Monogamous Dummies

Recent research with fruit flies has demonstrated that polygamous male flies are smarter than monogamous male flies. Scientists aren't sure why yet, but the fascinating question was raised in the article of whether it might also be true of people. (They noted that some fruit fly genetic study results have been found to apply to humans too.) Now, that caught my attention! Being a monogamous dude and valuing being decently intelligent, it made me wonder about my lifestyle. Are men who stay in a faithful relationship less intelligent than their counterparts who play around? The researchers themselves posed this disturbing question (disturbing at least for us guys!).

Biologists studying evolution like to work with flies—especially fruit flies—because they have such short life spans. Within a year or so a scientist can observe several generations and study genetic changes that would require a few hundred years to be observed in humans. Many fascinating discoveries have been made by studying fly genetics. Although some of those results have been applicable to humans, how about this one?

The researchers selectively bred two groups of flies over several generations to become of one or another inclination: one monogamous, the other polygamous. (I wonder how they did that.) After many generations, while comparing the learning skills, it was found that the polygamous male flies were demonstrably smarter—both in finding a mate and in avoiding unpleasant situations. The researchers surmised that a sharper mind locates and mates with a female faster, because it takes a little discernment to locate a receptive female among those who have already conceived and are no longer interested. The monogamous flies—already mated—apparently didn't need those extra smarts.

The study also found another fascinating difference: polygamous male flies did not live as long as their monogamous brethren. Again, the researchers are not sure why, but it has been observed in various species (including humans) that there is an evolutionary cost for being smart: often a shorter life. A more intelligent (and/or larger) brain demands more energy—which can shorten one's life span. It seems that dumb critters can actually live longer.

Further research is certainly called for on this crucial topic—to see if it has any pertinence for humans. It could become a painful choice for a guy to choose to be faithful to one gal and enjoy a longer life (but be stupider) or get smart, play the women, but die sooner. On the other hand, maybe there's no choice to be made... maybe some of us are simply slaves to our genes that force us to become monogamous or polygamous guys. Maybe genetics controls both our sexual drive and our longevity. Is there no free will in this area?

Moon & Venus

December 2012

Lunar Gratitude

I love to gaze upon the nighttime sky when soaking in my outdoor tub—especially on those clear, cold winter nights, when the stars shine brightly and steadily from the black background. Of course, whenever the Moon is in a phase that places it above me on a given night, my attention is drawn from the stars to its far brighter countenance. That happened the other night, as I contemplated it for a couple of contented hours.

There are many moons in our solar system (something over 60, at the latest tally); they have many fascinating stories and are gorgeous in NASA photos. But the Moon is our moon. It's close, it's big, it's constantly changing phase, and it's simply beautiful. I found myself feeling gratitude for our Moon that night—mostly for its loveliness shining down on me—but in the process, several of its other wonderful features came to mind. Let me recount four of them.

I will begin by an appreciation for its beauty. It is thrilling to watch at all times of the year and under all conditions: as it sets, rises, is full, is a luminous sliver, when peeking from behind skittering clouds, when I happen to spot its subtle face in daylight, or when I gaze into its patterns of craters and mares, and imagine many images beyond simply the “Man in the Moon.”

I am also grateful for the Moon's stabilizing influence on Earth's movements. Without our Moon's gravitational sway, the earth would wobble a great deal, as it orbits the Sun. That wobble would prevent Earth from having uniform seasonal changes, which would make our planet a far less habitable orb; in fact, life may never have gotten off the ground here. Our one and only natural satellite does a great deal to help keep our climate unwavering.

Third, the Moon creates a lovely lunar calendar by which we can keep in tune with nature's cycles. Every 29 days or so it completes a cycle, from full to new and back to full again. Every night you can see it in a slightly different part of the sky, in a slightly different phase—slowly circling us every month. The Moon's recurrent period doesn't zip by as fast as the Sun's daily cycle, nor as slow as the year's passing. It's a nice intermediate pace. Its varying phases through the month help me keep track of time. In fact, the Latin root of the word Moon is mensis, which also leads to menstruum, meaning “menses.” Many women's menstrual cycle is in sync with the Moon. In turn, those Latin words derive from another Latin word, metiri, which means “to measure.” Aha! We're back to the Moon as a time keeper!

Finally, the moon's size and distance from us makes its apparent size almost exactly the same as the Sun, and from time to time they play peekaboo and we get the spectacular result of either a lunar or a solar eclipse. It's one of the most thrilling celestial events we get to witness. Even people who rush about their urban business, rarely looking up at the sky, will pause to enjoy an eclipse.

I know that if I could live on some other planet of our solar system, I could watch some pretty spectacular lunar events there, but this planet is my home and I feel blessed to have been gifted with the lunar orb we've got. You go, Moon!

Crescent Earth

We've all seen the crescent Moon. Here's a photo taken by the European Space Agency's spacecraft Rosetta, on its way to investigate a comet. It looked back at our home and took this picture.

Little Time

A thought came to me recently—literally as a statement that popped into my head: “Because I have a little time, I have little time.” Now, I realize that sentence can be considered to be baffling, trite, or even obvious; or it may just be paradoxical. Trying to parse it out a little bit, I played with it for a while, to see if it really meant anything to me, or to reject it as just another vapid thought.

As I rolled it around the skull, an interesting interpretation of this enigmatic phrase came to mind. I have been blessed for about three decades now to live in a situation that has allowed me to take the time to put attention to most things that I encounter in my daily life. Long ago I left the fast lane—a big city career—for a slower pace out here in the woods. The move gave me the luxury of being able to devote time to things that come along, things which appear to be meaningful to me, or just interesting. Thus I have been given a little time (the most precious gift we have) to devote to things I encounter in life. I do not have to rush on by—unable to pause and pay attention to them.

The benefits that this has brought into my life are sundry. I have been able to open up to many more fascinating experiences than I otherwise could have. I've been able to explore, to delve into things that would have, in other circumstances, passed me by, unnoticed. Countless times I have found myself at some task, for example, such as sawing wood for next winter, when I notice an unusual activity unfolding nearby. Maybe a bird just did something puzzling. Knowing that I can cut this wood tomorrow as timely as today, I can lay the saw down and allot some time to watching the bird. I can observe and learn. I can even go inside on the spot and do a little research in one of my bird books or troll the internet.

What I often find happening is that I'm quickly consumed with several simultaneous research topics: I've come upon yet another book to read: an idea has popped up about how better to modify the bird feeder; an internet article has led me on a multi-faceted exploration of the nature of my gut biome; a neighbor calls with a question about something he saw in last night's sky, and it sends me off seeking an answer; I go outdoors to check the oil in the car and end up getting sidetracked with four other homestead duties or attractions. And on it goes.

The result? My life becomes so full of immediate and fascinating activities that I no longer have time for social chatter, popular entertainment, forwarding cute emails, or arguing politics. I even try to elude most phone calls.

So I find myself in the odd situation where I have little time for these passing social activities, mostly because I have the leisure time to expend on those things I've come to value far more: the natural world surrounding me and the countless contingencies that I constantly encounter.

Handy Man—Part 2

The development of tools and weapons is an example of the incredibly fast pace of human cultural evolution—it's been an exponential rate of growth, where today's technology will be outdated by next week's advances. The problem that stems from this fast cultural evolution is the fact that our biological evolution has been far, far slower. Biologically we are barely different from our Homo habilis forebears, yet hold in our hands weapons of wholesale destruction. Our ability to kill has far outstripped our ability for self-control.

The closest extant ape species to humans are chimps and bonobos—and are even more closely related to each other. We humans and the chimps are warlike critters who attack and kill our own kind (as well as other species) with intent. We kill each other, not for food, but out of fear and enmity. We both can be violent creatures, who consciously plan and execute war. Chimps will form raiding parties that invade neighboring groups' territories. Woe be unto any solitary male chimp they sneak up on: they will mercilessly slaughter and dismember the loner; leaving the body, to move on, hoping to abscond with females.

The bonobos are not anywhere near as violent as chimps and humans. They promote peace through sexual acts and by the policing of bands of matriarchs. It seems as if humans and chimps have a few things to learn from our more placid cousins the bonobos.

Some people are likely to counter, “But wait... there are many examples of violence in nature, aren't there?” Hasn't Tennyson accurately labeled nature's creatures as “red in tooth and claw”? Doesn't much of our literature and scriptures describe the beasts of the forest as cruel brutes who wantonly kill each other? Aren't their menacing weapons—big teeth, antlers, claws—used by them to wreak havoc and death?

Well, yes, they do a lot of killing, but it is overwhelmingly for food—not warfare. Even animals who have imposing weapons rarely use them to kill. Consider the elk, which is outfitted with formidable antlers. To begin with, they are herbivores, so they do not kill their food with their head-mounted weapons. Their antlers are used to joust with each other for the right to mate with females. When they square off, however, each spends a good deal of time slowly walking around his opponent—sizing him up. That may be enough right there to decide the winner, as the smaller one will think again and leave the area. If not, they will face each other with lowered head and seek to intimidate each other. At worst, they will butt heads a bit, until one backs off and retreats. Joust over. With those intimidating antlers they could do much damage—goring each other to death—but they don't.

It is rare in nature to see one animal kill another of its species—accept in extreme reproductive competition. They seem to have some check on their violent feelings, that almost always stop them from actually fighting... a form of check that seems to be lacking in chimps and humans.

Scientists don't yet understand the source of aggression that we warlike humans possess—but by observing the same behavior in chimps, it suggests that our warlike propensity is probably genetically inherited. Our DNA—being 98% identical to theirs—suggests we have some similar genes that lead to these tendencies to be aggressive and violent. It is extraordinary that bonobos—even more closely related to chimps than we are—are not warlike at all. It must be due to some genetic difference they have. Perhaps further study will someday shed light on the issue.

In the meantime, we are in real danger, as our weapons have far outstripped our genetic ability to curb our violence. There are signs that humans are gradually becoming less violent and maybe even are even evolving emotionally—as well as culturally—to become less brutal. Can we get there before our frightening weapons continue to get used?

Good Prediction

A photo of last fall's first wooly bear caterpillar.  He predicted a long winter and, by golly, he was right! (Myth: The width of a wooly bear's brown middle band is an indication of how long and harsh the coming winter will be.) Why do we need the National Weather Service? (Click to enlarge)

Handy Man—Part 1

The first bipedal critter to warrant the moniker handy man was the species Homo habilis (Latin for “handy man”). It prospered in Africa about two million years ago. They were called that because they were the first of our precursors to develop simple stone flake tools. These tools were a significant advance over the implements used by their forebears (mostly some sort of bludgeon), and allowed them to improve their diet, as well as better defend themselves on the savannas of Africa.

Homo habilis had a brain about half the size of ours, but that was a significant increase over the various ape-like species that preceded them. Habilis was the smartest ape of its time. (They lived concurrently with other closely-related species of bipedal apes.) Habilis—the toolmaker handyman—had not yet invented the formidable weapons that follow-on pre-humans would, so they still did not occupy the top predator slot in Africa. They remained occasional meals for fierce animals like lions and tigers. But their improving tools were on the way to making them dominant.

Handy man's succeeding species was Homo erectus, which later led directly to us. Homo erectus (“upright man”) further developed tools and even may have used fire to cook. It lived in groups that were the predecessor to bands of human hunter-gatherers.

This evolving process of our ancestors becoming increasingly skilled tool makers and weapons forgers led directly to Homo sapiens becoming the dominant species on planet Earth. These implements, conceived of by our growing brain and manipulated by our erect posture and very dexterous hands, made us the formidable critters we've become. There's been an increasingly rapid evolution of tools ever since—right up to our current sophisticated machines and robots of today. Our tools have made us top dog.

The first tools of Homo habilis were used to cut up meat, to break bones to get at the nourishing marrow, and thus diversify their diet beyond fruits and insects. When Homo erectus took the next step by manufacturing weapons, it could begin to assume the top predatory spot on the savanna. Spears and arrows enabled them to confront the fiercest animal.

Those early weapons were employed primarily for hunting, but they were also useful to attack or defend themselves from other roving bands of pre-humans—who were looked upon as alien critters that must be confronted and conquered. The tribal circle was very small and when another band was encountered, it was regarded to be as threatening as any other large predator.

Our weapons have continued to evolve and have become truly daunting. While our modern tools may have served us well, it's another story for our modern weapons. We now possess the power to inflict massive harm and kill many thousands of people at one blow... and we do. Our weapons of mass destruction—nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, drones, and similar armaments—can do damage far beyond what our ancestors could ever have imagined.

More on tools and weapons next time...

Waning Moon

Click to enlarge.

Lunar Life

To date, NASA's Kepler mission has discovered over 1000 planets circling other stars. This is humanity's first confirmation that planets do exist “out there,” and are thus very common in our galaxy. Therefore, we are gaining confidence that life may well be found on planets other than Mother Earth, if even only a tiny fraction of those planets may be inhabitable. (Since we now know there are so many of them, the odds of habitability proportionately increase.)

The discovery of these planets has required the ability to detect incredibly faint changes in the light levels of these stars, such as when a planet passes in front of its star (between us and the star) and ever so slightly (ever so slightly) dims the light that reaches us.

Even so, the incredible-but-still-modest sensitivity of our current instruments has permitted us thus far overwhelmingly to detect giant planets. The instrumentation techniques are getting constantly more refined, so smaller planets—more Earth-sized orbs—are being discovered and more will soon be found; but so far it's primarily large, gaseous planets (like Jupiter and Saturn) we've been able to observe. Life, as we know it, however, could not exist on these giant planets, both because they have no solid surface and because their strong gravity would crush any forms of life.

OK. So we've very recently found over a thousand planets, but for most of them, life is very unlikely to be able to exist. Does that possibly diminish the chances of our finding extraterrestrial life, even though we now have demonstrated that these uninhabitable planets are common? Not necessarily, because these giant planets may well have moons circling them (just as Jupiter and Saturn have dozens of moons), and some of those moons are likely to be Earth-sized, and thus possibly able to harbor life.

Imagine what it might be like living on a moon that is the satellite of a giant planet in some distant solar system. Our Moon offers Earth only one face, because Earth's strong gravity field has forced it to rotate in lock step around us. The Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon saw the Earth suspended above them, in the same place, Moon day after Moon day.

The same thing would happen if we were to stand on a moon orbiting a giant planet orbiting a star somewhere. One face of this moon would permanently point toward the planet. The planet would be this huge orb filling much of our sky—never changing its position. It would be frozen in our sky. When our star is behind us, it fully lights up the face of the planet (we might call it a “full planet”) and it would bask us in its reflected light. If the planet was purple, we'd be bathed in a purple haze.

When positions change and our star is now behind the giant planet above us, we'd be watching its dark side. In fact, it would appear as this huge black disc in our sky (blocking out the star's light), surrounded by a starry background.

This is just one of many bizarre scenarios that could be found on moons around giant planets elsewhere. Some day humans may arrive at some of these worlds and be able to watch some fascinating celestial sights—quite alien to anything we're used to... whether or not life has greeted us there.

This is My Feeder

As this photo shows, a tufted titmouse is well below the pecking order of the American goldfinch, at the window feeder.Click to enlarge.