| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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Life on the Edge Old Haunts, New Mysteries
The last time the Academy relocated it was under duress. An earthquake had just demolished the building’s central staircase and, after a few valuable specimens were hurried outside on to San Francisco’s Market Street, a fire swept through the city and consumed all that was left. Just about the time you start reading this edition of California Wild, the Academy will be again on the move, moving back, in fact, to a building just two blocks away from the one we left 98 years ago. Once again, the overarching fact that we live in earthquake country has much to do with it. Despite its solid, monolithic exterior, the building in Golden Gate Park has not kept up with the changing standards of earthquake safety. But this time we expect our exodus to be more organized. Still, the move won’t be easy. Six thousand fish must temporarily slip their confines at the Steinhart Aquarium and negotiate the choppy streets of San Francisco. And, give or take a few thousand unmounted insects, 18 million unique things must be carefully packed, protected, and shipped across town to their new home on Howard Street. On the move will be ancient fossils, stuffed birds, pressed leaves and seeds, long-collected fish still immersed in liquid but no longer swimming, turtle carapaces collected in another era with other mores, crocodile skins that will never be boots, rare rocks, and priceless gems. But in their way, they are all priceless. This magazine, as is the timeless prerogative of the press, will play the observer’s role and, in subsequent editions, report on the details. In this eclectic issue, we feature a mélange of mysteries. Legend tells of a bottomless shaft within Mount Konocti, on the shores of California’s Clear Lake. Juliane Poirier Locke in “The Forgotten Lake” also writes about the lake’s fish which, despite a shoreline leaking mercury, inexplicably turn out to contain less mercury than fish in San Francisco Bay. After decades of neglect and bad press and overshadowed by glamorous Napa County next door, this region is ready to rise. In “Dances With Cranes,” Dave Brian Butvill tells us about George Archibald, who developed a cross-species relationship with a whooping crane and inspired the movement to save the species from extinction. Archibald’s spirited dance steps somehow convinced an erstwhile barren female crane to breed. Not all female birds are so reluctant to mate, especially if there is something tangible in it for them. Maggie McKee describes, in “Material Girls,” how the females of some species of penguins, hummingbirds, and, in the insect world, decorated crickets will offer sexual favors in exchange for a reward of substance. Instead of diamonds, the ladies covet stones useful for building nests for their young, or food including, for some insects, the bodies of the mating males. The latest astronomical mystery is the discovery that the expansion of the universe is not just due to unseen matter, but, more significantly, dark energy. Oliver Baker describes this sinister force in “The Power of Darkness.” There’s one mystery, however, that may soon be solved. According to Jerold Lowenstein in his Counterpoints in Science column, “Lying Eyes,” we, or at least the unblinking eye of a machine, can learn to discern whether or not someone is telling the truth from his or her expressions, expressions that all humans are prone to make in similar circumstances. In fact, Charles Darwin suspected there was a universality in the human countenance and described his ideas in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published 130 years ago. His thoughts on this topic were given little credence for much of the twentieth century, but now it appears that he might well have been right after all. Keith K. Howell is Editor of California Wild. |