Walking through nature with John Palka, a neuroscientist who loves plants and ponders big questions
Modern techniques allow the determination of evolutionary relationships among organisms, so that the groupings used by systematists—the biologists whose focus is the determination of relationships and the naming of organisms accordingly—reflect not only their similarity today but also their evolutionary history.
From spring to fall, if you’re lucky, you can revel in the sight of butterflies. They can be found in gardens, in the woods, in meadows—anywhere where there is sunshine and where they can forage for the nectar produced by flowers. Let’s look at the stunning patterns on their wings and ask how these patterns arise.
Darwin taught us that “There is a grandeur in this view of life . . . [that] from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Let’s explore this grand vision.
Take a walk in the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest and you will probably come across trees literally growing on trees. . . It’s a dramatic sight, sometimes with almost mythic overtones. But what is going on, really, and why?
People across the ages have asked, what is life? How is it different from non-life? How are the two related? We have asked this question too, and now return to it in another framework.
Toward the end of summer, people with gardens start to notice spiders hanging in magnificent orb webs. . . Now many of the females are big and getting ready to lay their eggs.