Elephants Get the Point of Pointing, Study Shows

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The New York Times, October 10, 2013

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We point to things without giving much thought to what a sophisticated act it really is. By simply extending a finger, we can let other people know we want to draw their attention to an object, and indicate which object it is.

As sophisticated as pointing may be, however, babies usually learn to do it by their first birthday. “If you don’t get that they’re drawing your attention to an object, they’ll get cross,” said Richard W. Byrne, a biologist at the University of St Andrews.

When scientists test other species, they find that pointing is a rare gift in the animal kingdom. Even our closest relatives, like chimpanzees, don’t seem to get the point of pointing.

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Evolution in Color: From Peppered Moths to Walking Sticks

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The color of an animal can determine whether it lives or dies. If it’s easily spotted by predators, it may well become a meal. Hidden nicely against its background, an animal can escape its enemies for another day.

The particular colors on an animals are determined partly by the genes its gets from its parents. That means that genes that hide animals can spread thanks to natural selection, leading to the evolution of exquisite camouflage. But that’s not to say that the animal kingdom has settled on a perfect, fixed palette. You can find mismatched individuals. Over the course of generations, a whole population can flicker between mismatched and well-matched.

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When Science Goes Wrong And Ways to Fix It: Video of My Lecture At Vanderbilt

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering the Flexner Discovery Lecture at Vanderbilt to a packed room. My talk was entitled, “When Science Goes Wrong and Ways To Fix It.” I talked about some of the struggles the science community is facing with poorly replicated research and misconduct, and how we science journalists can make things worse by seizing on research to make huge claims. The video (complete with slides) is now online. Check it out.

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Breathe in the Mystery: My New York Times Column on Oxygen

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A MOUNTAINEER TAKES A WELL-NEEDED BREATH OF OXYGEN FROM HIS MASK NEAR THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST. SOURCE: http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/3827/oh-oxygen

One of the most important things that makes Earth special is the abundant oxygen in its atmosphere. How it got that way is a surprisingly complicated story that’s just coming to light. It’s a story I delve into for this week’s “Matter” column in the New York Times. Check it out.

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The Mystery of Earth’s Oxygen

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The New York Times, October 3, 2013

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To Donald E. Canfield, there’s something astonishing in every breath we take. “People take oxygen for granted because it’s just there and we breathe it all the time,” said Dr. Canfield, a geochemist at the University of Southern Denmark. “But we have the only planet we know of anywhere that has oxygen on it.”

What’s even more astonishing is that the earth started out with an oxygen-free atmosphere. It took billions of years before there was enough of it to keep animals like us alive.

Although scientists have been struggling for decades to reconstruct the rise of oxygen, they’re still making fundamental discoveries.

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