Natural History articles from October 2004

Natural History archives from October 2004

The inhuman stain.(The Natural Moment)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Unlike the smear of goo the land snail leaves in its wake, a swath of purple lesions marks the passage of the flamingo tongue snail (Cyphoma gibbosum), as it munches its way across a Gorgonia ventalina sea fan. The carnivorous snail--less than...

Our crowded niche.(Up Front)(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... Niche, from the Latin word for "nest," means much the same thing in biology as it does in ordinary speech. Your niche is your comfort zone, a familiar place where you can make a decent living. Some creatures find their niche through heroic...

Universal nonsense?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... Speculation about other universes ("The Best of All Possible Worlds," by Donald Goldsmith, 7-8/04) is much like counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: it is truly unworthy of your fine magazine. Sure, there may be other...

Lost and found.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... In her review of Richard C. Francis's book Why Men Won't Ask for Directions ("Dad's Not Lost," 7-8/04), Deborah M. Gordon states that evolutionary psychology adheres to the idea that "every characteristic of every species is adaptive--that is,...

Frogs v. trout.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... In his story "Where Have All the Frogs Gone?" (6/04), James P. Collins neglected to mention another possible answer to his question, namely, the losses attributable to predation by the nonnative species of fish intentionally introduced for...

I yam what I yam.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... "Supercrop," the title of Marten Sorensen's article (4/04), does not at present fit the neglected yam bean. The one supercrop is maize, the giant of the cereals. The yam bean could be the agronomist's and breeder's dream, however: all it would...

Birth of a salesman.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Primatologists have long speculated that, among monkeys and apes, there is a correlation between the brain size of a species--particularly the size of the neocortex--and the species' social skills. But social skills are not easy to define, much...

High seas.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Sailors' tales of braving bad weather and choppy waters have been standard fare for centuries. But even the crustiest old salt has nightmares about facing a rogue wave, the ultimate in mountainous seas. Just ask the crews of the Bremen or the...

Hex wax.(Samplings)
October 1, 2004... The precise, hexagonal cells of honeybee combs may conjure up visions of bees busily measuring lengths and angles. But a group of entomologists led by Christian W.W. Pirk of the University of Wurzburg in Germany recently duplicated the bees'...

Red shifts.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Deep inside Earth, at the outer core, electric currents circulate through molten metal, giving rise to the magnetic field that envelops our planet. No doubt because those magnetohydrodynamic currents are complex and unpredictable, the Earth's...

Before the invention of pumpkin pie.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... John P. Hart, an archaeologist at the New York State Museum in Albany, has an obsession with gourds. The seeds of the wild squash, ancestor of the pumpkin, have been discovered at archaeological sites from Illinois to Maine, dating to some...

A taste of our own medicine.(Samplings)
October 1, 2004... In football, one team's offense is pitted against the other team's defense, and vice versa. Much the same happens in humanity's battle against bacteria, except that some of our adversaries seem to have cloned our defense to fight our offense....

Sit up when you snooze.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Quick, name a mammal that sleeps upside down. If you said bats, take a bow. If you said sloths, you've fallen for a persistent myth. Sloths do travel upside down along tree branches, hanging by all four feet. But when they snooze, they sit....

Cryptic creatures.(Samplings)
October 1, 2004... Only three of these pictures are close-ups of the same animal. Which one doesn't belong? (Answer on page 37) [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Bluer means better.(Samplings)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Throughout nature, color acts as a signal. Juan Moreno, an ornithologist at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, and his colleagues think the bright blue eggs of the pied flycatcher are no exception. But what, and to whom, are the...

The Great Outdoors: the fall/winter getaway guide: autumn, when Mother Nature is in fall glory, is the perfect setting to embark on an adventure outdoors.(Special Advertising Section)(Advertisement)
October 1, 2004... Autumn, as the leaves turn color and the landscapes become brilliant, is a perfect time to explore the Great Outdoors. Stay right here in the United States and head to Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, or Pennsylvania, where you can enjoy nature at...

Ringside seat: sometimes, in science as in boxing, you want to be up close; sometimes you want to keep your distance.(Universe)
October 1, 2004... Imagine you're strolling along a boulevard on a crisp autumn day. A block ahead of you is a silver-haired gentleman wearing a dark blue suit. It's unlikely you'll be able to see the jewelry on his left hand. If you quicken your pace and get...

Climb every waterfall! To reach competitor-free fish nirvana, Hawaiian gobies scale sheer cliffs to reach pools 2,000 feet above the sea.(Naturalists At Large)
October 1, 2004... Hawaii is renowned for its coral reefs teeming with rainbow-hued fishes, but one of the state's most remarkable aquatic species lives in freshwater mountain streams on the five largest islands. On the northern side of the Big Island (Hawai'i),...

Slime and the cytoskeleton: how the defensive ooze of a hagfish sheds light on cellular structure.(Biomechanics)
October 1, 2004... The first time I handled a hagfish, I placed it none too gently in a pail two-thirds full of seawater. Within just a few minutes, the creature had become a hazy mirage at the bottom of three gallons of viscous slime. Wonderful biomechanics were...

Wherever the wind may blow: albatrosses and frigatebirds spend most of their long lives soaring over the sea. Miniature electronic trackers and sensors are now showing ornithologists where the birds go.(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... Among oceangoing avian species, albatrosses and frigatebirds are the quintessential seabirds. Both rely entirely on the ocean for food. Their overall shapes, albeit distinct, free them from any dependence on terra firma except when breeding....

Issues and answers: Bush v. Kerry.(Campaign 2004)
October 1, 2004... When you think about it, it is not surprising that many of the leading issues in this year's--or any year's--presidential campaign are rooted in science and the natural world. Energy, the environment, the state of the nation's natural...

Dispatches from the fern frontier: plants with an ancient pedigree are yielding their family secrets to molecular approaches.
October 1, 2004... Just as Lewis and Clark are celebrated in the United States, so too, in Australia, are Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, leaders of the first European expedition to cross that island continent. In 1860, Burke and Wills, along with two...

Two faces of Texas: along the Devils River, wetland meets desert, and eastern sycamore thrives in sight of Christmas cactus.(This Land)
October 1, 2004... The rocky Edwards Plateau--called the Hill Country by Texans--extends from Austin and San Antonio westward about 230 miles, where it merges with the Chihuahuan Desert. On its western margins, the plateau is semiarid; permanent rivers and...

On the Wing: to the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon.(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth with the Peregrine Falcon by Alan Tennant Alfred A. Knopf 2004; $26.95 So here's the story: One early spring day, in the free-flying era long before 9/11, a young bird enthusiast and nature writer has...

The Last Giant of Beringia: the Mystery of the Bering Land Bridge.(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... The Last Giant of Beringia: The Mystery of the Bering Land Bridge by Dan O'Neill Westview Press, 2004; $26.00 The idea that a landmass once joined America and Asia arose not long after the explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa, in 1513, first...

The Forest for the Trees: How Humans Shaped the North Woods.(Book Review)
October 1, 2004... The Forest for the Trees: How Humans Shaped the North Woods by Jeff Forester Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004; $32.95 On topographic maps of Minnesotas Arrowhead region--a long, flat triangle sandwiched between the northwestern...

Mother tongue.(nature.net)
October 1, 2004... Visiting a neighbor recently, I found her chatting in Armenian with a workman. I listened intently; I'd never heard Armenian spoken before. Noting my interest, the two speakers proudly informed me that their language was not related to any...

Shadowy partner: astronomers may have detected what lurks in the shadow of the giant star Eta Carinae.(Out There)
October 1, 2004... In the southern constellation Carina, literally the "keel" of a larger group of stars called Argo Navis--the celestial ship of Jason and the Argonauts--a giant star lies shrouded in mystery: Eta Carinae is a titanic object--at least fifty and...

The sky in October.
October 1, 2004... Mercury reaches superior conjunction--on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth's vantage point--on the 5th, and thereafter moves into the evening sky. But the planet remains hidden in the glow of sunset throughout the rest of October. ...

Totems to Turquoise.(At the museum: American Museum of Natural History)
October 1, 2004... Opening October 30, 2004, at the American Museum of Natural History, Totems to Turquoise: Native North American Jewelry Arts of the Northwest and Southwest celebrates the beauty, power, and sybolism of modern Native jewelry arts with more than...

"Seeing" earthquakes.
October 1, 2004... It's reassuring for some to think that only California and Japan are at risk For earthquakes--but incorrect. A colorful, real-time, three-drum earthquake station unveiled this summer in the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth at...

New study finds teenage Tyrannosaurus rex gained nearly five pounds daily.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... How did Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the most enormous terrestrial carnivorous animals ever, grow to be so large? Fast growth does it for some beasts. Long-lasting growth does it for others. For T. rex, it was the former, in particular a...

Museum events: American Museum Of Natural History.(Calendar)
October 1, 2004... EXHIBITIONS The Butterfly Conservator: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter Opens October 9, 2004 A return engagement of this popular exhibition includes more than 500 live, free-flying tropical butterflies in an enclosed habitat...

Fishing for a living.(Endpaper)
October 1, 2004... I'd been observing the birds in a heron rookery on a beaver pond near my home for more than two decades, before I finally saw a great blue heron catch a fish--three fishes and a frog, to be precise. True, I hadn't tried terribly hard to...