When My Girlfriend Almost
Ate Dog Food

By: | November 9, 2017

The two of us moved in together a few weeks ago. With a moving truck, towering boxes of books, and every edible thing she could remove from her previous household, we merged lives. Whose tea strainer should we keep, whose collapsible metal steamer, whose box of African rooibos?

When she found a dead silverfish hanging by a spider web on the bedroom wall, she shouted, “Jesus, what the hell is that, a trilobite?”

The process of moving in together is a telling moment for a relationship. Will such an endeavor last or not? A 2014 Atlantic article followed scientists who tracked couples, some of whom stayed together over time and some who didn’t. The article says that one of the main indicators of success or failure is how partners reacted to ‘bids’ from each other. A bid is where one says, oh, look at the sunset, or, I read something interesting today. Does the other person engage or not? The article reads, “Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had ‘turn-toward bids’ 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had ‘turn-toward bids’ 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.”

By oil lamp and some electric light at night, we sorted our belongings and talked, little bids dropped like breadcrumbs. Whiskey was sipped, and sometimes we didn’t speak for hours, busy in our tasks between laptops and putting up bean cans.

It was when I left for a few nights that it happened, when my girlfriend almost ate dog food. Continue reading →

Goodbye to the Friend I Never Met

By: | November 8, 2017

Saturday was the day I finally gave up. The last hope for the vaquita marina, the world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean, is gone. On Saturday, biologists working in the Upper Gulf of California announced that the latest animal they had captured in an effort to save the species had died in captivity.

For the first half of 2017, I was knee deep in a story I’ve been following since I got to Mexico six years ago. In summary, an animal that had found itself on the wrong side of rampant poaching practices is all but wiped out and the last option is a Hail Mary plan to round them up into captive pens and hold them until such time as humans stop sucking at ocean stewardship. (For a full review of the vaquita’s tragic tale, I really encourage you to read the story.)

But there was always a problem with this strategy – no one had ever tried to catch one before. It was possible they wouldn’t go quietly into pens.

“If captivity fails, then, well, we tried,” NOAA biologist Barbara Taylor told me in the spring. “It’s game over.”

After Saturday, I think it’s game over. The vaquita doesn’t do captivity. The first animal caught by biologists got so stressed out that it had to be released. The second died within hours. We have now officially done more harm than good in our attempts to save the vaquita. In fact, this whole effort has been one long lesson in throwing the porpoise out with the bathwater. From the beginning, it feels like we’ve tried to help the vaquita with the best of intentions and have only made things worse.

Continue reading →

What I Learned in Humanities 110

By: | November 7, 2017

My alma mater is, for better or worse, the undergraduate equivalent of a cult film: Most people have never heard of Reed College, and the few who have really like to argue about it.

So it’s disconcerting when arguments usually confined to the Reed campus attract national attention. In recent days, a Washington Post column and a much-read Atlantic article have described, in disturbing detail, ongoing student protests against the perceived Eurocentrism of Humanities 110, a rigorous, year-long examination of the ancient Greeks and their neighbors required of all first-year Reed students. Since the protests began, in September 2016, protesters have repeatedly disrupted classes, intimidated lecturers, and bullied other students both online and off. (To be clear, the mission of Reedies Against Racism, the campus group that started the protests, is broader than Hum 110 reform, and its stated demands are less extreme than some members’ rhetoric and behavior suggest; that context is little comfort, however, to the students and professors who have been insulted and harassed.)

Many Reed alumni—most of us no strangers to political protest—are appalled by these tactics, and plenty of current students are, too: this fall, a large segment of the incoming class, led primarily by students of color, has called for the restoration of order to the Hum 110 lecture hall.

Obscured by the campus cacophony, though, is a worthwhile—and necessary—discussion about whether anyone should read the ancient Greeks in the first place, and if so why and how. That discussion has been underway at Reed for decades, and with any luck it will continue for decades to come. As someone who took Hum 110 more than twenty years ago, the news from campus has made me reflect on what I learned in the course. The answers, both equally true, are that I didn’t learn very much. And that I learned everything.

Continue reading →

Redux: A Wolf Dies

By: | November 6, 2017

Recently, a bounty was announced for the poacher of wolf designated as OR-33 that was shot in Klamath County, Oregon. Rob Klavins, a staffer at the non-profit Oregon Wild, wrote a eulogy for the animal, in which he lamented that “[O]f all the wolves I’ve been privileged to have some deeper understanding of, not a single one has yet died a natural death.” This week, I have a long feature out about the life and death of another wolf, OR-4–though he was ultimately killed by the state.

Here’s an essay I wrote about another poached Oregon wolf, OR-28. It was originally published on October 25, 2016.

A black wolf, photographed midstride, with a prominent GPS collar
OR 28. Photo courtesy of ODFW.

Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | November 4, 2017

Did you miss anything from last week’s LWON joint? Have a look at the offerings.

Craig gave us sand—in our hair, in our teeth, in the minds and hearts of children. He waxes poetic about his family’s tackling of Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Eric, in a Redux, opens a window to a very personal side of illegal immigration—and shows us the door to a more neighborly way of being.

Guest poster Sarah Webb started a science café in Chattanooga that quickly became a refuge of reason in unreasonable times.

Michelle describes an extraordinary ornithological find, one of just two bird species known only to Cambodia, right at the edge of the capital city.

And I (Jennifer) discovered a biologic explanation for my own winter brain mush in an unlikely place: the head of the common shrew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s Shrinkage

By: | November 3, 2017

I love it when research into other animals is totally applicable to humans. A recent report on the common shrew (Sorex araneus), by Max Planck Institute researcher Javier Lazaro et al., reveals that the animal’s head shrinks drastically in winter. That includes its brain mass. Running this discovery up the food chain, I think I finally have an explanation for why I become a pile of useless mush starting around November 19 and lasting until the daffodils bloom.

But first, the shrew: Native to Eastern Europe, Great Britain, and Scandinavia, S. araneus is a furry little bugger that might have been adorable had the Monty Burns nose, beady eyes, and rat tail evolved into more hamster-like parts. (It also has front teeth that appear to be dipped in blood.) It does get cuteness points for the velvety fur, though. And really, this animal’s head reduction in cold weather is mighty impressive. When winter comes and food is scarce, according to studies performed in Germany, the skull can shrink some 15 percent while the brain might lose 30 percent of its mass.

Meanwhile, the animal gets smaller in other ways, too, by way of a shortened spine and shrunken heart, lungs, and spleen.The dropping temps appear to spark this breakdown and absorption of the cast-off bone and tissue. A shrew’s whip-fast metabolism suggests the all-over shrinkage has adaptive value, reducing the food needed to support the animal and all its parts during lean times.

In Spring the reduced parts bulk up again, although not necessarily to full size. Life is short for shrews, though, usually not more than a year, so it probably doesn’t matter if they stay a little small and a little dumb. (For the record, the authors of this study haven’t actually reported on the cognitive ability of the shrunken-head shrews compared with big-headed shrews. Maybe they’re all equally dumb. The shrews, not the scientists.)

But back to me. While my metabolism is no longer speeding along even when the world outside is warm and fruitful, in winter I’d say it comes to a full stop. My natural behavior is to crawl under a blanket and, as my husband describes it, “get small.” I eat mostly cheese. I have little to offer in conversations about politics, history, science, or stain removal. If my work gets done, it’s barely suitable for public eyes. I take in little oxygen and provide little love unless you are a dog willing to be a pillow. So, the diminished-organ phenomenon might apply. Mostly, I rock and moan in the semi-dark until the days get long again.

I’ll bet if those researchers measured they’d discover a 30 percent loss of my brain mass by Christmas. That would explain my lack of activity and woeful contribution to humankind, not to mention the balled-up holiday lights in the corner and the stream of filthy comedic specials droning in the background, all day every day. Or maybe it’s the mulled wine making those choices. One or the other.

Back to shrews again: A few other shrew species appear to have similar physical reductions, and the scientists say that the phenomenon may be more common that we know, especially in animals with high metabolisms that don’t hibernate or migrate—when such resource savings makes the most sense. It’s pretty neat to consider the diverse ways animals adapt to changing environments to help ensure survival to the next breeding season. Me, I’m not sure how adaptive it is, but if you need me I’ll be here with own shriveled brain, hiding under this dog blanket gnawing on a hunk of cheddar. Please don’t ask me any questions.

X-ray image of common shrew by JAVIER LÁZARO [permission requested; apology at the ready]

Shrew: By Sjonge at English Wikipedia – Own work, originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3023495

Redux: Science Meets Bird, Bird Meets Science

By: | November 2, 2017

This week, news of the rediscovery of the Jackson’s climbing salamander in Guatemala has me thinking about all the species that lie just out of sight. Here’s one I first wrote about in 2013.

Late last year, during a reporting trip in Cambodia, I shared a car for a couple of days with Simon Mahood, a British ornithologist who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Phnom Penh. Mahood, a devoted birdwatcher since childhood, was full of stories about the rare birds and remote places of Southeast Asia. But there was one story he kept to himself.

On the floodplains around Phnom Penh, within sight of the new skyscrapers in the city center, Mahood and his colleagues had seen a bird they couldn’t identify. They knew it was a tailorbird, a wrenlike bird that stitches a cradle for its nests out of leaves and spider silk. But this bird didn’t look or sound quite like the tailorbirds they were familiar with. Maybe it was just an odd individual, they thought. Over several weeks and several early-morning trips, they saw another of the unusual birds, and then another.

Continue reading →

Guest Post: Reaffirming Reason in Chattanooga

By: | November 1, 2017

Almost exactly a year ago, as I drove across one of the bridges that span the Tennessee River near my home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a bumper sticker “Proud of everything a liberal hates” flashed before me on the back of a white pickup truck. My stomach clenched. Even now, every time I think about that moment, the bile rises.

In Chattanooga, a purple island in a deep red state, I’m hardly surprised when my politics don’t align with those of my neighbors. But as a science writer during a time when both the scientific method and free speech are constantly, mercilessly, under attack, slogans like those on the back of the pickup truck aren’t just political but personal, and they can make me feel wildly alone.

But I’ve found a refuge from that loneliness: I started a science café. We met for the first time last November, the night after the presidential election. Continue reading →