January 2013 Blog Posts (4)

Take the keystone away from an arch and down will tumble the whole structure. Take a keystone species away and — so the concept goes — other species will go extinct too. In his excellent recent feature for Nature, Ed Yong explains how biologist Bob Paine came up with the concept while he studied starfish in the 1960s.

Paine’s keystone species concept “would go on to be…

“The proper way to eat a fig, in society,” wrote DH Lawrence, “is to split it in four, holding it by the stump, and open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied, heavy-petalled four-petalled flower. … But the vulgar way, is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the flesh in one bite.”

I’m a vulgar fig-eater. Few things give me more pleasure than when I bite into a ripe one and eat it up. With the right fig, the flavours can be so intense, so rich that it seems…

This is from a recent blog post by Sheldon Wilde Greaves, Founder of Citizen Science League: 

"Thousands worldwide participate in citizen science projects, from counting backyard birds to searching for extraterrestrial communication. In-person and online, this popular pastime is evolving from hobby to serious science.

Uncertain future grant funding, the growing…

Photo Credit: Marty Snyderman

Marty Snyderman is the Marine Life Editor and a long time monthly columnist for Dive Training magazine and the Senior Editor of California Diving News. He has been involved in underwater…