Discover, October 1, 1994

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Old oceans never die: they are preserved, in scattered fossil form, in the rock of Earth’s mantle, 250 miles down.

Jules Verne had an impressive track record of predicting technological progress, having foretold in his books the invention of rocket flight, the submarine, and television. At first glance he would seem to have had less luck with geology; in Journey to the Center of the Earth Professor Otto Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel travel underground and discover that our planet is hollow. But the Lidenbrocks also sail across a vast underground ocean, and geologists now think Verne was onto something there.

Continue reading “The Ocean Within” →

Discover, September 30, 1994

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Nobody, says University of Arizona ecologist Michael Rosenzweig, is going to come up blind with a program to save biodiversity without understanding why it’s here and how it is maintained. And one of the problems that is stumping Rosenzweig and other biodiversity researchers these days is a strange pattern that keeps popping up wherever they look, from the deep seafloor to the Negev Desert. The pattern is this: When organisms get more of what they need, more nutrients, sunlight, and water, their diversity rises–but only up to a point. After that point, more resources mean more productivity–the rate at which plants grow, making food for animals–but less diversity. It makes absolutely no sense, says Rosenzweig. It’s loony.

Continue reading “More Productive, Less Diverse” →

Discover, September 1, 1994

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The idea of a large, docile animal that would pull your plow and make a good stew occurred to more than one person 8,000 years ago.

Civilization rode into the Old World on the backs of cows. Not only were they a richer source of protein than the pigs, goats, and sheep that had been domesticated earlier, they were also the first draft animals. With cattle pulling plows, farmers were suddenly able to cultivate large areas of previously untillable soil. It was something like the invention of the combustion engine, says Caroline Grigson, a zooarcheologist at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. In fact, the domestication of cattle was so important that it apparently happened more than once.

Continue reading “Cows Were in the Air” →

Discover, September 1, 1994

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Here, according to Nilesh Patel, is how you paint the legs of an ant: Begin by finding the right paint. Don’t use Wite-Out (it flakes off), and don’t use oil-based paints (they’re so thick that they make ants walk as if they’re wearing casts). Acrylic is best, says Patel. And be sure to get the thinnest, finest brush your local art supply store has to offer.

Next, chill the ant well. Patel, a 23-year-old senior at the University of California at Berkeley, takes his ants to the integrative biology department’s temperature-controlled room, which he cools to 40 degrees. Inevitably the cold-blooded ants become sleepy.

Continue reading “See How They Run” →

Discover, July 31, 1994

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