Natural Acts:sidelong View of Science.. Book

Let me see here. What did I learn?

--- I learned that of all the known species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and crustaceans, plasmic tentacle-waving sea creatures, every brand of zooplankton, every . . . hell, every one of the 1.25 million known species of animal, one in four of them is a beetle.

--- I learned that mosquitoes are good for nothing, except maybe slowing the destruction of tropical rain forests.

--- I learned about parthenogenesis. Sure the wingless aphid sucks a lot of poplar sap, but that's not sex; not really.

---I learned about semelparity. Species as diverse as bamboos, agaves and salmon have sex, then die.

--- And I learned about hypothermia. Did you know there were more than enough lifejackets on the Titantic for the 1,489 people who didn't make it onto lifeboats? In just an hour and 50 minutes most of them were found dead and bobbing. You can die in about six hours treading water at 59 degrees F, which is warmer than practically all of the coastal and inland waters of North America.

--- I learned that Carl Linnaeus' mum and dad would put a flower in his hand when, as a toddler, he got cranky. It calmed him.

--- I learned that dinosaurs are "a Horatio Alger story, not a murder mystery."

--- I re-learned the story of Michael J. Fay and his Megatransect across Africa. Love that story.

--- I learned that a kitten cloned from a calico cat can nevertheless be a tiger-tabby shorthair. Cloning isn't resurrection. . . It isn't even, quite, duplication.

--- I learned that "Chances are good that wherever you live, during the last year sometime you have sat down within ten feet of a black widow" spider.

--- I learned, mainly, that there's lots of stuff to be learned, as I sit here waiting for the next mass extinction.