The stranded lagoon

When someone talks about getting a glimpse of prehistory from the modern landscape, usually what they're referring to is either (1) rocks, or (2) fossils.

There's no doubt that those are our best clues.  I saw a good example of this last weekend while we were visiting some friends in the Catskill Mountains.  We'd gone for a hike alongside the beautiful tumbling West Kill Creek, and I saw the unmistakable polished surface and parallel grooves of a slickenside -- a rock that had been carved and worn smooth by the passage of a glacier, probably the one that last covered this entire region on the order of twenty thousand years ago. 

Further back -- much further back -- the flaky, flat layers of gray shale and tan limestone that forms the majority of the bedrock around here is Devonian in age, something like three hundred million years old, when where I now sit was at the bottom of a shallow tropical ocean.  Those sediments were uplifted during the formation of the Appalachian Mountain range and have been slowly eroding ever since, with the outflow from the melting glaciers -- the same ones that left the scratches in the rocks I saw in the Catskills -- cutting the deep, steep-sided gorges this region is famous for.

Taughannock Falls -- right up the road from where I live

It turns out, though, that inferences about the past don't just come from rocks and fossils.  A much rarer, but even cooler, phenomenon comes from biology; it's called a relict population or peripheral isolate -- a cluster of individuals of a species left behind and/or cut off from the rest of the population by some major geological event.  An especially interesting one was just discovered recently, and was the subject of a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences just published yesterday.  It concerns a clump of red mangrove trees (Rhizophora mangle) along the banks of the San Pedro Mártir River in the Yucatan Peninsula.  What tipped off the researchers that this was something weird was that red mangroves usually only grow in the brackish or salty shallows of tropical ocean shores -- and this one was 170 kilometers inland from the nearest mangrove marshes, along the banks of a freshwater river, with no individuals of that species in between.

Apparently what happened is that these mangroves were left behind after a warm period of high sea level ended.  As the temperature cooled and more ocean water was locked up in the form of ice, the seas receded, cutting off the little clump of mangroves from their cousins.

The authors write:

Climatic oscillations during the Pleistocene played a major role in shaping the spatial distribution and demographic dynamics of Earth's biota, including our own species.  The Last Interglacial (LIG) or Eemian Period (ca. 130 to 115 thousand years B.P.) was particularly influential because this period of peak warmth led to the retreat of all ice sheets with concomitant changes in global sea level.  The impact of these strong environmental changes on the spatial distribution of marine and terrestrial ecosystems was severe as revealed by fossil data and paleogeographic modeling.  Here, we report the occurrence of an extant, inland mangrove ecosystem and demonstrate that it is a relict of the LIG.  This ecosystem is currently confined to the banks of the freshwater San Pedro Mártir River in the interior of the Mexico–Guatemala El Petén rainforests, 170 km away from the nearest ocean coast but showing the plant composition and physiognomy typical of a coastal lagoon ecosystem.  Integrating genomic, geologic, and floristic data with sea level modeling, we present evidence that this inland ecosystem reached its current location during the LIG and has persisted there in isolation ever since the oceans receded during the Wisconsin glaciation.  Our study provides a snapshot of the Pleistocene peak warmth and reveals biotic evidence that sea levels substantially influenced landscapes and species ranges in the tropics during this period.

"This discovery is extraordinary," said biologist Felipe Zapata, of the University of California - Los Angeles, who co-authored the paper.  "Not only are the red mangroves here with their origins printed in their DNA, but the whole coastal lagoon ecosystem of the last interglacial has found refuge here."

 It's fascinating that you can use the distribution of a modern species to infer the conditions hundreds of thousands of years ago -- and, conversely, that the prehistoric climate and geology have left a distinct fingerprint on our current ecosystems.  It makes me wonder what the scientists of the far-distant future will be able to figure out about our world.  One of the ways that humans have changed things the most is the introduction of exotic species; in my part of the world, noxious pests like garlic mustard and Japanese beetles come to mind, but it bears mention that pigeons, dogs, cats, and horses are all introductions to North America that have established feral populations, as are most of the commonly consumed fruits (apples, peaches, pears, apricots, blackberries, raspberries, cherries, and all the citrus fruits), clover, dandelions, barberry, and just about all the species of grass you'd find in your lawn.

I wonder if future biologists will figure out how House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) got here, when their nearest relatives are all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Earth, of course, is not done changing.  Even apart from what we're currently doing to the climate, there is the natural process of plate tectonics moving the continents around, altering patterns of ocean and air circulation with inevitable effects on the living ecosystems.  Piecing together what happened in the past can be done by looking at the present -- especially when you find a clump of trees that "shouldn't be there."

**********************************

During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Writing through tears

I've written a number of scenes that have affected me emotionally while I was writing them.  Honestly, that's always what I'm trying to do to my readers -- grab them by the emotions and swing them around a little.  But none of them has struck me as so deeply poignant as this one, near the end of my novel The Communion of Shadows.

In it, the main character, Leandre Naquin, knows exactly when he's going to die -- on his thirtieth birthday.  The day he was born he had nearly died, but his mother made a bargain with the Angel of Death to take thirty years of her life and give them to her son.  The Angel of Death accepted the deal.  Leandre's mother dies young, and now approaching the age of thirty, he knows his own days are numbered.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons jc.winkler, Pic from the canoe on Bayou Corne, CC BY 2.0]

This scene happens the night before his thirtieth birthday, and is one of the few scenes I've written that had me writing through tears.  It's set in 1850 in southern Louisiana -- bayou country.

*************************************

Leandre thought back once again of what he’d said to the others after telling his own story, that knowing the timing of his death hadn’t changed anything, and he wondered again why he’d lied to his friends.  Everything else he’d said was scrupulously honest, at least insofar as he knew the details, but that had been an outright falsehood.  He had such a habit of blithe indifference toward everything and everyone that apparently he even had to pretend that he could shrug his shoulders at his own impending death.

He rolled over in bed, sighing harshly.  “Maman,” he whispered to the darkness, “how did you do it?  You didn’t hesitate when the Angel of Death showed up.  You were confident that you’d chosen correctly and told him you didn’t regret anything, that you were ready to go.  How can I find the same courage?”

He peered around the dark interior of his little cottage, illuminated by a beam of moonlight coming through a half-opened window.  The only sound was a soft sigh, which could have been the night breeze—or perhaps a slow breath, or the rustle of a long skirt.

He sat up, the light blanket slipping off his shoulders, ears and eyes straining.  The silence had returned.  After a moment sitting there, holding his breath, he lay back down on his side, once again trying to force himself to relax.

Then his eyes caught movement.  In the corner of the room there was a light so faint he thought at first it was a reflection of the moon’s glow.  Like everything in the dimness it had little color, just a gauzy white shimmer that could easily be dismissed as a trick of the eye.

With a sudden jolt he knew what it was.  He’d seen it before.  He was looking at the spirit of Azélie Naquin, that silent and watchful ghost he’d last seen when he was a child, standing gazing at him from the corner of his bedroom just as she was now.  His heart thudded against his ribcage, a combination of fear and longing and grief coursing through his veins.

“Maman?”  His voice sounded thin and hoarse in his own ears.

There was no change in the apparition.

Suddenly all of his defenses, all of the pretense to calmness and indifference, collapsed.  He choked out the words, “I miss you so much,” then his voice broke.  Tears flowed down his cheeks, soaked his pillow, and he drew his legs up so that he was curled up on his side, hugging his knees.  “I said Papa never recovered from your death, but I see now I never did, either.  The ache is just as real as it ever was.”

The figure in the corner moved closer, gliding like fog, and he could see the smooth outlines of his mother’s cheeks, the curl of a strand of hair behind her ear, the faint trace of a smile on her lips.  There was the scent of lavender he remembered from his earliest days, its faint sweetness bringing back memories of pressing his face into her shoulder when he was barely old enough to walk.

Still she did not speak, just gazed at him in love and pity, and he felt his heart breaking again as if she’d only died yesterday, not twenty years earlier.

“How do I do it, Maman?”  His voice cracked again, and in his own ears he sounded like the ten-year-old child he had been.  “How can I know if I made the right choice, keeping myself apart so I wouldn’t cause anyone else pain, so I can let go and die satisfied as you did?”

For the first time the ghost spoke to him, and he heard Azélie Naquin’s gentle voice, as familiar as if he had only heard it yesterday, as if the preceding twenty years hadn’t happened.  “You can’t.  You can’t know, my dear son.  No one can.  Everything you do is a choice, and it affects every other choice you will make, every other possibility you have.  No one can know if they chose correctly, because it is never given to us to see what might have happened had we chosen otherwise.”

“How can you bear it?” he shouted, his voice thick with tears.

“By knowing we all are in the same condition.  You said yesterday that millions of other men and women and children have died, and if they could pass those gates, you could.  Then you derided yourself for lying, but it wasn’t a lie.”  She reached out one hand, and caressed his cheek with a touch light as a breath.  “How many people are taken untimely by sickness or accident, who die without having prepared themselves, without making amends to the ones they’ve hurt and saying farewell to the ones they’ve loved?  You and I, we’ve been given a great gift, to be aware that our time is limited, never to think we had forever to do what we wanted.  Don’t doubt your choices.  You did what you could.  It is, in the end, all any of us can do.”

“I want to be brave.”  He hitched a sob.  “I want to be as brave as you were.  To be able to face the Angel of Death and say, ‘I’m ready.’”

“You will.  Whenever he comes for you, you will.  Because you will know, the whole time, that I am right there next to you, my hand on your shoulder, even if you don’t see me or hear me.”

“I’m so frightened.”

She smiled, the moonlight glinting from her eyes, still barely visible as a shimmering outline in the dark air.  “Anyone who can see how beautiful and terrible and complex and incomprehensible life is, and not be frightened, is a fool.”

There was silence for a time in the room.

“Sleep, my brave son.  You will do what you need to, and do it with great courage.  Do not doubt yourself.  I never have.”

The image of Azélie Naquin vanished.

Leandre said, “Maman?”  There was no response.  He brought one arm up over his eyes, as if to block out the entire world, and wept like an orphaned child.

**********************************

During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

The least of these

A friend of mine quipped that Republicans are the party that believes your rights begin at conception and end at birth.

Yeah, I know, I know, "not all Republicans."  But looking at the behavior of the GOP elected officials, it's hard not to come to that conclusion.  Across the nation, they're known for eliminating programs to combat poverty, reducing jobless benefits, blocking mandates for life-saving vaccines, and cutting funding for education.  But if you needed more proof of how anti-life this party has become, look no further than the removal from the Texas child welfare website of a page offering resources to LGBTQ youth, specifically ways to cope with discrimination and avoid self-harm.

The removal was due to pressure from former state Senator Don Huffines, currently campaigning for the GOP nomination for governor.  As such, Huffines is doing his best to paint his opponent, current Governor Greg Abbott, as a closet liberal.  "These are not Texas values, these are not Republican party values, but these are obviously Greg Abbott’s values, that’s why we need a change, that’s what my campaign’s about," Huffines said.  "We aren’t surprised that state employees who are loyal to Greg Abbott had to scramble after we called their perverse actions out.  I promised Texans I would get rid of that website, and I kept that promise."

This makes me so angry I'm actually feeling nauseated.  LGBTQ youth face struggles that most cis-straight children never do.  A survey this year by the Trevor Project found that 42% of LGBTQ teenagers have "seriously considered suicide."  They are four times more likely to go through with it.  "State agencies know that LGBTQ+ kids are overrepresented in foster care and they know they face truly staggering discrimination and abuse," said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas.  "The state is responsible for these kids’ lives, yet it actively took away a resource for them when they are in crisis.  What’s worse, this was done at the start of Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month."

The most horrifying part of all this -- and there's a lot to choose from -- is that most of the people who support Huffines and others like him are self-professed devout Christians, who follow a guy who said, "Then [God] will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in,  I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'  They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'  He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"

Apparently what Jesus actually said was, "Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me, as long as the least of these were also cis-straight-white-Christian-conservative Americans.  The rest of y'all can go fuck yourselves."

I know it's unlikely Huffines will ever read this, and if he did, it's even less likely it'd make any difference.  Huffines and his ilk revel in their reputations as callous, anti-humanitarian hardasses.  As Adam Serwer said, "the cruelty is the point."

But I don't know how anyone who claims to follow a compassionate God isn't sickened by bullshit like this.  So let me end with this: the Suicide Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.  If you're considering harming yourself, reach out -- there are people who can help.  You are not alone; a great many people have gone through this, and considered suicide, and understand where you are.  (I'm one of them.)

It is also probably worthwhile getting the hell out of Texas as soon as you can.

**********************************

During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Requirisne cum illo cibum frixum?

I love trying foods from different cultures.

It's been one of the most enjoyable parts of traveling for me, and despite the fact that "it's a delicacy" may sound like it's synonymous with "this is a food we give to stupid tourists to see if they'll actually eat it," most of what I've tried has been delicious.  I even loved durian, the notoriously stinky fruit from southeast Asia that food writer Richard Sterling famously described as smelling like "pig shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock."  Despite its smell, I thought it tasted like a combination of raspberry yogurt and almond paste.

So I thought it was pretty cool that a food historian named Andrew Coletti has specialized in finding ancient documents recording recipes from centuries ago -- and recreating them in the kitchen.

Coletti has made dishes from medieval Europe, eleventh-century Persia, twelfth-century Morocco, thirteenth-century Egypt, fourteenth-century Spain, and fifteenth century Turkey.  But now he's turned his attention to further back in time -- to the Roman Empire.

Using a fourth-century cookbook called Apicius, Coletti has tried to recreate what the Romans of the time liked to eat.  Some of it is similar enough to what we typically serve; baked scrambled eggs with asparagus, a dessert like a sponge cake soaked in honey, a poppyseed cheesecake, and about a dozen recipes involving oysters, which the Romans adored.  There are fried ground meat patties that sound a great deal like hamburgers.

And of course, if you have hamburgers, what else is necessary?

Fries, of course.

Turns out the ancient Romans ate something very much like fries with ketchup.  They didn't have potatoes -- despite the association of potatoes with Ireland, the potato is a Western Hemisphere native and wasn't widely grown in Europe until the seventeenth century -- but they did have other starchy root vegetables, like parsnips.  And fried slivered parsnips were served with oenogarum, a ketchup-like condiment made from red wine, fish sauce, black pepper, lovage (an herb similar to celery), and honey.

Parsnip fries with oenogarum (from Coletti's TikTok @PassTheFlamingo)

"This is probably my favorite ancient Roman recipe ever," Coletti said.  "It fits right into a banquet of other Apicius recipes.  But it would also fit in at a modern table."

So in Roman times, you might be asked, "Requirisne cum illo cibum frixum?"  ("Do you want fries with that?")  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

If you were to time-travel back to ancient Rome, the oddest thing would probably be what they didn't have.  Besides potatoes, such familiar culinary items as corn, tomatoes, squash, and green and red peppers were all introductions from the Western Hemisphere much later on (black pepper was used -- it was an exotic and expensive import -- and comes from an entirely different species of plant).  The introductions went both ways, of course.  Interestingly, given the "American as apple pie" cliché, apples are not native to North America, but were introduced by the French into Canada in the seventeenth century, and spread from there.

Anyhow, I find Coletti's work intriguing, and if you're on TikTok you should definitely follow him (@PassTheFlamingo).  Given my fascination with the ancient world, I think I might try to create an authentic Roman dinner.  I'd definitely like trying to make some oenogarum -- although I don't know where the hell I'll find lovage.  Maybe if I boost the amount of red wine, no one will notice that I substituted celery.

**********************************

During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

The mystery from Manu

So much of the damage we've done to the planet hasn't been deliberate destructiveness; it's been due to our carelessly stomping about the place.  We've long had the attitude that resources will never run out, that we can get away with doing whatever we want with no consequences, that nature will rebound like it always does.  There's little awareness of the absolute fragility of it all.

The "bull in a china shop" metaphor seems all too apt.

Of course, that mindset does require a good dollop of willful ignorance.  Just two weeks ago, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service declared that 22 species in the US that were previously classified as critically endangered are now officially considered extinct.  The most famous of them is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, the largest woodpecker species native to North America, victim to habitat loss as the wetland forests where it lived were drained, the trees felled for lumber.  A full nine of the 22 are bird species endemic to Hawaii, eight of them part of the unique group called Hawaiian honeycreepers that were decimated by the double whammy of habitat loss and susceptibility to avian malaria, carried by the introduced Asian tiger mosquito.

So to think "everything's just fine" you have to make a practice of not paying attention.

One of the problems is that in some of the most vulnerable places in the world, species are disappearing before they're even identified and studied.  Take, for example, the species of tree native to the Amazon basin of Peru that was first seen by scientists in 1973 -- and that has just now been classified and named.

Robin Foster of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute was the one who noticed it, while walking in Manu National Park -- and despite a thorough knowledge of Amazonian flora, he couldn't figure out what it was.  "When I first saw this little tree, while out on a forest trail leading from the field station, it was the fruit -- looking like an orange-colored Chinese lantern and juicy when ripe with several seeds -- that caught my attention," Foster said.  "I didn't really think it was special, except for the fact that it had characteristics of plants in several different plant families, and didn't fall neatly into any family.  Usually I can tell the family by a quick glance, but damned if I could place this one."

So Foster sent a branch of the plant to the Field Museum of Chicago, where it sat in the herbarium for almost fifty years.  When DNA analysis became de rigueur for doing taxonomy, back in the 1990s, researchers tried extracting DNA from the dried leaves -- unsuccessfully.  Then last year, scientist Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, who is part of the team that studies the ecosystem in Manu National Park, found a living specimen of the tree, and this time the DNA extraction worked.

Aenigmanu alvareziae

The results were a shock to botanists, because it showed beyond any question that the little tree belonged to an obscure tropical family called Picramniaceae, made up of 48 (now 49) species native to northern South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, but not common anywhere.  "When my colleague Rick Ree sequenced it and told me what family it belonged to, I told him the sample must have been contaminated.  I was like, no way, I just couldn't believe it," said Nancy Hensold of the Field Museum, part of the team that studied the plant and finally identified its affinities.  "Looking closer at the structure of the tiny little flowers I realized, oh, it really has some similarities, but given its overall characters, nobody would have put it in that family." 

The plant was christened Aenigmanu alvareziae -- the genus name means "mystery from Manu," while the species name honors Patricia Álvarez-Loayza, who found the living specimen that helped to place the species.

What strikes me about this whole story is how easily the branch of this little tree could have been forgotten in the herbarium, or the plant itself overlooked completely.  The Amazon is a big place, large swaths of which are unexplored.  While one odd plant species may not seem all that important, this does give us a sense of the extent to which we're blundering around damaging living ecosystems without even understanding them fully.  "Plants are understudied in general," said Robin Foster, the first scientist who noticed Aenigmanu back in 1973.  "Especially tropical forest plants.  Especially Amazon plants.  And especially plants in the upper Amazon.  To understand the changes taking place in the tropics, to protect what remains, and to restore areas that have been wiped out, plants are the foundation for everything that lives there and the most important to study.  Giving them unique names is the best way to organize information about them and call attention to them.  A single rare species may not by itself be important to an ecosystem, but collectively they tell us what is going on out there."

Conservation isn't some kind of academic game, and rare species shouldn't just be of interest to the taxonomists.  We need to understand on a visceral level that you can't pull threads out of the tapestry of life without the entire thing coming unraveled.  Chief Seattle said it best, back in 1854: "The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth.  This we know.  All things are connected like the blood which unites one family...  Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

**********************************

During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Water bear don't care

Heard of tardigrades?

They're known as "water bears," a name given to them by their discoverer, Johann August Ephraim Goeze, in 1773.  (In German, kleiner Wasserbär, which I think sounds even more charming.)  They've also been called "moss piglets" because they're frequently found in damp patches of moss; tardigrade itself means "slow stepper," from the cautious, almost stealthy, movements of their eight limbs.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (2012), SEM image of Milnesium tardigradum in active state - journal.pone.0045682.g001-2, CC BY 2.5]

Most people who know about tardigrades found out about them because of their peculiar reluctance to die.  They can withstand conditions that damn near no other life form on Earth can survive.  They've made it through a few minutes at 151 C (fifty degrees above the boiling point of water) and at -272 C, which is one degree above absolute zero.  They positively sneer at more moderate temperatures; tardigrades have survived for thirty years at -20 C.  They've lived through being in a near-vacuum and being subjected to pressures six times what exists at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.  They have a radiation tolerance at least a thousand times higher than your average animal, can survive dehydration for ten years or more, and have lived through momentary impact pressures of 1.14 gigapascals -- the equivalent of being smacked by an object moving at nine hundred meters per second.

So to hell with cockroaches and rats.  If there's some global cataclysm, tardigrades will rule the Earth.

Tardigrades aren't particularly closely related to any other group, but seem to have a distant relationship to arthropods (insects, spiders, crustaceans, and so on) and onychophores (velvet worms).  (What is certain is that they have no connection to bears or piglets.)  Their lineage has been on its own for a long time -- no one knows for sure how long, but tardigrade fossils have been found in deposits from Siberia dating from the mid-Cambrian Period, something on the order of five hundred million years ago.

So these peculiar little creatures have been trundling their way around the world for half a billion years.

The topic comes up because of a link sent to me by the sharp-eyed Gil Miller, that describes a recent discovery of a tardigrade fossil in sixteen-million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic.  Tardigrades are extremely rare as fossils; the main reason is that they're tiny -- between 0.1 and 1.5 millimeters in length, depending on the species.  Trying to find the remains of something that small is tricky, to say the least.  In fact, the recent discovery was from amber that had been the subject of study for several months because it also contained the fossils of three different prehistoric ant species.  But once discovered, it became clear quickly that it was an extraordinary find, not least because it turned out to be not only a new species, but an entirely new genus.  It was christened Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus; that mouthful comes from para- ("next to") and doryphorbius (the name of another genus of tardigrades that the new discovery is related to -- the name comes from the Greek words meaning "spear bearer"); the species name chronocaribbeus means, more or less, "Caribbean critter from a long time ago."

"The discovery of a fossil tardigrade is truly a once-in-a-generation event," said Phil Barden of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who was senior author of the study.  "What is so remarkable is that tardigrades are a ubiquitous ancient lineage that has seen it all on Earth, from the fall of the dinosaurs to the rise of terrestrial colonization of plants.  Yet, they are like a ghost lineage for paleontologists with almost no fossil record.  Finding any tardigrade fossil remains is an exciting moment where we can empirically see their progression through Earth history."

So a more-or-less accidental discovery from a piece of amber is shedding some light on the evolutionary history of one of the most peculiar groups of animals on Earth.  I have to admit, when I read the first few paragraphs of the article, I was half expecting they'd say, "And we broke open the amber... and the tardigrade came back to life."  Kind of disappointed, I must admit.  But I guess even for a survivor like the tardigrades, being stuck in hardened pine sap for sixteen million years is a lot to endure.

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During the first three centuries C.E., something remarkable happened; Rome went from a superpower, controlling much of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, to being a pair of weak, unstable fragments -- the Western and Eastern Roman Empires --torn by strife and internal squabbles, beset by invasions, with leaders for whom assassination was the most likely way to die.  (The year 238 C.E. is called "the year of six emperors" -- four were killed by their own guards, one hanged himself to avoid the same fate, and one died in battle.)

How could something like this happen?  The standard answer has usually been "the barbarians," groups such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks, Alans, and Huns who whittled away at the territory until there wasn't much left.  They played a role, there is no doubt of that; the Goths under their powerful leader Alaric actually sacked the city of Rome itself in the year 410.  But like with most historical events, the true answer is more complex -- and far more interesting.  In How Rome Fell, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how a variety of factors, including a succession of weak leaders, the growing power of the Roman army, and repeated epidemics took a nation that was thriving under emperors like Vespasian and Hadrian, finally descending into the chaos of the Dark Ages.  

If you're a student of early history, you should read Goldsworthy's book.  It's fascinating -- and sobering -- to see how hard it is to maintain order in a society, and how easy it is to lose it.

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There's the rub

I'm currently benched from one of my favorite activities: running.

I have, once again, injured my back.  Four years ago, I got sciatica -- inflammation of the sciatic nerve -- that sidelined me for almost a year before it really had resolved enough that I could run again.  It's returned, probably due to my hefting around twenty-five kilogram bags of rock salt for our water softener a couple of weeks ago.  Like last time, there was no "uh-oh" moment, when I felt a twinge or a jolt; but the next day, I went for an easy four-mile run and ended up limping my way home.

At least it's on the opposite side this time, although I'm not honestly sure it's any better to injure new and different body parts than it is to keep re-injuring the same one over and over.

Seriously discouraging, mostly because I'm anticipating this thing once again taking a long time to heal.  I work with a kickass trainer, Kevin, who has informed me that he is not going to let me give up.  He's had issues with his back as well, so he knows the drill -- and knows things to do that will help.  Stretching, heating pads, using a TENS (trans-cutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) unit.  I've had suggestions from other people -- chiropractic and acupuncture topping the list -- but I've hesitated to go that direction, because from what I've read, neither one has been shown effective for treating injuries, and in fact there are cases of chiropractic adjustment making things worse.

So I'm following what Kevin says to do, and I'm seeing some gradual improvement.  Not nearly as fast as I'd like, but still, progress is progress.  I am not a patient person, and I'm very ready to get myself out there racing again.

This is why I was very interested to read some research out of Harvard University this week supporting the claim that another commonly-used recovery technique -- massage -- apparently does have a positive therapeutic effect, beyond just feeling good.  A team led by Bo Ri Seo, of the Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically-Inspired Engineering, did an experiment with mice that not only showed massage speeds up healing, but gives a clue as to why it works.

Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell associated with inflammation; inflamed tissue produces chemical signals called cytokines, which acts to increase blood flow (thus the swelling associated with inflammation) and attract neutrophils to clear out the damaged tissue.  So this response is critical for initiating healing both in cases of infection and in mechanical injuries.

Which is all very well, up to a point.  "Neutrophils are known to kill and clear out pathogens and damaged tissue, but in this study we identified their direct impacts on muscle progenitor cell behaviors," said study co-author Stephanie McNamara.  "While the inflammatory response is important for regeneration in the initial stages of healing, it is equally important that inflammation is quickly resolved to enable the regenerative processes to run its full course."

The team worked with mice, and developed a little "massage gun" to exert regular, rhythmic pressure on their tiny muscles.  What they found was that the mechanical compression from a massage forces out both the neutrophils and the cytokines from damaged tissue, allowing them to heal not only faster, but stronger.  The rebuilt muscle tissue had thicker fibers, and also more fibers of the type involved with greater force production during contraction.

"These findings are remarkable because they indicate that we can influence the function of the body's immune system in a drug-free, non-invasive way," said team member Conor Walsh.  "This provides great motivation for the development of external, mechanical interventions to help accelerate and improve muscle and tissue healing that have the potential to be rapidly translated to the clinic."

So I think I need to schedule a massage.  With luck and diligence, maybe I can get back out on the trail soon.  I certainly hope so; running is a real pressure-valve for me emotionally, and if I'm stuck on the sidelines until next summer like last time this happened, I'm gonna go out of my ever-lovin' mind.

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As someone who is both a scientist and a musician, I've been fascinated for many years with how our brains make sense of sounds.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman makes the point that our ears (and other sense organs) are like peripherals, with the brain as the central processing unit; all our brain has access to are the changes in voltage distribution in the neurons that plug into it, and those changes happen because of stimulating some sensory organ.  If that voltage change is blocked, or amplified, or goes to the wrong place, then that is what we experience.  In a very real way, your brain creates your world.

This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week looks specifically at how we generate a sonic landscape, from vibrations passing through the sound collecting devices in the ear that stimulate the hair cells in the cochlea, which then produce electrical impulses that are sent to the brain.  From that, we make sense of our acoustic world -- whether it's a symphony orchestra, a distant thunderstorm, a cat meowing, an explosion, or an airplane flying overhead.

In Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World, neuroscientist Nina Kraus considers how this system works, how it produces the soundscape we live in... and what happens when it malfunctions.  This is a must-read for anyone who is a musician or who has a fascination with how our own bodies work -- or both.  Put it on your to-read list; you won't be disappointed.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]