Natural History articles from September 2008

Natural History archives from September 2008

The natural moment.(barn owl)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] When the barn owl shown here opened its mouth, photographer Scott Linstead expected to hear an ear-piercing shriek. But no sound came out. Instead, after some dry heaving, the owl coughed up a roundish pellet. ...

Body English.(nature.net)(nonverbal communication)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SOMETIMES GESTURES are critical. can remember when I was in the dentist's chair having my wisdom teeth chiseled from my lower jaw. I was breathing laughing gas and had been shot full of anesthetic, but somehow I...

Slippery specimen.(WORD EXCHANGE)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jamie James writes in "Burmese Motorcycle Diaries" [6/08] that Joe Slowinski was the first to describe a new species of cobra since 1922. I'm not disputing this claim, but I do want to point out that another cobra...

Canid Kudos.(WORD EXCHANGE)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... I just had to comment on the amazing talent of Mauricio Anton. He absolutely brought to life the article by Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford "How Dogs Came to Run the World" [7-8/08]. His illustrations made a good story into a great story,...

Erratum.(WORD EXCHANGE)(Correction notice)
September 1, 2008... In "Birds of a Different Feather," by Eben Goodale, Amila Salgado, and Sarath W. Kotagama [7-8/08], the editors regret scrambling a few photo credits. Please note these corrections: page 25 (sunset): Amila Salgado; page 26 and 27 (ashy-headed...

Greens eat their greens.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Bladderworts, carnivorous plants of the genus Utricularia, live in water or soggy soil, To snare their snacks, bladderworts set ingenious little traps, sometimes in the hundreds, among their waterborne leaves. The traps maintain an internal...

Raw deal.(SAMPLINGS)(animals prefer cooked foods to raw foods)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... When early humans mastered the use of fire, their immediate rewards were warmth, light, and protection from nocturnal predators. Investigators have assumed that our ancestors also quickly realized the advantages of flame-cooked food--easy...

Junk food diet.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... In the Baltic Sea, birds called common guillemots raise their young on herringlike fish called sprat. In the 1990s, local sprat became unusually abundant after populations of their main predator, cod, plunged because of overfishing and climatic...

Jurassic undertakers.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Dermestid beetles are well known in forensic circles: they congregate on corpses to feed and breed, and their presence and life stage can help establish when the victim died. Some species haunt natural history museums, where they can be pests...

Not so slothful.(SAMPLINGS)(sloths' sleeping behavior)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sloths have a reputation for sluggishness, so nobody was surprised when a 1983 study reported that they sleep sixteen hours a day--one of the highest values ever recorded for any species. But the sloths under...

Gut reactors.(SAMPLINGS)(Escherichia coli)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Bacteria may be humble single-celled creatures, but they're sophisticated enough to anticipate regular events, such as the arrival of day, thanks to their internal circadian clocks. A new study shows that they can also anticipate and prepare...

Bee brains.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Honeybees are clever little creatures. They can form abstract concepts, such as symmetry versus asymmetry, and they use symbolic language--the celebrated waggle dance--to direct their hivemates to flower patches. New reports suggest that they...

Iced punch.(SAMPLINGS)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Wide rivers of ice, called ice streams, flow through relatively slow-moving polar ice sheets, en route to the sea. Glaciologists had assumed that ice streams just creep steadily along--until one was recently shown to pack a powerful one-two...

Arm wrestling.(THE WARMING EARTH)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... The oceans absorb about half the carbon dioxide humankind releases into the atmosphere, and seawater is consequently acidifying. That's a big problem for shellfish, corals, and certain other calcareous creatures, because lowered pH dissolves...

Power-plant meltdowns: our mitochondrial DNA is implicated in maladies ranging from blindness and infertility to cancer and dementia.(LIFE ZONE)(deoxyribonucleic acid)
September 1, 2008... As a small child, patient "MBM" used to sweat profusely during the night. By the age of seven, she sweated so constantly she needed to change her clothes several times a day. She ate prodigiously, yet could not put on weight. She was always...

Face-offs of the female kind: turf battles between gangs of female blue monkeys reveal a complex social organization.
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Urgent, low-pitched growls emanate from dense foliage in the Kakamega Forest in western Kenya. The growls are punctuated by birdlike chirps and, every so often, a deep, resonant boom. The sounds get louder as two...

Lethal fuzz: toxic hairs enable some caterpillars to venture forth in conspicuous processions.(Cover story)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An epidemic of itchy, burning rashes, irritated eyes, and sore throats struck Belgium in the spring of t2007. Victims' reactions were severe enough to rally fire fighters and dozens of troops--armed with gas-flame...

Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound by David Rothenberg Basic Books, 2008; $27.50 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Philosopher David Rothenberg, the author of Why Birds Sing, has now turned his ear to the sea. Enchanted by...

Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Flat Earth The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood and Thomas Dunne St. Martin's, 2008; $27.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Everybody knows that the Earth is a sphere. In fact, despite popular myths about Columbus's...

Titan Unveiled: Saturn's Mysterious Moon Explored.(Book review)
September 1, 2008... Titan Unveiled: Saturn's Mysterious Moon Explored by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton Princeton University Press, 2008; $29.95 When the Huygens probe entered the atmosphere of Saturn s largest moon, Titan, on January 14, 2005,...

Skylog.(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... Jupiter shines high above the southern horizon at dusk, making it September's most prominent planet. It is enthroned in the constellation Sagittarius, the Archer, just to the upper left of the eight stars that form a pattern known as the...

Into the field: the Young Naturalist Awards essay contest promotes student participation in scientific research.(At the Museum: American Museum of Natural History)(Recommended readings)
September 1, 2008... For 11 years now, students in grades 7 through 12 in the United States and Canada have taken up the challenge put to them by the American Museum of Natural History: turn your curiosity about biology, Earth science, or astronomy into a carefully...

OLogy: new and improved.(American Museum of Natural History)
September 1, 2008... Take a good thing and make it better. That was the goal of the designers of OLogy, the Museum's award-winning Web site for children. And they have done just that--with a new look, exciting new features, and searchable connections to a wealth of...

At the museum: American Museum of Natural History.(Calendar)
September 1, 2008... EXHIBITIONS The Horse Through January 4, 2009 This exhibition reveals the powerful and enduring bond between horses and humans, and explores the origins of the horse family, which extends back more than 50 million years. The...

Field mouser.(ENDPAPER)(Felis chaus)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A piercing shriek shattered the silence of the hot summer night in Sariska Tiger Reserve, a protected area of northwestern India. In the headlights of my vehicle I saw a small cat and a pair of golden jackals...