I live near the Long Island Sound, in a landscape overrun with invaders from all over the world. My wife spends her free time ripping out Japanese knotweed from our garden. The Connecticut salt marshes are overrun with invasive Phragmites reeds. Starlings descend on us like a hail storm. So I found it intriguing to discover some scientists who don’t consider invasive species to be all that big a deal compared to other effects we’re having on the environment, like habitat destruction and climate change. In today’s Science Times section of the New York Times, I have an article about some of their recent research, and their critics who think they’re missing the true dangers of invasives.
Author: Lori Jia
Jessica writes:
“I’m happy to send you my very own science tattoo — a buckyball net. I’ve always been fascinated by carbon and its presence on our planet — but I didn’t want to choose an ordinary representation of carbon for my…uh…lifetime ink commitment. Behold the carbon 60 molecule, which just happens to fit my idea and look ridiculously cool, especially when “unfolded.” I initially wanted the design to be small and discreet, but my tattoo artist thought it was such a cool design that he insisted I get it bigger. I’m happy I took his advice.”
There’s a very cool paper in the latest issue of Science that pinpoints a particular chunk of DNA that may have played a role in the evolution of a human-like hand from the hands of our primate ancestors. Not Exactly Rocket Science has the details. For some reason, a number of articles on the paper are using the hook that this segment of DNA was once dissed as junk. “A patch of DNA once regarded as ‘junk’ may hold the key to upright walking and opposable thumbs,” according to Wired. These reports seem to be following the language from the original press release.
The “Wow! Junk DNA is not junk after all” news hook is a tempting one, but it needs to be resisted. At the very least, science writers need to recall some history.
I can’t help finding the Irish elk wonderfully ridiculous. The reaction probably has something to do with the fact that we are all familiar today with deer, moose and other animals that look for the most part like the Irish elk, except for that extravagant rack. Irish elk grew the biggest antlers ever recorded, stretching over ten feet across and weighing about 90 pounds. Of course, for the people who lived alongside the Irish elk in Europe and Asia before its extinction 7000 years ago, it probably didn’t seem terribly ridiculous at all–no more ridiculous than an orangutan or a river dolphin look to us today.
Following up on yesterday’s post on Spore, here’s a new video Seed magazine put up about, in which Spore designer Will Wright and astrobiologist Jill Tarter. Tarter brings up some of the same concerns I’ve heard from other biologists (and today from Larry Moran at Sandwalk). What do you think of Wright’s responses?
Originally published September 2, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.