Natural History articles from November 2007

Natural History archives from November 2007

Eyes > stomach.(THE NATURAL MOMENT)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Too much of a good thing can be overwhelming--raw fish, supersize meals, even water. An overabundance of the latter has beleaguered the Netherlands for a millennium. The Dutch have struggled to control fifty-four...

Seeking fresh waters.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... Maybe my questions are naive, "dumb," or impertinent, but my job as a journalist is to ask them. How, I wonder, can the world be plagued with a worsening water crisis? After all, at least in the developed world, sophisticated water treatment...

The deep roots of altruism.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Joan E. Strassmann and David C. Queller's article "Altruism among Amoebas" [9/07] provides a fascinating account of the operation of altruism in both social amoebas and the human "dicty community." But I have a reservation: in paragraph two we...

Dark matters.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... I was intrigued by Donald Goldsmith's article "Dark Matter" [9/07], as I have been by all I have read on dark matter and dark energy. While I am not a physicist or a cosmologist, I can't help but wonder if there might not be yet another...

Animal aqueduct.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Cuddly they're not, but the Texas horned lizard and the Australian thorny devil share more than just prickles. They boast the same remarkable adaptation to their arid homelands: scale-covered skin that captures water...

A grave mistake.(SAMPLINGS)(Dragonflies )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Dragonflies congregate at a cemetery in the Hungarian town of Kiskunhalas, perching on twigs and iron railings near polished black tombstones. It seems the insects mistake the horizontal surfaces of the stones for water, say Gabor Horvath of...

When life gives you lemmings.(SAMPLINGS)(Arctic fox )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... In a good summer, an Arctic fox living near a goose colony on the Canadian tundra can steal as many as 2,000 eggs. Foxes bury most of their loot for future consumption, and they don't bother to stamp an expiration date on it. A year later the...

One for the Record.(SAMPLINGS)(orchids)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When the poet William Cullen Bryant wrote that the "loveliest of lovely things are they on Earth that soonest pass away," he could easily have been describing orchids. Although experts agree that they've brightened...

Tell tail.(SAMPLINGS)(California ground squirrles and Rattlesnakes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Coping with rattlesnakes is a fact of life for California ground squirrels. Fortunately, adult squirrels are immune to the snake's venom. To protect their susceptible pups, when a rattler comes near they sound an...

Nothing much.(SAMPLINGS)(cosmic void )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... News flash: astronomers think they've discovered a whole lot of nothing. In the constellation Eridanus, near Orion, some 10 billion light-years from Earth, there appears to be a vast expanse of empty space, completely devoid of matter--no...

Losing contact.(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Agriculture, development, and logging are often blamed for habitat fragmentation. Now we can blame global warming, too. Worldwide, a combination of rising temperatures and fire suppression by foresters is causing...

Bias or balance?(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Scientific consensus that humans have caused global warming coalesced in about 1995. Yet for the next decade many Americans still believed that humankind's role in the emerging crisis was a matter of great debate. A new study lays some of the...

Change on the range.(SAMPLINGS: THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On rangelands around the world, grasses are giving way to woody shrubs. Deer and antelope still have room to play, but the encroaching shrubbery worries ranchers, who rely on grasses as forage for their cattle. As...

Blue planet blues: demand for freshwater threatens to outstrip supply. How can we meet the needs of all of Earth's species?(Water The Wellspring Of Life: A Special Report on the World's Freshwater)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Water: evolving life-forms crawled out of it hundreds of millions of years ago, yet it still envelops us in our fetal state, suffuses every tissue of our body, and surrounds our drifting continents. From ancient...

A special brew: investigators still can't completely explain the strange molecular workings of water.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] As children, we have all lain in the grass and looked up at the clouds. Sometimes they seemed to take on the shape of an animal, a favorite plaything, a familiar face. For many of us, such daydreaming segued into a...

Water in the field.(Cartoon)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAUDI ARABIAN GAZELLE AFTER PROLONGED DROUGHT.... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE HEART & LIVER SHRINK AND BREATHING SLOWS, REDUCING THE WATER LOST WITH EACH BREATH. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] STORKS...

Sold down the river: dried up, dammed, polluted, overfished--freshwater habitats around the world are becoming less and less hospitable to wildlife.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, can be a lovely retreat at sunset. The river sweeps alongside the city in a wide elbow curve, offering a panoramic view of tranquil waters and...

Dangerous waters: twenty percent of the people on Earth lack access to clean water. And even that dismal number is likely to grow.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Drought in Australia. Water shortages in northern China. The desertification of western Africa. Almost daily, such headlines roll off the presses and issue from the airwaves. Undoubtedly, diminished access to...

When the seas come marching in: Hurricane Katrina exposed fatal flaws in the flood defenses of New Orleans. Those flaws remain.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you live in Louisiana and don't know how to swim, now might be a good time to learn. --Shea Penland, "Taming the River to Let In the Sea," Natural History, February 2005 Less than seven months before...

Hydro tech.(technonolgy)(Brief article)(Photograph)
November 1, 2007... Fine mesh "fog catching" nets, stretched between poles, collect usable water from fog. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Pipe directs rain from rooftop into cistern in "rooftop harvesting." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An iceberg towed from...

Water at war: Iraq's marshlands, once decimated by Saddam Hussein's campaign against his own people, are reviving with global aid.
November 1, 2007... When I was growing up in southern Iraq in the 1960s, my family used to take me on picnics to the Great Ziggurat temple and the royal burial grounds of Ur, about 140 miles northwest of the Persian Gulf. I remember the massive brick structures...

Sharing the river out of Eden: the Jordan River of biblical fame offers lessons in the perils and promise of sharing a limited resource in a politically inflamed region.(perspectives)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When I first set eyes on the Jordan River, after a rainy winter in February 1992, I could scarcely believe that the thin ribbon of muddy liquid I saw winding its way southward could be the main prize in the contest...

The Great Lakes Water Wars.(BOOKSHELF)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Great Lakes Water Wars by Peter Annin Island Press; $25.95 When I was growing up in Buffalo, New York, the Great Lakes seemed to me to be a limitless source of water and of wealth. Ah, innocent youth! By the...

Dry: Life Without Water.(BOOKSHELF)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Dry: Life Without Water edited by Ehsan Masood and Daniel Schaffer Harvard University Press; $29.95 Most of us who read this magazine (or write for it, for that matter) scarcely have to think about where our next glass of water is coming...

Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal.(BOOKSHELF)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal by Peter Thomson Oxford University Press; $29.95 Siberia's Lake Baikal, like so much that is Russian, is riddled with contradictions. Halfway between the Urals and the Pacific, the lake is so remote...

Immerse yourself water: H2O = Life.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Anyone who's ever watched kids running through sprinklers or splashing around with toys in a tub knows the mesmerizing hold water has on children. So when the American Museum of Natural History set about designing...

Science on a Sphere: the "globe" theater.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Water: H2O = Life)
November 1, 2007... If you've ever longed to see Earth from space, now is your chance--with Science on a Sphere, a spectacular feature at the heart of the new exhibition Water: H2O = Life. In this exhibit, a six-foot-diameter globe hangs suspended as if...

Museum events: American Museum of Natural History.(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... EXHIBITIONS The Butterfly Conservatory Through May 26, 2008 Mingle with up to 500 live, free-flying tropical butterflies in an enclosed habitat. Learn about the butterfly life cycle, defense mechanisms, evolution, and...

The sky in November.
November 1, 2007... Mercury becomes easy to see with the naked eye in the morning sky early this month; for northern observers, this apparition is its most favorable one of the year. The planet starts the month rising more than an hour before sunup, far below and...