I just got back from a pretty remarkable lecture by the husband-and-wife team of Peter and Rosemary Grant. The Grants started studying Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands in 1973, and they made some of the most detailed studies of evolution in the wild ever carried out. Their adventures were chronicled 14 years ago by Jonathan Weiner in the Beak of the Finch, which won the Pulitzer Prize. But the Grants did not stop. They continued to observe the birds evolve, and make fascinating new discoveries. In 2002, I wrote an article on what they’d learned after some three decades of research.
I’ll be talking today on “Word of Mouth” on New Hampshire Public Radio at noon EST. The topic will be my new article on the biology of intelligence in Scientific American. Listen here.
Update: The segment is archived here.
Originally published September 29, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Conservation Magazine, September 26, 2008
Every science has its icon. Genetics has the double helix of DNA. Particle physics has the spiraling tracks of electrons and protons. And if you had to sum up modern ecology in a single picture, it would be the dense mesh of arrows and circles that represents the food web.
The food web’s structure helps ecologists unravel how ecosystems function–whether species go through wild population swings or stay relatively stable. On the Serengeti, for example, acacia trees and grasses form the base of the web, with arrows rising to plant-eaters such as grasshoppers, mice, and gazelle. Each herbivore is in turn eaten by its own set of predators. You don’t have to be an ecologist to recognize the lion’s place in the food web. It’s the king of the jungle, the top predator.
We’ve cast our votes…and here are the winners. As a judge, let me extend best wishes to the winners and all the entrants to the National Academies of Sciences Communication Award.
Originally published September 26, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Thadd writes: “I got this archaeology themed tattoo today, somewhat inspired by your science tattoos. It was inspired by a relief at Persepolis created under the Persian emperor Darius II. It depicts a winged sun disk, likely showing the god Ahura Mazda, in this case, but was used as an icon for important deities in Assyria, Egypt, Judah, Urartu, and throughout most of the ancient Near East.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published September 25, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.