Natural History articles from May 2007

Natural History archives from May 2007

Beanie baby.(THE NATURAL MOMENT)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Ready to plant his spring vegetable garden, Dennis Kunkel rooted out a packet of bean seeds, half-used from the year before. On pouring out the remaining seeds, though, Kunkel noticed they were covered in powder and pocked with round holes....

Muzzling scientists.(UP FRONT)(Editorial)
May 1, 2007... As a big fan of natural history, I follow the science of nature the way a baseball fan follows baseball. I'm thrilled to, learn that jaguars, in some places, are making a comeback (Tracking the Elusive Jaguar," by Eduardo Carrillo, page 30)....

Bear watch.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... In "Bad News for Bears" [3/07] Bill Sherwonit has done a creditable job reporting on a complex controversy. The issue of hunting McNeil River bears just outside the sanctuary boundaries has been profiled by some as a pro-hunting versus...

Gas bags.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... On reading Adam Summers's "Biomechanics" column "No Bones About 'Em" [3/07], it occurs to me that the largest cartilaginous fish species all lack air bladders. That may also help explain why sharks have cartilaginous skeletons: the only...

Latrine duty.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... Stephan Reebs's "Sampling" titled "400-Yard Dash" [3/07] tells of recently discovered Dead Sea Scroll texts that describe the Essenes' practice of defecating away from their settlements. The commandment for those sanitary acts was written...

Brer Coyote and Brer Badger.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... Nick Atkinson's "Sampling" about cooperative hunting by groupers and eels ["Double Trouble," 3/07] states that cooperative hunting between species had previously been noted only among humans hunting with dogs or dolphins. But such behavior also...

Infection selection.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Not all parasites are created equal; biologists have struggled to explain why some are more contagious than others. One well-regarded theory suggests that parasites are most infectious when their hosts move around a great deal and come into...

Unbound by fog.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Navigating under clear skies is relatively straightforward, but the ancient Vikings sailed northern seas that are frequently shrouded in fog and clouds. Their sagas mention enigmatic "sunstones," held aloft on overcast days to locate the...

Missing mass.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... The Plateau of Tibet is a geological puzzle. Comprising nearly 900,000 square miles and rising 16,000 feet above the surrounding terrain, it is the largest and highest plateau on Earth. It also has the thickest crust--at an average thickness of...

Family ties.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... As any textbook of biology (or sex education) will tell you, inbreeding is a big no-no. But at least one species of fish apparently cannot read. A team of behavioral ecologists led by Timo Thunken at the University of Bonn in Germany has...

But who's gonna read it?(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Today's exploding volume of data resides on stacks of paper, reels of magnetic tape, piles of compact disks, or banks of silicon chips. But those media are fairly fragile and last, at most, a few thousand years. For truly long-term storage,...

Water in the bank.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... For wallabies in Australia's Northern Territory, putting a nose in the river often leads to a lot more than just a refreshing sip of water. In some areas, saltwater crocodiles (which can also live in brackish waters) are common, lying nearly...

Thin skin.(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Oysters on the half shell are considered a delicacy, but what about mussels on the three-quarter shell? A new study shows that human emissions of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) could reduce bivalves' ability to build their shells by as much as 25...

Cool acres.(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Irrigation might be cooling local climates, and in the process, hiding the true magnitude of global warming. Many temperature-monitoring climate stations happen to lie near irrigated agricultural land; new research shows that the temperatures...

Hot time in the city.(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... As the Earth warms, life in big cities is getting tougher. Abundant dark, sun-absorbent surfaces and heat emitted by cars and buildings, among other factors, push temperatures as much as twenty-two Fahrenheit degrees higher than those in the...

A terrible scrooge: nature is so cost-conscious that Darwinian principles apply even when cells are selecting the building blocks proteins.(LIFE ZONE)
May 1, 2007... Honeybees. Sea urchins. Black cottonwood trees. Those are just three of the species that had their genomes published last year. It's amazing to think that a dozen years ago, the sequencing of ally whole ge-home was a sensational event. Back...

A spring in its step: at top speed, an elephant does not run--by traditional standards--but it doesn't walk either.(BIOMECHANICS)
May 1, 2007... Do elephants run, or just walk briskly? According to many biomechanists--and the judges of Olympic racewalkers--an animal is running, not walking, when at some point in each stride all of its feet--two or four of them--are off the ground at...

Tracking the elusive jaguar: when you're following one of the biggest cats in the Western Hemisphere, be aware that one might also be following you.(Cover story)
May 1, 2007... On a fresh May morning sixteen years ago, I was walking with ten of my students along a beach in Costa Rica's Corcovado National Park, when we came across the tracks of a sea turtle, leading out of the water and into the thick jungle beyond. A...

Pregnancy reconceived: what keeps a mother's immune system from treating her baby as foreign tissue? A new theory resolves the paradox.
May 1, 2007... Why didn't your mother reject you? I don't mean psychologically, but immunologically. That may still sound like a strange question, but think about what happens when a mother conceives a child. Each baby has a mother and a father, and as a...

Hidden tombs of ancient Syria: evidence of animal and possibly human sacrifice suggests that burials at Tell Umm el-Marra were those of Bronze Age royalty.(Photograph)
May 1, 2007... Although nearly seven years have passed, I still vividly remember the events of June 10, 2000. Our archaeological team of students and specialists, about fifteen strong, had begun the third week of a two-month excavation season on the Jabbul...

Uncommon property: in northern Louisiana, soil with an ancient link to the sea invites a unique flora.
May 1, 2007... When I visited Louisiana in late April of last year, I asked Scott D. Edwards, a plant-use specialist, what part of his state boasted the most unusual flora. Edwards, then in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation...

The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory.(Book review)
May 1, 2007... The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory by J.M. Adovasio, Olga Softer and Jake Page Smithsonian Books; $26.95 Surely the title of this book is a bit hyperbolic. Judging by their place in popular culture,...

The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began.(Book review)
May 1, 2007... The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began by Stuart Clark Princeton University Press; $24.95 Around the time Bostonians were sitting down to Sunday dinner on August 28, 1859, all...

The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring.(Book review)
May 1, 2007... The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston Random House; $25.95 North of San Francisco, not far from the California-Oregon border, lies a hidden valley where two monumental redwoods--nicknamed the East and West...

Life's patterns.(nature.net)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Through mathematics one can enter a purely abstract world--one that I recently rediscovered while reading The Number Devil, by the German author Hans Magnus Enzensberger, to my children. With wonderful illustrations by Rotraut Susanne Berner,...

The sky in May.
May 1, 2007... Mercury reaches superior conjunction, behind and roughly in line with the Sun, on May 3rd. It passes the point of its orbit closest to the Sun (its perihelion) on the 8th, and quickly enters the evening sky. By the night of the 10th it sets...

The stuff of dreams.(At the Museum: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY)
May 1, 2007... Early European sailors told of sirens and sea serpents, monsters that made their way onto ancient maps at a time when terra incognita still denoted uncharted lands. Medieval tapestries recorded images of unicorns, and the literature of the...

Amphibious invasion.(At the Museum: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY)
May 1, 2007... The halls are alive with the sound of, well, chirp, trill, croak, and gribbet! That's right, back for a repeat engagement is one of the most enchanting and popular exhibitions in the Museum's recent history: Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, on view...

Dioramas in your den: www.amnh.org.(At the Museum: AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Longing for another look at the Cuthbert Rookery or in need of an Alaskan Brown Bear fix? The Museum's world-famous habitat dioramas and the fascinating stories behind them are at your fingertips at www.amnh.org/dioramas. You will be...

Jeanne Kelly: supervisor of Fossil Preparation Division of Paleontology.(PEOPLE AT THE AMNH)(Brief biography)
May 1, 2007... Finding Jeanne Kelly's office within the warrens of the staff-only floors of the Museum is to be reminded that behind the public exhibition halls is a working research institution with more than 200 scientific personnel. It's also not hard to...

Museum events: American Museum of Natural History.(Calendar)
May 1, 2007... EXHIBITIONS Gold Through August 59, 2007 This glittering exhibition explores the captivating story of the world's most desired metal. Extraordinary geological specimens, cultural objects, and interactive exhibits illuminate gold's...

Where eagles swim.(ENDPAPER)
May 1, 2007... Enormous, swiftly move dark wings first catch my eye, then a white head and a tail, as I walk along Mineral Point on San Juan Island, Washington. Bald eagle--the thought flashes through my brain--diving like a missile after a seagull. I am...