Natural History articles from October 2008

Natural History archives from October 2008

The natural explanation.
October 1, 2008... If you've been on a hike in New England in the last thirty-five years and have noticed a couple "hiking" on their hands and knees, you may have spied photographer Patricia Hinds and her husband James. "Crawling," explains James, "is a much...

Startle reaction.(WORD EXCHANGE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I thoroughly enjoyed "Birds of a Different Feather" by Eben Goodale, Amila Salgado, and Sarath W. Kotagama [7-8/08]. Florida is a bit far from Sri Lanka, but my Tampa neighborhood also has some mimics in its midst....

The fungus kingdom.(nature.net)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIVING IN DRY southern California, I rarely notice fungi, unless they are mushrooms on my plate or something mysterious growing in the fridge. But they are everywhere, breaking down what the other kingdoms of life...

Tide travelers.(SAMPLINGS)(Cerithidea decollata)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Life is no beach for tidal creatures that must migrate in sync with the waterline. Imagine trying to gauge the tides that sweep through a Kenyan mangrove forest: how far the water rises up a given tree depends on the...

Green bling.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When agriculture arose about 11,000 years ago in the Middle East, fields weren't the only green things cropping up. People's accessories were growing greener too, according to a comprehensive study of stone...

Pushy pups, passive "parents".(SAMPLINGS)(Banded mongooses )(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Banded mongooses live in extended-family groups, with as many as ten females breeding at the same time. When they're about a month old, pups leave the communal den to forage with the adults. That's when a pup usually be gins to associate...

He came, he saw, he sailed on.(SAMPLINGS)(Julius Caesar )(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Julius Caesar arrived off the coast of Britain with his hundred-ship force in August, 55 B.C., he was greeted by a host of defenders poised to hurl spears down on his invading army from the towering Dover...

Immigrant pathogen.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Lyme disease entered American consciousness in 1975, when a cluster of cases turned up around Old Lyme, Connecticut. Thirty-plus years later, it's still on the rise in the United States. New research shows that the pathogen responsible for the...

Spun by the sun.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... How does an asteroid pick up a satellite? Well, a big asteroid can capture a small passerby with its gravitational pull, but how a small one--less than six miles in diameter--gains any company has been a puzzle to astronomers. About 15 percent...

Wet suit.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Predatory reptiles called ichthyosaurs cruised the oceans between 230 million and 90 million years ago. In a classic case of convergent evolution, their body and fin shapes resembled those of today's dolphins, tunas,...

Animal party line.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... A number of animals eavesdrop on warnings sounded by other species: if a predator is afoot, everyone wants to hear the news. Most prey species known to heed "second language" alarm calls are social creatures with large vocal repertoires of...

Toot spews soot.(THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... Lovable Little Toot has come in for a scolding. An extensive survey of shipping lanes along the Gulf Coast of the United States concludes that tugboats emit far more soot than any other kind of vessel, and four times more than previously...

Shades of glory: my whirlwind tour to the North Pole and back for 175 seconds of totality.
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As regular readers of my "Skylog" column are aware, a total solar eclipse was predicted for August 1, 2008, one whose track would stretch from northern Canada across the Arctic Circle and into Siberia and China....

I, Cleopatra: this was my life.(Short story)(Cover story)
October 1, 2008... Twenty-one years have passed since I, Ptolemy's most loving daughter, closed his eyes and took his crown. Now my own end has come, and I must stand before the greatest of all judges. Divine Osiris, do you recognize the mortal woman who was once...

Lucky dogs: rescued from the pound, single-minded dogs sniff out the scat of endangered animals, trumping more technical tracking methods.
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Frehley was emaciated and frenetic when we found him at the local animal shelter. His former owner, unable to handle his boundless energy, had kept him locked in a crate in a tiny apartment--no place for a border...

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum.(Book review)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dry Storeroom No. 1 The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey Alfred A. Knopf, 2008; $27.50 Whether or not you have ever visited the Natural History Museum in London, this...

A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All.(Book review)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Supremely Bad Idea Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All by Luke Dempsey Bloomsbury, 2008; $24.99 Reading this book took a bit longer than expected. Not because the writing dragged--Luke...

The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It.(Book review)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Universe in a Mirror The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It by Robert Zimmerman Princeton University Press, 2008; $29.95 Everyone has heard of the Hubble Space...

Untidy explanation.(WORD EXCHANGE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2008... In "Skylog" [6/08], Joe Rao gives a misleading explanation for the fact that high tide occurs not only "under" the Moon but also on the opposite side of the Earth. It's not that the "underlying ocean basin is being deepened by the Moon's...

Skylog.(Calendar)
October 1, 2008... In October we have good views of four of the five brightest planets: Venus and Jupiter in the evening sky, Mercury and Saturn in the morning sky. (The fifth, Mars, has disappeared into the evening twilight.) The relative brightness of...

Earth on the edge.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future)
October 1, 2008... Anyone who has seen The Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" won't soon forget the mercury exploding from the top of a thermometer as Earth moves inexorably toward the Sun. In a chilling twist, the story ends with humans facing the opposite...

A monumental man.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Theodore Roosevelt)
October 1, 2008... Two halls, three murals, four dioramas, a massive bronze statue on horseback at the main entrance--these are a few of the ways in which the American Museum of Natural History pays public homage to Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the...

Butterflies by the book.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Do Butterflies Bite? Fascinating Answers to Questions about Butterflies and Moths)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As visitors mingle among the hundreds of live butterflies and moths in The Butterfly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies Alive in Winter, which opens this month, eager educators will be on hand to offer lessons in...

At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History.(Calendar)
October 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EXHIBITIONS Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future Opens October 18, 2008 This timely new exhibition explores the science, history, and impact of climate change on a global scale....

Time portal.(ENDPAPER)
October 1, 2008... From the moment we saw it, we knew the place held many great secrets. We had been looking for new fossil sites on the south side of the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1992 with our colleagues, Helen F. James and Storrs L. Olson of the Smithsonian...