service.(Advertisement)
March 1, 2006... 1. ADVENTURE CANADA Travel on the 104-passenger, zodiac-equipped M/S Explorer and discover the art, culture and wildlife of Arctic Canada and Greenland with our team of artists, scientists, and culturalists. 2. ADVENTURE LIFE JOURNEYS...

The sky in March.
March 1, 2006... Mercury lies low in the western sunset sky during the first several days of March, shining at magnitude 0.8. On the evening of the 1st the planet sets nearly due west about eighty minutes after sunset. It is situated slightly more than ten...

2006 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Calendar)
March 1, 2006... Universe: One or Many? Wednesday, March 29 7:30 p.m. LeFrak Theater $14 ($12 Members, students, senior citizens) Join a panel of cosmologists to debate the possibility that our universe is just one of many universes that make up the...

Museum events: American Museum of Natural History.(Calendar)
March 1, 2006... EXHIBITIONS Danrwin Extended! Through August 20, 2006 Featuring live animals, actual fossil specimens collected by Charles Darwin, and manuscripts, this magnificent exhibition offers visitors a comprehensive, engaging exploration of...

Growing up in the treetops.(Amazon River region)
March 1, 2006... Like most working parents, I wear two hats. In my case, I am a single parent and a scientist. When asked about their mother's occupation, my sons, Eddie and James, usually reply, "Well, she climbs trees for a living." As a rain-forest...