| THE WHY FILES: THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE NEWS |
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| Geplaatst door Roy Meijer | |
| woensdag 03 juni 2009 | |
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THE NOT-FOR-NERDS GUIDE TO HUMAN BRAINS, ANIMAL SEX, EXPLODING BUGS AND GALACTIC DEATH RAYS
David J. Tenenbaum with Terry
Devitt
Tenenbaum writes: THE WHY
FILES is an outgrowth of http://whyfiles.org/, which has been
exploring the science behind the news on the web for 13 years. Although we had to reprint
our coverage of the melting glacier on Kilimanjaro, written as mock Hemingway, and
Rico, the talking dog, the rest of the material is almost entirely new.
To take one example, writers
know that science is not just a story of incremental advances or breakthroughs that
seldom pan out, but also about quirky folks toiling for years to explain what’s under our noses. Decades ago, ecologist Dan Janzen heaved out a rotten avocado, then began to wonder if decay organisms have an evolutionary interest in conferring a foul perfume to their food. Almost 30 years later, a chemical ecologist found that crabs shun rotting fish, but only if it stinks. This rot-and-stink routine may play a dual role in evolution: animals stay healthy if they loathe the stench of rotten food and bacteria and fungi get to hoard rotting food that they can turn distasteful. Everybody wins -- except the avocado! |
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