They don’t all look the same – could better facial discrimination lead to less racial discrimination?January 23, 2009 – It’s been a big week. With a simple words, Barack Obama became the first black President of a country whose history has been so haunted by the spectre of racial prejudice. His election and inauguration are undoubtedly proud moments but they must not breed complacency. Things may be changing outwardly, but problems remain. For a […]
Life's Modest MajestyJuly 03, 2008 – I have a fondness for graphs, especially ones that let you survey the sweep of life’s history in one glance. Here’s a new one, out today in the journal Science. It’s the latest look at the levels of biodiversity over the past half billion years. Scientists crunched the numbers on about 3.5 million fossils of […]
Guatemala’s Bicycle-Powered BlendersJune 07, 2010 – Traveler intern Daniel Bortz explores a program that creates bike-powered machines in Guatemala. Across Guatemalan farmland, a new breed of bicycles is being used to thresh corn, de-shell coffee beans, and even blend fruit smoothies. There, in a country with a history of endemic poverty, Maya Pedal works to combine exercise and technology to provide…
Dawkins gets inside the giraffe's neckAugust 30, 2010 – In the Tangled Bank, I wrote about how life has to evolve within constraints–constraints of physics, development, and history. One of the examples I used was the laryngeal nerve in giraffes. It travels down the giraffe’s neck, takes a U turn, and then heads back up again. It seems ridiculous, but makes sense if you […]
Death by shampooJune 30, 2008 – I’m not much one for beauty tips or fashion gossip. Give me a t-shirt with something geeky on it and a pair of jeans and I’m happy, but delving into the depths of fashion history can have its rewards. At least that’s what my cousin-in-law Bonnie Downing found and she amassed a collection of strange […]
Frivolous Creationist LawsuitsMarch 14, 2006 – Last October, a lawsuit was leveled against an evolution web site at UC Berkeley, based on the claim that government funds had been used to promote religious belief. I contributed the section on the history of biological thought. Judy Scotchmoor, the project’s coordinator, just dropped me an email letting me know that the judge has […]
Man Meets ApeFebruary 24, 2008 – The history of science is rife with fateful meetings. The astronomer Tycho Brahe hires a young assistant named Johannes Kepler, who will go on to discover in Brahe’s observations the law of planetary motion. A bright but aimless British physicist named Francis Crick is introduced to a boisterous young American biologist named James Watson. The […]
Book Review: The Rise of HorsesFebruary 08, 2010 – Almost two decades ago vertebrate paleontologist Bruce MacFadden published his monograph Fossil Horses, an instant classic that was as much about new approaches in paleontology as the equids considered in the book. For over a century the family history of horses had been depicted as some of the best, most-accessible evidence for evolution the fossil […]
Interview: John Huston, First American to Ski to North Pole UnsupportedApril 29, 2009 – Text by Tetsuhiko Endo At 5:30 p.m. on April 25th, after 54 days of skiing, John Huston, 32, and Tyler Fish, 34, reached the North Pole and became the first Americans in history do so unassisted and on skis. ADVENTURE caught up with John Huston yesterday as he relaxed in a hotel room on Oslo,…
It’s a Small McWorldJuly 27, 2009 – When I first toured Europe with my mother and brother, I was intent on exploring the exotic. Trying different dishes, encountering different cultures, and soaking up all of the history, art, and music possible. My brother, on the other hand, seemed most interested in finding the nearest McDonald’s. Unimpressed by the food offerings in each…
Jenss Family Travels: Exploring PeruJune 18, 2009 – Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they’re blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys’ Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids. “Welcome back” were not the words we wanted to hear with six weeks…
K2 Survivor Wilco van Rooijen, In His Own WordsAugust 07, 2008 – Text by Kirkpatrick ReardonPhotograph by Ed Viesturs Read previous NGA K2 accident coverage >> Clear skies and a new moon greeted Dutch mountaineer Wilco van Rooijen at the summit of K2 on Friday, August 1. That was before deteriorating visibility and an ice-avalanche turned that calm night into one of the deadliest in the history…
K2 Survivor Wilco van Rooijen, In His Own WordsAugust 06, 2008 – Text by Kirkpatrick ReardonPhotograph by Ed Viesturs Read previous NGA K2 accident coverage >> Clear skies and a new moon greeted Dutch mountaineer Wilco van Rooijen at the summit of K2 on Friday, August 1. That was before deteriorating visibility and an ice-avalanche turned that calm night into one of the deadliest in the history…
A Leech Blog. If You Build It, We Will Come.July 03, 2008 – I’m going to be posting my blogroll to my new digs as soon as I get the chance. And to that list I will be adding BdellaNea. It’s the work of Mark Siddall, a scientist at the American Museum of Natural History who specializes in leeches. I wrote about Mark in this 2006 article for […]
The Enduring Mystery of ThalidomideMarch 15, 2010 – In tomorrow’s New York Times I write about the afterlife of the greatest medical disaster in history. Thalidomide, a drug women took for morning sickness in the late 1950s, caused thousands of devastating birth defects, such as the failure of limbs to develop. Even after the drug was banned, scientists had no idea how it […]
Subway ArtApril 30, 2008 – GrrlScientist is a brainy blog I like, and the author, an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist, has recently completed a photo series of all the tile mosaics on walls of the New York City subway station at 81st Street and Central Park West, which is right outside the American Museum of Natural History. She’s identified most…