Natural History, March 31, 2001

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My wife, Grace, and I are expecting our first child in July, so I’ve had a lot on my mind recently. Most of it has been pretty mundane stuff. What’s the fastest route from our apartment to the hospital? How exactly do you swaddle a baby? But sometimes loftier thoughts invade. I think about our child as the union of two heritages. My wife’s flows back to Ireland, to County Kerry in the south and County Derry in the north. My own heritage is more farflung, encompassing Wales, England, Germany, and Hungary, as well as countries in eastern Europe that no longer exist, having been bisected and trisected by countless wars.

Continue reading ““After You, Eve”” →

Discover, January 31, 1999

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When 1998 began, East Africa should have been at its most beautiful. Normally the short rainy season ends in December, the rivers subside, and the country sparkles; farmers raise crops, animals graze, tourists go on safaris. But this year was different. The rains were heavy and long. The water spread out for miles in places in Kenya and Somalia, cutting off villages and forcing herders to crowd with their livestock onto a few patches of dry land. Things quickly turned ugly. Camels, cows, sheep, and goats all started dying of violent fevers. Soon people, too, began to get sick. Some went temporarily blind; others began bleeding uncontrollably.

Continue reading “The El Niño factor” →

Discover, November 30, 1998

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Nancy Simmons went down to the jungles of French Guiana in 1991 with the seemingly simple mission of determining how many species of bats live in one place. Each afternoon she and her colleagues headed out from their camp and set up their nets, sometimes arranging them artfully over the openings of hollowed trees where bats like to roost. Then they waited for the sun to fall.

“The forest is noisy and active at night,” says Simmons. “Armadillos come walking by, and kinkajous are knocking around in the trees above your head. You sit there in the dark and you wait, and you never know what is going to come next.”

Continue reading “Into the night” →