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NOVEMBER 2019
VOL. 40, NO. 8
FEATURES
26
The Fix Is In
Could a marriage between
corn and bacteria solve the
world’s fertilizer problem?
BY TRACY STAEDTER
34
Go Big
A quartet of giant telescopes
will kick off a new era of
discovery.
BY RICHARD TALCOT T
40
10 Experiments
That Changed
Everything
Short on tech, long on
ideas, early thinkers
redefined our world.
BY ADAM HADHAZY
48
Addicted, More
or Less
Your genes influence how
easily you get hooked.
BY BILL SULLIVAN
SARAH HANSON
6 EDITOR’S NOTE
Test, and Test Again
Experimentation — and sometimes failure
— is the key to making the abstract real.
7 INBOX
Readers weigh in on off-planet exploration
and what an ancient bird did for kicks.
9 THE CRUX
Storing data in DNA inches
closer to reality; the historic
p. 18
roots of a word that describes
a cool phenomenon; getting
grounded about water usage;
the human cost of climate
change; and more.
TOP: COLLAGE BY ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER; SHUTTERSTOCK ELEMENTS: THIAGO ANTUNES 027, LIYA GRAPHICS. BOTTOM: RON MILLER
18 VITAL SIGNS
Domino Effect
A healthy, middle-age woman crumples in
her kitchen. It’s just the start of a potentially
deadly mystery.
BY H. LEE K AGAN
#Wildlife
Harnessing social media’s powers for good, 68 PROGNOSIS
ON THE COVER
amateur photographers provide a treasure
trove of footage for researchers.
The Manhattan Project Addiction: How DNA
BY NANCY AVERET T
for Depression Determines Risk p.48
Scientists launch a bold initiative to get to 10 Experiments That Changed
the roots of a massive mental health issue. Everything p.40
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Discover
SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS
EDITOR’S NOTE
O
ANNA GROVES Assistant Editor
I’ll never forget sitting in physics MCLEAN BENNETT Copy Editor
« class, riveted by the next challenge JENNIFER WALTER Editorial Assistant
Contributing Editors
from Mr. Price. He reveled in getting us TIM FOLGER, JONATHON KEATS,
to visualize in our minds what’s happen- LINDA MARSA, KENNETH MILLER,
STEVE NADIS, COREY S. POWELL,
ing when a pendulum swings or a loaded JULIE REHMEYER, STEVE VOLK,
PAMELA WEINTRAUB,
spring bounces back. He pushed us to DARLENE CAVALIER (special projects)
understand the underlying equations,
ART
and then, with his infectious enthusiasm, ALISON MACKEY Associate Art Director
launched us on experimentation. As DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
someone who struggled in math classes, ERIC BETZ Digital Editor
I loved the simultaneous abstraction and NATHANIEL SCHARPING Assistant Editor
MEGAN SCHMIDT Digital Content Coordinator
groundedness of physics. Bloggers
One story in this issue, for me, is kind ERIK KLEMETTI, NEUROSKEPTIC,
COREY S. POWELL, SCISTARTER,
of like being back in that physics class. AMY SHIRA TEITEL, TOM YULSMAN
Frequent Discover contributor Adam Contributors
Hadhazy takes us on a romp through 10 BRIDGET ALEX, RONI DENGLER, KOREY HAYNES
experiments, from the third century B.C. ADVERTISING
to the mid-1900s, that changed the very STEVE MENI Advertising Sales Manager
888 558 1544
nature of how we understand the world smeni@discovermagazine.com
of previous eras designed experiments with tools we’d consider pretty KALMBACH MEDIA
DAN HICKEY Chief Executive Officer
rudimentary to answer these and other questions. Their results affect CHRISTINE METCALF Senior Vice President, Finance
the bedrock of many scientific disciplines. NICOLE MCGUIRE Senior Vice President,
Consumer Marketing
The other feature stories in this issue are touched by these early experi- STEPHEN C. GEORGE Vice President, Content
ments, from the genes that affect addiction to the coordinated optics of BRIAN J. SCHMIDT Vice President, Operations
SARAH A. HORNER Vice President, Human Resources
ground-based telescopes. And surely genetics pioneer Gregor Mendel DAVID T. SHERMAN Senior Director,
would have been fascinated with researchers’ quest to establish a corn Advertising Sales and Events
SCOTT REDMOND Advertising Sales Director
crop that could create its own fertilizer. LIZ RUNYON Circulation Director
So as this next academic year kicks into gear, take a minute to think MICHAEL SOLIDAY Director of Design & Production
CATHY DANIELS New Business Manager
back to those high school experiments, and how the abstract suddenly KATHY STEELE Retention Manager
became real. KIM REDMOND Single Copy Specialist
SCIENCE GROUP
BECKY LANG Executive Editor
DAN BISHOP Design Director
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6 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
INBOX
WEB FEEDBACK
Francesk Nikolli:
Back to the Moon Everyone is saying that the
Vice President Mike Pence announced money can be spent better on
March 2019 that the Trump administration health departments or other things
wants to put humans back on the moon on Earth, and they’re right. But this kind
within five years. The mission would of research is also for a better world: By
focus on the moon’s South Pole, which understanding how our solar system works,
remains relatively unexplored. But with we can have better knowledge on how to
NASA’s financial setbacks and the make our planet Earth a better place to
current political climate, it might be more live, and I’m not saying for the next 10,
wishful thinking than anything. We asked 20 or 30 years, but for the
our fans on Facebook: Do you want to next 1,000 years and longer!
see the U.S. return to the lunar surface?
Mathieu
Steve Roca: Lalonde:
Mellanie Not under this The real question is
Nelson Robles: administration, which has set WHY? I’d love to see
Stephen
I want investments in huge goals for the agency, and humans going back to the
Richard McAdam:
schools and crumbling then cut its budget. The ultimate moon, but there has to be
Absolutely. Very
infrastructure, I want a goal (that we’re already seeing and a scientific reason, not
exciting and the benefits
hearing about) is increased “private
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THE CRUX THE L ATE ST SCIENCE NE WS AND NOTE S
SMART SLIME
No, it’s not a Rorschach inkblot: This image captures two single-celled organisms having a chat. Individual members of
Physarum polycephalum, which in nature clump together by the thousands to form a slime mold, can share information about
their environment via veinlike networks. While researchers have long known that the collective slime molds can learn to avoid
irritants, such as salt, they didn’t know how. But a recent study showed that a single P. polycephalum will actually absorb some
of a potentially problematic substance and hang onto it like a souvenir — and use its venous networks to warn other cells to steer
clear. — JENNIFER WALTER; IMAGE BY DAVID VILLA/CNRS PHOTOTHÈQUE
10 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
BIG IDEA
Nature’s
Jump Drive
A new machine may be the tipping point for making DNA-based
prepare it to be read by the software.
With that system, they managed to store
and retrieve the word hello. The whole
process took 21 hours, but, critically, it
was totally autonomous. “For DNA stor-
data storage mainstream. age to be practical, we need to remove
the human from the loop,” says Strauss.
IN THE LATE 1990S, geneticists began not quite the woolly mammoth. DNA Her robot is the first proof-of-concept
studying extinct species’ DNA, analyz- is a twisted ladder with rungs made of for a whole new species of computing.
ing hair and bone preserved in frozen four different substrates that connect Still, some scientists question whether
tundra. At that time, most computers in pairs to hold the ladder together. The DNA is the best molecule for the job.
stored data on floppy disks that held just order of these substrates, “The structure of natu-
1.44 megabytes of memory — smaller known as bases, provides ral DNA came from …
than the average selfie. Today, those disks assembly instructions The idea of four billion years of
might as well be Ice Age artifacts, too. Not for the organism. In the Darwinian evolution,”
only is their storage capacity miniscule late 1960s, scientists storing data in observes Steven Benner,
by today’s standards, but recovering their realized that DNA could DNA predates a distinguished fel-
data is practically impossible, due to the carry other information low at the Foundation
degradation of their materials and the if researchers could
Microsoft and for Applied Molecular
special equipment required to read them. dictate the bases’ order floppy disks. In Evolution. In that time,
The floppy disk encapsulates some of and machines could the late 1960s, DNA has developed a lot
the greatest long-term challenges to com- read that order. Thanks of evolutionary baggage
puter science. According to Microsoft to advances in genome scientists that can get in the way
principal researcher Karin Strauss, future sequencing and genetic realized that of smooth operation in
storage will need exponentially greater engineering, these computers, like physical
density to hold the data we produce as processes have finally
DNA could differences in how base
electronic devices become a greater part become efficient in the carry other pairs behave. To address
of our lives. Plus, long-term archiving will past couple of decades. information if this, Benner has recently
depend on preserving data in a format Computers have also developed four artificial
that will remain readable, on materials evolved to become more researchers bases that work similarly
that won’t degrade. powerful. Still, nobody could dictate to DNA’s bases, but don’t
The answer to those challenges may knew how to efficiently have those inherited
lie in you, me and those same prehis- retrieve precise bits of
the bases’ order differences.
toric beasts geneticists studied years information from DNA. and machines Strauss readily
ago. “DNA can last for a long time,” says That task is “not trivial,” could read acknowledges the bag-
Strauss, who is also a professor at the says UW computer gage, and the long-term
University of Washington. Plus, it can scientist Luis Ceze, that order. potential of Benner’s
also store lots of information in very who directs Microsoft’s bases. But she points
little space: All the genetic instructions research initiative with out that those billions of
for a mammoth lie in a single molecule. Strauss. years of evolution have provided a good
By Strauss’ calculation, a whole data This year, in a joint effort by Microsoft starting point. Equally important, she
center would be no larger than a couple and UW, Strauss, Ceze and their col- notes, there’s a vast biotech industry
cubes of sugar. And since it’s the code leagues demonstrated how DNA could developing the machinery that can help
AUGUSTO ZAMBONATO
used by all life on Earth, “we’ll always be support future data centers. The team bring DNA storage from the lab to the
able to read it,” she says. combined software that encodes and data center. “I think DNA is the best
The idea of storing data in DNA decodes data into DNA with machines first molecule for molecular information
predates Microsoft and floppy disks, if that produce genetic material and technology,” she says. — JONATHON KEATS
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THE CRUX
Penitentes
If you speak Spanish, this word’s religious meaning is
clear: penitent, or repentant. In scientific circles, though,
penitentes are jagged snow formations, named after
their resemblance to the white, pointed hoods once
worn by some Catholics in Spain.
Researchers believe they form in snowy areas where
it’s sunny but still cold, like mountain peaks in the
summer. Because of the dry, cold air, any snow that
warms too much doesn’t melt; it vaporizes. While other
factors may also play a role, it’s this vaporizing that
whittles the remaining white stuff into the characteristic
points of penitentes.
Earth might not even be the only place you could
spot them. Astronomers suspect that both Pluto and
Jupiter’s moon Europa have their own versions of the
peaks. — LACY SCHLEY; ILLUSTRATION BY CHAD EDWARDS
14 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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blades really cost $32?
We don’t think so.
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Domino Effect
with gastric bypasses. Had bowel con-
tents leaked into her abdomen, leading
to shock and now cardiac arrest?
A woman is on a roller coaster of cardiac arrest. Our surgical consultant wasn’t so
sure, pronouncing her abdominal exam
What’s wreaking havoc on her heart? “unremarkable.”
“But the air pocket in the CT scan…”
O
Gloria was 46 years old and healthy when she suddenly we noted.
« crumpled to the floor of her kitchen like an empty “The exam was normal,” he assured us.
COLLAGE: ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER. SHUTTERSTOCK ELEMENTS: THIAGO ANTUNES 027, LIYA GRAPHICS
potato sack. The paramedics found her in full cardiac arrest. It was a diagnostic dilemma. Which to
Resuscitated at the scene, she went into cardiac arrest again One thing trust — the scan or the exam? Did she
in the ER and once more in the ICU, where I caught up with or did she not need an urgent, surgical
her. A cardiologist, pulmonologist and general surgeon were I’d learned exploration of her abdomen?
already there. as a medical
Anoxic brain injury — oxygen starvation while the heart student U P F O R D E B AT E
stops functioning — had left her unresponsive. A breathing tube “Code Blue, ICU.” Again, she’d arrested.
had been inserted through her mouth into her airway. Her heart
and have Electric shock was delivered via pads on
rhythm had been restored. Her blood pressure and breathing hammered her chest and her heart rhythm returned.
were being supported. She was stable, for now. into the But a bedside EKG showing Gloria’s heart
Initial lab results were all over the map. Liver function rhythm revealed new, dramatic changes
abnormalities, disordered electrolytes, elevated white blood
heads of my suggesting a heart attack. The artery
count — all could be explained by temporary complete lack of students feeding the lowermost part of her heart
blood flow. But I couldn’t pinpoint the underlying cause of this ever since: appeared to be blocked.
disaster. What had triggered the arrests? What had been the first The answer “She needs to go to the cath lab now,”
domino to tip for this woman? said the cardiologist. “We need to open
One thing I’d learned as a medical student and have ham- lies in the that vessel or she’s going to keep arresting.”
mered into the heads of my students ever since: The answer history. “But if there is a leak and we don’t get a
lies in the history. “Listen to the patient; they’ll tell you what’s drain into her belly, she won’t survive,” the
wrong.” But this patient was in no position to tell us anything. surgeon said. Even though the belly exam
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the cardiologist. P
arteries in CAD, narrowing caused by vasospasm is
“We may have no choice,” replied the surgeon. “I can reversible. The accompanying EKG changes are like-
be in and out in 10 minutes.” Q wise temporary, departing when the spasm resolves.
The urgent debate continued: Was there more risk S Studies by Prinzmetal and others confirmed this
in delaying the procedure that would open the blocked Normal EKG phenomenon in people experiencing coronary
artery or in deferring a surgery to drain the bowel vasospasm, later referred to as Prinzmetal’s attacks.
contents (maybe) spilling out of her gut? There was no These unprovoked, spontaneous spasms comprise
obvious right answer. The only thing obvious was that about 2 percent of all cases of angina. Its true cause
we had to decide on something right now. is unknown because it so often goes unrecognized.
The cardiologist prevailed, and in the cardiac cath- Smoking and stimulant use are among the known risk
eterization lab, he threaded a thin, hollow tube from an factors. Drugs have been identified that can reverse
artery in Gloria’s groin up to her heart. As he worked, the spasm; others, when used in a diagnostic test, can
I reviewed her EKG again. One section was stretched, provoke it. I’d have to keep it in mind.
“Tombstone T”
indicating dying heart tissue and potentially an acute Gloria’s night was uneventful and in the morning
heart attack. In an EKG, each I learned that she’d begun breathing on her own.
squiggle of the
“Normal coronaries,” I heard the cardiologist report. cardiac cycle is
Coupled with some limb movement, we hoped this
He had squirted radiographic dye into the arteries sup- assigned a letter. heralded an early neurologic recovery.
plying both sides of Gloria’s heart. The vessels’ internal When the cycle is I shared my ideas about vasospasm with the car-
stretched between
contours showed everything was normal. “There is no the S and T, the diologist, who agreed that a test could confirm the
heart attack. The vessels are all open. Let’s get her to the EKG resembles a diagnosis. But events soon rendered that plan moot.
tombstone — and it’s
operating room.” a classic indicator Around noon, Gloria’s low blood pressure alarm
The members of the surgical team were waiting for of an acute heart sounded. The nurse noted that her heart rate had
attack, based on the
Gloria in the OR. With an anesthesiologist monitoring presence of dying slowed to a crawl. And the stretched EKG cycle, which
her fragile vital signs, the surgeon inserted a flexible heart tissue. had disappeared after the previous day’s not-a-heart-
scope through a half-inch opening into her abdomen. attack attack, was back as well. It was happening again
He planned to put in a drain and get out quickly. — the coronary vasospasm. But this time Gloria wasn’t
The surgeon carefully searched every corner of her in her kitchen, she was in the ICU.
abdomen, packed with organs, bowel, blood vessels She received medicine that reverses the extreme
and support structures. Then he looked up from the slowing of the pulse. Coupled with an infusion of
monitor, which displayed what the scope saw: “There’s nitroglycerine, a potent dilator of blood vessels, the
nothing here. It’s all normal.” Gloria was taken back T-waves reverted back to normal. The deadly vaso-
to the ICU. Around spasm was aborted.
Driving home that night, I kept speculating about One in four Prinzmetal’s angina patients will expe-
what had tipped this woman into repeated cardiac noon, rience a life-threatening heart rhythm disturbance
arrest. The abdominal discomfort and CT scan had Gloria’s — where it’s beating way too fast or way too slow —
both been red herrings. So what could look like a heart low blood during a spasm. The resulting lack of blood flow can
attack but not be one? cause fainting or even sudden cardiac death.
pressure That’s what had taken Gloria down. But from now
A TIGHT SQUEE ZE alarm on, she would take highly effective medications to
I thought about angina and an unusual version of it. sounded. prevent vasospasm.
Most people have heard of classic angina, the pain felt Had the occasional abdominal and shoulder pains
in the chest during exertion when some part of the
The nurse mentioned in the history actually been her Prinzmetal’s
heart is not getting enough blood flow. Arteries are nar- noted that discomfort, the pain of non-classic angina? There was
rowed as a result of coronary artery disease (CAD) — a her heart no way to know with certainty. But at least we now had
buildup of plaque. Complete obstruction of an artery rate had a name — and a treatment — for that first domino. D
ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER
20 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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#Wildlife
film by a backyard has exploded. Now, often through the
camera trap: a skunk
using a rock as a tool. use of social media, those data are being
discovered and used by researchers. “I
Researchers tap a treasure trove of observations think there’s huge potential for this kind of
collaboration between scientists and keen
in social media posts by amateur photographers. amateurs,” says Christian Rutz, a professor
at the Centre for Biological Diversity at the
O
Two holes in the ice caught Sue Dickerson’s attention University of St. Andrews. “We’re starting
« when she checked a black plastic water dish in her yard Her heart to see some of the first examples of people
one morning in February 2018. The temperature had dropped beat a little doing this, but I think there is much more
to 18 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, so it didn’t surprise her faster when to come.”
that the top layer of water in the dish had frozen. But what had Rutz recently co-authored a paper with
made those holes? She studied them for a moment. “Flickers,”
she saw a photographer while compiling a timeline
she thought to herself. The woodpeckers often hung out in her what looked of observations of nuthatches, small song-
Colorado Springs, Colorado, front yard and had likely pecked like a rock in birds, using tools. Rutz had found four
through the ice to get a drink. Dickerson, who had stepped the skunk’s published reports of the behavior in the
outside to grab the photo card from the motion-activated camera academic literature — from 1968, 1993,
SUZANNE DICKERSON
she’d set up near the dish, crouched, hooked her index finger into front left 1995 and 2016 — but none offered pho-
one of the holes and tossed the ice. paw. tographic evidence of the birds at work.
Back inside, she settled in front of her computer monitor and At the last minute, Rutz thought he’d bet-
started clicking through the photos. It had been her routine for ter double-check. “I did a classic Google
22 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
NOTES FROM EARTH
image search, ‘nuthatch tool use,’ just to interference competition — when one spe-
make sure,” he says. Up popped a page from cies chases another away from a resource
gardenbirdwatching.com, a blog created by they both want — between roe deer and
Simon Deans, a retired supermarket execu- chamois, a type of mountain goat in the
tive. On it were several photos of a Eurasian Western Alps. The two species only recently
nuthatch using a piece of wood to try to lift have begun interacting, he says, as climate
up a patch of willow tree bark, presumably change brings the roe deer to higher alti-
looking for something to eat. tudes. When he checked the academic litera-
Deans had spotted the unusual phenom- ture for evidence of these interactions, Mori
enon in June 2013, while strolling through came up empty. So he turned to Facebook
a park near his home in south London. pages created for Italian amateur wildlife
He’d been at the park photographing birds photographers, and found 67 photographic
for several hours and needed to leave to examples. “I told them they were going to
pick up his daughter from school, but it was be part of a research paper and they happily
then that he noticed two nuthatches flitting participated,” he says of the photographers.
around a willow tree. He raised his telephoto Dickerson also connected with a scientist
lens and watched them for a while. Then as after she saw her shots of the skunk with
one of the birds picked up the wood and the rock. She quickly posted several on her
tried to pry up some bark, he started snap- Twitter account along with the comment:
ping. “I was quite lucky that I managed to get “Do skunks use tools? I may be reading far
the photographs,” he says. too much into these photos.” Then she went
He received a handful of congratulations to make a cup of tea. “Normally, if I get 25 or
on his Facebook page but no one who saw 50 likes, that’s pretty good for me,” she says. “I
the pictures recognized their significance went and made my tea, then came back just
— until Rutz, who, despite his own excite- to see if anybody had perhaps retweeted it
ment, was reserved when he first got in … and I saw I had 100 notifications. I started
touch with Deans. “I wanted him to tell me going through them and thought, ‘Oh wow,
in all honesty the details of that observation The work of amateur this is terrific, other people are seeing what
without me prompting certain answers,” he says. photographers I’m seeing.’ ”
has increasingly
He and other scientists say they must be careful helped researchers One of the first to respond to the tweet was Mario
interpreting data collected by laypeople, and they looking for rare Pesendorfer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell
or undocumented
don’t believe data gathered via social media or other animal behaviors. Lab of Ornithology, who studies animal behavior. He
online sources should be seen as an alternative to Above, a nuthatch in a reached out and asked Dickerson if she’d like to be a
city park uses a stick
fieldwork. Nevertheless, they feel it would be foolish to pry up tree bark. co-author on a research paper about the tool-using
for researchers not to tap into such a resource. “We’re skunk. Nine months later, the two, along with a third
undergoing very rapid environmental changes at the author, Jerry Dragoo, an expert on skunk behavior,
moment, from land conversion to climate change. published the finding in the journal Ecosphere.
And the challenge is that, particularly for the kinds of Having her photographs in a scientific journal after
animals we study with camera traps, we have very little 10 years of using camera traps was hugely satisfying to
data. They’re all nocturnal forest animals that hide Dickerson. But the best part about the whole process,
away,” says Marcus Rowcliffe, senior research fellow
As one of she says, was the reaction from her two daughters.
at the Zoological Society of London. He recently co- the birds Though normally their eyes glazed over when their
authored a paper calling for a global, interconnected picked up mother starting talking about her hobby, that wasn’t
network of remote motion-detecting cameras to the case when Dickerson showed them the photos and
monitor biodiversity. The effort would include train-
the wood told them she was probably the first person to have
ing citizen scientists to set up and retrieve photos from and tried to captured skunk tool use on film.
camera traps in the wild. pry up some “No!” her daughters exclaimed. “There’s no way
“Such a network would not be a trivial thing to set bark, he you’re the first person to do that.”
up,” Rowcliffe says, “but could have huge benefits.” Dickerson laughed. “I know you wouldn’t think so,”
One benefit could be a better understanding started she replied, “but I really think there’s a chance that
snapping.
SIMON DEANS
24 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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THE
FIX
IS IN
GREATSTOCK/ALAMY
26 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
Could a
marriage
between
corn and
bacteria
solve the
world’s
fertilizer
problem?
BY TRACY STAEDTER
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/
SCIENCE SOURCE
I
n retrospect, a Wisconsin cornfield in mid- by the farmer (See “A Century of Ammonia,” opposite
September 2018 wasn’t exactly the best page). Goldstein said he hadn’t added fertilizer to
place for an academic seminar. It was hot. his greener crops, though. Instead, he had cultivated
There were horseflies. The sun cast a glare varieties that would team up with microbes that pro-
on the white poster boards, and the metal- cess, or “fix,” nitrogen into a form usable by the plants.
lic chunk-chunk-chunking of a nearby Goldstein’s microscopic organisms came as a
grain elevator made it difficult at times to powder that he sprinkled in the soil when the seeds
hear the main speaker. He was Walter Goldstein, a were sowed. These particular bacteria convert nitro-
soft-spoken man in his mid-60s who had invited gen gas in the air, which plants can’t process, into
about 30 researchers and farmers to this field to make nitrogen-rich ammonia, which they can. In return
a point: Corn could thrive with little to no nitrogen for the ammonia, plants provide the nitrogen-fixing
fertilizer. bacteria with shelter and the sugary carbohydrates
“We’re using too much nitrogen,” Goldstein said. they need to survive.
“It’s polluting all of our water … It’s polluting the That the microbes enhanced the corn’s vitality was
Mississippi. It’s just awful, and yet we need it in order somewhat of a surprise. For a long time, scientists
to get the yields.” thought these microorganisms only lived inside the
Goldstein, an agronomist and the founder and nodules on the roots of legumes — members of the
executive director of the nonprofit Mandaamin bean family, like soy, peas and alfalfa — not corn.
Institute in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, said he’d been Nodules give microbes a safe place to produce the
breeding corn under low-fertilizer conditions for enzyme nitrogenase, necessary for fixing nitrogen,
decades. He asked one of his assistants to hold a while shielding them from oxygen, which can shut
poster board with a blown-up photo of rows of corn. down the reaction.
“Can you see the color differences here?” Goldstein But over the years, research teams have found
asked. On one side of the photo were the rows of corn nitrogen-fixers living in the root nodules of other
he’d bred, noticeably more vibrant and deeper green species, too, like red alder trees and certain tropi-
than the rows of commercial corn planted on the cal trees and shrubs. They’ve also found them in the
other side. This deep color indicated the plants were plant tissues of sugarcane and some trees. And last
getting abundant nitrogen, a fundamental element year, researchers published a report that an ancient
they need to grow and make chlorophyll, the green corn variety in Mexico was harboring N-fixers, too.
pigment necessary for photosynthesis. Though it once seemed impossible that plants without
Although commercial corn typically gets some nodules could team up with bacteria to get this essen-
nitrogen from decayed organic material in soil, it tial nutrient, it’s become increasingly clear that that’s
mainly gets it from fertilizer — either organic, such not the case. Most importantly, it’s not the case for
as manure, or inorganic, such as ammonia — spread corn, one of the planet’s most nitrogen-hungry crops.
Nitrogen is an
essential nutrient for
plant growth. The
darker green color of
the hybrid corn plants
on the left shows
they are getting more
nitrogen than the
commercial variety
on the right.
28 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
For decades, scientists have been working to NITROGEN-FIXING NODULES
find a way to grow corn with less fertilizer. Some Plants need the element nitrogen to grow, but they can’t use the
are using genetic engineering techniques to nitrogen that’s in the air. Legumes, members of the bean family, get
focus on the plant, others have been experi- around this problem by providing a home for nitrogen-fixing bacteria
menting with microbes, and still others, in nodules on their roots.
like Goldstein, have been using classical
Bean plant
breeding methods to tap into the plants’ Atmospheric
age-old ability to partner with the nitrogen (N2 )
bacteria.
What these scientists uncover could
upend agriculture as we know it by
reducing the global use of fertilizer
— all while still producing the yields
Nodules
necessary to sustain our civilization. Nitrogen-fixing
bacteria
SKIP THE MIDDLEMAN
ia
er
t
For nearly 20 years, a simple ques- b ac
tion has nagged Luis Rubio, an s the
ee d
f
associate professor at the Center for Sugar t
p lan
Plant Biotechnology and Genomics the
to
in Madrid, Spain. Why can’t plants fix gen
nitro
NH3 provides
nitrogen on their own, without the help
of microbes?
He suspects it’s because plants can’t
make the nitrogenase enzyme. “Here comes
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria
a challenge: Let’s make it possible,” he says. use an enzyme called N2
For Rubio, that means moving the genetic nitrogenase to convert
instructions to produce nitrogenase from a nitrogen from the air (N2)
bacterium into a corn cell. into ammonia (NH3 )
for the plant. In return,
This involves a host of challenges. How bacteria the plant provides the
make enzymes differs from how plant cells do it — bacteria with sugar. NH3
enough that simply transferring genes won’t work. Nitrogenase
On top of that, the instructions for the nitrogen-
fixing reaction are complex, a puzzle of between
A CENTURY OF AMMONIA
For centuries, growers relied on manure and crop rotation to keep soil fertile. But in 1908,
German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch invented a way to transform nitrogen gas and
hydrogen into a liquid chemical — ammonia — that could be sprayed onto soil to make it
almost instantly fertile. Relatively cheap to produce and easily mixed with other nutrients like
phosphorus, potassium and sulfur, this new way to fertilize sparked an agricultural revolution.
Crop yields skyrocketed 30 percent to 50 percent. So did the world’s population, which went
from 1.65 billion in 1900 to 7.6 billion today.
Fertilizer use comes at a cost, though. Manufacturing it produces 3 percent of the world’s
carbon emissions. Most commercial farmers in the U.S. apply between 160 and 220 pounds of
FROM TOP: JAY SMITH; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/JOHN VACHON
mainly inorganic fertilizer per acre. Nearly a third to a half of that is lost to the environment.
Rains can soak fertilizer into the soil, where it pollutes groundwater. Soil bacteria process
ammonia from both inorganic and organic fertilizer and turn it into nitrous oxide, the third
most significant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane. Washed into rivers, lakes
and oceans, nitrogen increases the population of microscopic organisms. Toxic cyanobacteria
poison fish and other aquatic animals. Blooms of algae decrease oxygen in the water. The
decay from dead marine animals further consumes oxygen in the water, creating dead zones,
like those in the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay.
Inorganic fertilizer has become an agricultural catch-22, polluting the world it feeds.
Without it, yields would decline by 40 percent, putting millions of people at risk of starvation.
But if corn — the most prevalent crop in the U.S. — could fix its own nitrogen, some estimates A farmer in Iowa pours fertilizer into a
say fertilizer use on the crop could drop by 25 to 50 percent. corn planter in 1940.
30 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
developing them as a microbial product for crops, BIOFERTILIZERS
called an inoculant. Beneficial microbes introduced to plants, seeds or
This year, distributor Unium Bioscience released soil are known as biofertilizers. The effect of a specific
the first commercial product based on Intrinsyx’s microbe varies from plant to plant — the same bacteria
formulation. Called Tiros, it’s available in the that might help a pea plant fix nitrogen won’t work
the same way in corn. However, researchers have
United Kingdom as a liquid to apply as a seed
discovered pairings that do seem to work.
coat, and the group is working on powder and
small pellet forms that could be applied straight
onto a field during sowing. As the seeds sprout, Biofertilizers can
be applied:
the microorganisms grow with the plant, and
migrate into plant tissue through cracks at the Seed
1. As a coating
junctions of branching roots or root hairs. Once Coating on seeds before
inside, the endophytes fix nitrogen. planting
In early tests conducted on corn fields in or
Iowa, growers who applied a typical amount of
2. As a powder,
fertilizer plus Tiros got six additional bushels liquid or pellet
per acre (state average is 196.) More recent field added to the soil
trials that reduced fertilizer by up to a third also or plant.
showed promising results, but Intrinsyx Bio CEO
Ahsan Ali says that more tests are needed. In May
2019, the company received a grant to work with
Microbes
scientists at the Donald Danforth Plant Science enter roots
Center near St. Louis to test their microbes on 250 and penetrate
cell walls
corn varieties, and, among other things, figure out
how to get the highest yield with the smallest amount
of nitrogen fertilizer.
Root
STAR T SM ALL
“One of the blessings in research is not getting fund-
ing,” says Ted Cocking, a plant scientist and professor
emeritus at the University of Nottingham.
For decades, Cocking believed, as other scientists
did, that nitrogen fixation could only occur in the
root nodules of legumes. Trained in plant physiology,
cell biology and bacteriology, he originally set out to
breed corn that grows root nodules of its own, with
the notion they would attract nitrogen-fixing bacteria The microbes then
already living in the soil. spread throughout the
plant as it grows.
He got the nodules to sprout, and the bacteria to
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JAY SMITH; THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM; AZOTIC NORTH AMERICA
T H E E AR S H AV E I T
FROM TOP: JOHN-MICHEL ANÉ (2); JAY SMITH
32 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
Walter Goldstein
kneels in a field full
nutrient-limited and sometimes waterlogged condi- of experimental corn Goldstein only recently published his evidence on
tions, and then selects for ones that flourish, which is varieties, organized the presence of nitrogen fixation in some of his corn
in numbered rows.
unlike contemporary methods that rely on selecting A nitrogen-efficient hybrids, and he has not analyzed the genetic makeup
plants based on genetic analysis. To date, Goldstein hybrid on the right of the microbes. This dearth of published data rankles
outperforms the
has cultivated seven hybrid varieties that do very well conventional corn
some scientists. One university research professor,
without fertilizer, he says. planted on the left. who didn’t want to be named, says Goldstein doesn’t
“His breeding efforts are very interesting and understand how nitrogen fixation works or how to
very useful,” says crop scientist Martin Bohn, an measure it.
associate professor at the University of Illinois But Abdullah Jaradat, a research agronomist
Urbana-Champaign. at the USDA who has collaborated with Goldstein
In 2018, Bohn and his team planted Goldstein’s on grant-funded research, says Goldstein “looks
hybrids along with a handful of others in cornfields in at the larger scale, which does not necessarily
Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, as well as in greenhouses reflect the fine relationship between the plants and
under more controlled conditions. He says Goldstein’s the microbiota, but an overall outcome of several
hybrids, especially one in particular, consistently did physical, chemical, biochemical and environmental
well in soil with low, medium and high fertilizer, and factors.”
even in the presence of weeds. Bohn thinks it has Jaradat doesn’t think the approach has any flaws
something to do with the roots, which are always in a general sense, and says Goldstein brings value
large, well-developed and very dense. Roots from con- to research on maize because he has collected and
ventional plants tend to stay small in the presence of crossbred many varieties, reshuffling genetic sources
abundant nitrogen or grow large in nitrogen-deficient of corn using techniques that were once a mainstay
soil, he says. Normally, when plants use energy to of North American farming. In Jaradat’s view, there
grow larger roots, their yields can suffer. But Bohn is room for both the modern analytical approaches as
says he didn’t see this with Goldstein’s best hybrid. well as the more traditional methods of breeding.
“This root system is not only structurally dif- “There must be a hybrid between the old and the
ALISON MACKEY/DISCOVER
ferent … but it might be possible that these plants new,” Jaradat says, “to bring about a change to the
cultivate a microbial community that favors bacteria current state of affairs.” D
that fix nitrogen,” says Bohn, who has long studied
how root systems manage microbial communities to Tracy Staedter is a science journalist based in Milwaukee
make nutrients more available to corn. who covers innovations in sustainability.
34 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
OPPOSITE PAGE: ESO/L. CALÇADA/ACE CONSORTIUM. THIS PAGE: ESO/L. CALÇADA
OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: LSST PROJECT/NSF/AURA; TODD MASON, MASON PRODUCTIONS INC./LSST CORPORATION; GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE – GMTO CORPORATION (3)
image-distorting atmosphere, these instruments could analyze telescopes on high mountaintops — there’s far less air above
a few dozen distant Type Ia supernovas — the cataclysmic explo- them to interfere. Even temperature differences between the air
sions of white dwarf stars. Shockingly, researchers discovered that outside and inside a telescope’s dome can generate air currents
the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Again, this was only that adversely affect an image’s sharpness.
possible with the increased firepower of the latest telescopes. That’s where adaptive optics comes in. In the past few decades,
Now, astronomers stand on the threshold of a new telescope astronomers have honed this technique, which mechanically com-
revolution. During the next several years, researchers expect pensates for any atmospheric shenanigans and delivers images
three instruments that are more than twice the size of their closest nearly as sharp as the mirror can theoretically produce. The heart
competitors to start scanning the skies. And a fourth telescope, of an adaptive optics system is a thin, flexible, computer-controlled
one “only” 8 meters in diameter, will use advanced technology mirror. Astronomers target a fairly bright reference star close to
to image the entire night sky every three days. the object they want to study. The computer analyzes the incoming
This quartet of new instruments promises to deliver stun- light to measure how the atmosphere blurs it, then tells the control
ning science on the hot-button issues. But, as with the previous system how to adjust the mirror’s shape to correct the image in
great leaps forward in size, the new scopes likely will also make real-time. Because atmospheric turbulence changes constantly,
discoveries that no one can yet envision. As Pat McCarthy, vice such systems can alter the mirror’s shape up to 1,000 times each
president of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Organization, second. And if no bright reference star lies nearby — as often
puts it: “We expect to learn things we don’t know.” happens — astronomers can simply shine powerful laser beams
into Earth’s upper atmosphere and create their own reference light.
SIZE MAT T ER S
Astronomers are always looking to stretch boundaries — to see MAKING MIRROR S
fainter objects in greater detail. A bigger telescope collects more Before they can take advantage of the next generation of tele-
light, and so allows a deeper view of the cosmos. Double the diam- scopes, of course, engineers have to craft the parts — namely,
eter of the main mirror gathering light for the telescope and you’ve those essential and enormous mirrors. Astronomers have devel-
quadrupled its surface area, and thus the amount of light it gets. An oped two designs for them.
observation that once took four hours can now be accomplished in In the first, they cast a single, monolithic mirror. University of
one, and this same mirror will let you see roughly twice as far away. Arizona astronomer Roger Angel pioneered this method after
But you might wonder where the law of diminishing returns conducting a backyard experiment around 1980. Technicians start
sets in. There’s only so far you can see, after all. Perhaps the the process by loading chunks of glass into a furnace mold. They
Hubble Space Telescope recently approached those limits when it then raise the furnace’s temperature to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit,
wrapped up its Frontier Fields program, which allowed research- and spin the entire assembly at a rate of five revolutions per
ers to observe galaxies as they existed only a few hundred million minute. Once the chunks melt to the consistency of thick honey,
years after the Big Bang. And for closer objects, Hubble delivers the glass flows into a bowl-like or parabolic shape — perfect for
images beyond compare despite a relatively small size. What else focusing incoming starlight — as a result of the rotation. The
can people want? mirrors are no more than 1 inch thick and have a honeycomb
Well, professional astronomers don’t live by imaging alone. structure to keep their weight down. Technicians then grind and
More often than not, they need breakdowns of light, called spec- polish the mirror’s surface to the exact shape needed.
tra, of the things they observe, to tease out information about an Arizona’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab has cast mirrors for
36 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
SUPERFA ST SKY SUR VE Y
So what will these new instruments actually be, and what
will they do? Of the four next-generation scopes preparing to
revolutionize astronomy, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(LSST) should be the first to land on the scene. What sets the
LSST apart is not its size — its 8.4-meter primary mirror would
fit in comfortably at several current mountaintop observatories
— but its ability to image wide swaths of sky quickly.
Situated atop Cerro Pachón in north-central Chile, the LSST
should take just 15 seconds to deliver sharp images covering
9.6 square degrees of sky — equivalent to the area of more than
40 full moons, and nearly 5,000 times the field of Hubble’s Wide
Field Camera 3.
“The LSST will get the big picture in space-time by taking over
800 images [nightly] of every visible patch of sky in six color
filters,” says LSST chief scientist Tony Tyson of the University
of California, Davis. “This will be a digital color movie of the Caris Mirror Lab has been busy working on this project, and
universe, probing nature in new ways.” just completed the second mirror in July; the next three have
Equally important to the LSST’s success is its 3.2-gigapixel all been cast and are at various stages of grinding, polishing or
imaging camera. The largest digital camera in the world is not testing. At Las Campanas, a 40-person crew finished excavating
one you would want to lug along on your next vacation: It spans the telescope’s foundation last spring.
5.5 by 9.8 feet and weighs about 6,200 pounds. With it, the LSST “We can operate with four mirrors in place,” says McCarthy.
will take two consecutive 15-second images of a single patch of “That still makes it the largest telescope in the world by far.” The
FROM LEFT: GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE – GMTO CORPORATION; GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE – GMTO CORPORATION/PRODUCED BY MASON MEDIA INC.
sky, and then quickly compare them to reject any stray radiation GMT should reach that milestone in 2026, and all seven should be
hitting the detectors. (It’s similar to taking multiple photos of in place by 2028. Collectively, the mirrors will give the instrument
a famous building to digitally remove the tourists.) The scope an effective aperture of 24.5 meters, about 10 times that of Hubble,
then whips to the next area of sky — a movement that takes just so it should achieve resolutions 10 times better than the orbiting
10 seconds, on average — and repeats the process. Such rapid-fire observatory. And its location some 8,248 feet above sea level in the
imaging means the LSST can cover the entire sky visible from arid Atacama Desert will give it superb views in visible light as well
Cerro Pachón every three days. as the near-infrared spectrum. But it won’t be the only one with
Computer software will initially process the images in 60 sec- those new and improved views.
onds, looking for anything that has changed brightness or position
compared with previous images of the same area. When it finds A HE X UP ON YO UR SCOPE
something, it’ll immediately send out an alert to researchers for The other two giant telescopes of the next decade have gone a
quick follow-up. Astronomers expect the LSST to deliver up to different route. Both the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the
10 million alerts per night — an average of 278 per second during Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will consist of hundreds of hexago-
a typical 10-hour observing session. nal segments joined together to create mammoth collecting areas.
This will be a boon to scientists studying transient events, such Europe’s ELT boasts 798 segments in its primary mirror — each
as the stellar explosions that produce novas and supernovas. The measuring 55 inches across — giving the telescope’s primary mir-
LSST’s efforts should also develop a detailed census of small solar ror an aperture of 39 meters. The German optical company Schott
system objects, discovering 10 to 100 times more near-Earth cast the first of these segments in early 2018, and has been churning
objects and distant Kuiper Belt objects beyond Neptune’s orbit. them out since. Groundbreaking for the mammoth telescope took
The LSST’s mirror, cast in the Caris Mirror Lab starting in March place in June 2014 on Cerro Armazones, a 9,993-foot mountain in
2008, made it to the mountaintop May 11, 2019. Astronomers Chile. If all goes according to plan, the ELT should see first light in
expect it to come online in 2020, with full science operations for 2025, around the same time as the GMT.
its planned 10-year survey starting in 2022 after it’s fully calibrated. As its name suggests, the TMT’s 492 segments will give the
telescope’s primary mirror an aperture of 30 meters. The project’s
SE VEN TIME S THE CHARM Japanese partners are producing the rough mirrors, which are
If one huge mirror can deliver so much science, why not try about the same size as the ELT’s, while groups in Japan, China,
seven? That’s the idea behind the GMT, under construction at India and the United States will polish, cut and mount them. The
Chile’s Las Campanas Observatory. The GMT comprises seven TMT will join its Keck cousins on the summit of Mauna Kea at an
8.4-meter mirrors in a single structure, arranged in a daisylike altitude of 13,287 feet. The site gives the TMT access to the entire
pattern with one central mirror surrounded by six “petals.” The northern sky, something none of the other three can get from
38 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
The Thirty Meter Telescope (bottom) will provide astronomers better, closer
views of the universe, along with the Extremely Large Telescope (top), shown
using lasers to help imaging software correct distortions in the atmosphere.
planets from their host stars. We’ll be able to track weather through
color changes and look at the chemistry of planetary atmospheres.”
Star birth and star death should also be fertile fields of study.
High-resolution spectra will help researchers understand why stars
come in such a wide range of masses, and probe deeper than ever
into the lower-mass failed stars known as brown dwarfs. At the
opposite end of a star’s life, these monster instruments will search
for supernovas in the farthest reaches of the universe and study
closer ones in extraordinary detail, looking at the cosmic alchemy
happening in these exploding stars. The scopes’ high resolution
will also let astronomers study the crowded central regions of
the Milky Way Galaxy and star clusters such as R136 in the Large
Magellanic Cloud.
These giant telescopes should also answer even bigger questions
about the basic structure of the universe. With these large-aperture
their sites in Chile. It is also the highest of the big new scopes, scopes and infrared capabilities, McCarthy says, “we’ll [be able to]
placing it above more of Earth’s atmosphere. look back to the early universe, to galaxies only 100 to 500 million
But the site also comes with a major drawback. Mauna Kea is years old.” This will be a vital first link to providing a grand view of
sacred to Native Hawaiians, and the telescope’s construction has how galaxies evolve over time, and their relation to the supermas-
drawn various protests. It wasn’t clear whether the new observatory sive black holes at their centers. The scopes should even illuminate
would ever be built, but Hawaii’s Supreme Court ruled in October how the Milky Way has grown by swallowing nearby dwarf com-
2018 that construction could proceed. panions, and potentially solve the riddle of what came first: galaxies
The TMT’s enclosure — which will house the scope itself and or their black holes.
related electronics — is already finished and awaiting shipment On the biggest stage, the cosmos still baffles scientists seeking
to the island from Canada. With the legal challenges presumably explanations of the dark matter that holds galaxies together and the
FROM TOP: ESO/L. CALÇADA; TMT INTERNATIONAL OBSERVATORY
settled, scientists are looking toward first light in 2026. dark energy that causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
These new telescopes will provide vital new data to help solve these
SCIENCE BY THE BOATLOAD mysteries, and may help resolve the discrepancy between different
With their unprecedented light-gathering power and resolution, ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate.
the GMT, ELT and TMT promise astronomers the best views yet In most of these endeavors, the big new scopes will work together
of faint objects and crowded regions. Scientists expect these behe- with the orbiting 6.5-meter James Webb Space Telescope, which
moths to shed light on a variety of vexing problems. Close to home, is scheduled to launch in 2021. With any luck, we may know a lot
hunting for Earth-like planets in Earth-like orbits around nearby more about the intricacies of our cosmos in the next 10 to 15 years.
stars will be a priority. Even more exciting will be the new ability to But as the Hooker and Hale telescopes showed, we may also have
scrutinize these worlds. “Most of these exoplanets are in too close to a new batch of mysteries to try to figure out. D
their parent stars to study today,” says McCarthy. But with the GMT
and other large scopes, “We’ll separate the light of hundreds of Richard Talcott is a senior editor at Astronomy magazine.
EXPERIMENTS
That
Changed
Everything
Short on tech, long on ideas, early thinkers redefined our world.
BY ADAM HADHAZY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK MARTURELLO
42 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
GREGOR MENDEL colors, and he got repeatable results that suggested some law of
heredity at work.”
CULTIVATES GENETICS These laws became clear with his cultivation of pea plants. Using
paintbrushes, Mendel dabbed pollen from one to another, precisely
E X PERIMENTAL RE SULT: T H E F U N D A M E N TA L R U L E S pairing thousands of plants with certain traits over a stretch of about
OF GENE T IC INHERITANCE seven years. He meticulously documented how matching yellow
peas and green peas, for instance, always yielded a yellow plant. Yet
WHEN: 18 55 - 186 3 mating these yellow offspring together produced a generation where
A child, to varying degrees, resembles a parent, whether it’s a a quarter of the peas gleamed green again. Ratios like these led
passing resemblance or a full-blown mini-me. Why? to Mendel’s coining of the terms dominant (the yellow color, in this
The profound mystery behind the inheritance of physical traits case) and recessive for what we now call genes, and which Mendel
began to unravel a century and a half ago, thanks to Gregor Mendel. referred to as “factors.”
Born in 1822 in what is now the Czech Republic, Mendel showed a He was ahead of his time. His studies received scant attention in
knack for the physical sciences, though his farming family had little their day, but decades later, when other scientists discovered and
money for formal education. Following the advice of a professor, he replicated Mendel’s experiments, they came to be regarded as a
joined the Augustinian order, a monastic group that emphasized breakthrough.
research and learning, in 1843. “The genius in Mendel’s experiments was his way of formulating
Ensconced at a monastery in Brno, the shy Gregor quickly simple hypotheses that explain
began spending time in the garden. Fuchsias in particular grabbed a few things very well, instead
£
44 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
MICHELSON AND MORLEY
WHIFF ON ETHER
E X PERIMENTAL RE SULT: T H E WAY L I G H T M O V E S
WHEN: 18 8 7
Say “hey!” and the sound beams light through a one-way
waves travel through a medium mirror. The light splits in two,
(air) to reach your listener’s and the resulting beams travel
ears. Ocean waves, too, move at right angles to each other.
through their own medium: After some distance, they
water. Light waves are a special reflect off mirrors back toward
case, however. In a vacuum, a central meeting point. If the
with all media such as air and light beams arrive at different
water removed, light somehow times, due to some sort of
still gets from here to there. unequal displacement during
How can that be? their journeys (say, from the
The answer, according to ether wind), they create a
the physics en vogue in the late distinctive interference pattern.
19th century, was an invisible, The researchers protected
ubiquitous medium delightfully their delicate interferometer
dubbed the “luminiferous setup from vibrations by placing
ether.” Working together at it atop a solid sandstone slab,
what is now Case Western floating almost friction-free in a
Reserve University in Ohio, trough of mercury and further
Albert Michelson and Edward isolated in a campus building’s
W. Morley set out to prove basement. Michelson and
this ether’s existence. What Morley slowly rotated the slab,
followed is arguably the most expecting to see interference MARIE CURIE’S WORK MATTERS
famous failed experiment in patterns as the light beams E X PERIMENTAL RE SULT: D E F I N I N G R A D I O A C T I V I T Y
history. synced in and out with the
The scientists’ hypothesis ether’s direction. WHEN: 1898
was thus: As Earth orbits the Instead, nothing. Light’s Few women are represented called an electrometer, built by
sun, it constantly plows through speed did not vary. in the annals of legendary Pierre and his brother, Marie
ether, generating an ether wind. Neither researcher fully scientific experiments, measured the mysterious
When the path of a light beam grasped the significance of reflecting their historical rays emitted by thorium
travels in the same direction as their null result. Chalking it exclusion from the discipline. and uranium. Regardless of
the wind, the light should move up to experimental error, they Marie Sklodowska broke the elements’ mineralogical
a bit faster compared with moved on to other projects. this mold. makeup — a yellow crystal
sailing against the wind. (Fruitfully so: In 1907, Michelson Born in 1867 in Warsaw, she or a black powder, in
To measure the effect, became the first American immigrated to Paris at age uranium’s case — radiation
miniscule though it would to win a Nobel Prize, for 24 for the chance to further rates depended solely on the
have to be, Michelson had optical instrument-based study math and physics. amount of the element present.
just the thing. In the early investigations.) But the huge There, she met and married From this observation, Marie
1880s, he had invented a dent Michelson and Morley physicist Pierre Curie, a close deduced that the emission of
type of interferometer, an unintentionally kicked into ether intellectual partner who helped radiation had nothing to do
instrument that brings sources theory set off a chain of further her revolutionary ideas gain with a substance’s molecular
of light together to create an experimentation and theorizing a foothold within the male- arrangements. Instead,
interference pattern, like when that led to Albert Einstein’s 1905 dominated field. “If it wasn’t radioactivity — a term she
ripples on a pond intermingle. breakthrough new paradigm of for Pierre, Marie would never coined — was an inherent
A Michelson interferometer light, special relativity. have been accepted by the property of individual atoms,
scientific community,” says emanating from their internal
Marilyn B. Ogilvie, professor structure. Up until this point,
emeritus in the history of scientists had thought atoms
science at the University of elementary, indivisible entities.
Oklahoma. “Nonetheless, the Marie had cracked the door
basic hypotheses — those that open to understanding matter
guided the future course of at a more fundamental,
investigation into the nature of subatomic level.
radioactivity — were hers.” Curie was the first woman
The Curies worked together to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903,
mostly out of a converted and one of a very select few
shed on the college campus people to earn a second Nobel,
where Pierre worked. For in 1911 (for her later discoveries
her doctoral thesis in 1897, of the elements radium and
Marie began investigating polonium).
a newfangled kind of “In her life and work,” says
radiation, similar to X-rays Ogilvie, “she became a role
and discovered just a year model for young women who
earlier. Using an instrument wanted a career in science.”
46 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
YOUNG, DAVISSON AND GERMER
SEE PARTICLES DO THE WAVE
E X PERIMENTAL RE SULT: T HE WAVEL IK E NAT URE
OF LIGHT AND ELECTRONS
WHEN: 1801 AND 192 7, RE SPEC T I V ELY
Light: particle or wave? Having at MIT. “There is an unusually
long wrestled with this seeming large ratio, in this case,
either/or, many physicists between the relative simplicity
settled on particle after Isaac and accessibility of the
Newton’s tour de force through experimental design and the
optics. But a rudimentary, deep conceptual significance of
yet powerful, demonstration the results.”
by fellow Englishman More than a century later,
Thomas Young shattered this a related experiment by
convention. Clinton Davisson and Lester
Young’s interests covered
everything from Egyptology
Germer showed the depth of
this significance. At what is ROBERT PAINE
(he helped decode the Rosetta
Stone) to medicine and optics.
now called Nokia Bell Labs
in New Jersey, the physicists STRESSES STARFISH
To probe light’s essence, Young ricocheted electron particles E X PERIMENTAL RE SULT: T HE DISPR OP OR T IONAT E
devised an experiment in 1801. off a nickel crystal. The I M PA C T O F K E Y S TO N E S P E C I E S O N E C O S Y S T E MS
He cut two thin slits into an scattered electrons interacted
opaque object, let sunlight to produce a pattern only WHEN: INIT IAL LY PRE SENT ED IN A 1966 PAPER
stream through them and possible if the particles also Just like the purple starfish versus an ecosystem-based
watched how the beams cast a acted like waves. Subsequent he crowbarred off rocks and management strategy.
series of bright and dark fringes double slit-style experiments chucked into the Pacific Ocean, “His influence was absolutely
on a screen beyond. Young with electrons proved that Bob Paine threw conventional transformative,” says Oregon
reasoned that this pattern particles with matter and wisdom right out the window. State University’s Jane
emerged from light wavily undulating energy (light) can By the 1960s, ecologists had Lubchenco, a marine ecologist.
spreading outward, like ripples each act like both particles and come to agree that habitats She and her husband, fellow
across a pond, with crests waves. The paradoxical idea thrived primarily through OSU professor Bruce Menge,
and troughs from different lies at the heart of quantum diversity. The common practice met 50 years ago as graduate
light waves amplifying and physics, which at the time of observing these interacting students in Paine’s lab at the
canceling each other. was just beginning to explain webs of creatures great and University of Washington.
Although contemporary the behavior of matter at a small suggested as much. Paine Lubchenco, the administrator
physicists initially rebuffed fundamental level. took a different approach. of the National Oceanic
Young’s findings, rampant “What these experiments Curious what would Atmospheric Administration
rerunning of these so-called show, at their root, is that the happen if he intervened in an from 2009 to 2013, saw over the
double-slit experiments stuff of the world, be it radiation environment, Paine ran his years the impact that Paine’s
established that the particles of or seemingly solid matter, has starfish-banishing experiments keystone species concept had
light really do move like waves. some irreducible, unavoidable in tidal pools along and off the on policies related to fisheries
“Double-slit experiments wavelike characteristics,” rugged coast of Washington management.
have become so compelling says Kaiser. “No matter how state. The removal of this single Lubchenco and Menge
[because] they are relatively surprising or counterintuitive species, it turned out, could credit Paine’s inquisitiveness
easy to conduct,” says David that may seem, physicists must destabilize a whole ecosystem. and dogged personality for
Kaiser, a professor of physics take that essential ‘waviness’ Unchecked, the starfish’s changing their field. “A thing
and of the history of science into account.” barnacle prey went wild — that made him so charismatic
only to then be devoured by was almost a childlike
marauding mussels. These enthusiasm for ideas,” says
shellfish, in turn, started Menge. “Curiosity drove him
crowding out the limpets and to start the experiment, and
algal species. The eventual then he got these spectacular
result: a food web in tatters, results.”
with only mussel-dominated Paine died in 2016. His later
pools left behind. work had begun exploring
Paine dubbed the starfish the profound implications of
a keystone species, after humans as a hyper-keystone
the necessary center stone species, altering the global
electron particles that locks an arch into place. ecosystem through climate
A revelatory concept, it change and unchecked
meant that all species do not predation. D
contribute equally in a given
ecosystem. Paine’s discovery Adam Hadhazy is based in
proton particles had a major influence on New Jersey. His work has also
conservation, overturning
the practice of narrowly appeared in New Scientist and
preserving an individual Popular Science, among other
species for the sake of it, publications.
by B I LL SU LLI VA N
i l l ustra t i o n s by S A R A H H A N S O N
OPENING COLLAGE ELEMENTS: ISTOCK: KRULUA, SHUTTERSTOCK: TRIFF, ZITA, PAPARACY, RAWPIXEL.COM, SUNNYTOYS, AFRICA STUDIO, NESTOR RIZHNIAK, MONIKA WISNIEWSKA, BEST_PHOTO_STUDIO, NAMNING, I LOVE COFFEE
took 13 years (1990 to 2003) and cost partied for half a century and survived reality television
$2.7 billion? while taking up to 25 Vicodin pills a day at the time. His
immune system was so weakened from drugs and alcohol
Back in those days, when Harry that he once falsely tested positive for HIV.
Living one week of the Ozzy lifestyle would easily
Potter had just started his on-screen kill most of us, so scientists couldn’t wait to get their
adventures at Hogwarts, getting latex-gloved hands on this Iron Man’s DNA sequence.
What death-defying genes could Ozzy possibly have that
your genome sequenced was a would allow someone to survive cocaine for breakfast and
four bottles of cognac a day for decades?
rare privilege. Among the first In 2010, scientists at Knome Inc. read the DNA diary of
people to remove the invisibility a madman and discovered that Ozzy is indeed a genetic
mutant. Among some of the more intriguing things
cloak from their DNA were James spotted in his DNA was a never-before-seen mutation
near his ADH4 gene. ADH4 makes a protein called
Watson, one of the scientists who alcohol dehydrogenase-4, which breaks down alcohol.
A mutation near ADH4 is likely to affect how much of the
helped solve the structure of DNA protein is made. If Ozzy’s body is built to detoxify alcohol
in 1953, and Craig Venter, who much faster than normal, it might help explain why his
liver hasn’t exploded.
was instrumental in making the Ozzy also possesses variations in genes linked to addic-
tion and alcoholism, as well as how the body processes
Human Genome Project happen. marijuana, opiates and methamphetamines. All told, his
Steve Jobs was also one of the first DNA revealed that he is six times more likely than the
average person to have alcohol dependency or alcohol
to have his genome sequenced cravings, 1.31 times more likely to have a cocaine addic-
tion, and 2.6 times more likely to have hallucinations
(which I imagine lab techs referred caused by marijuana.
to as the iGenome). What other Ozzy, who claimed that “the only Gene I know
anything about is the one in KISS,” was fascinated by the
luminaries did scientists reach results. And although the variants found in his genome
are tantalizing, the truth is, we don’t know enough about
out to for secrets their DNA held? these genes yet to build a comprehensive picture that
shows us why this man has an addictive personality —
Stephen Hawking? High IQ record- or why he is still reasonably healthy after abusing his
holder Marilyn vos Savant? That body for more than 50 years. Addiction is a complex
behavior, but research is revealing that our genes, plus
guy who won 74 games in a row other biological factors outside our jurisdiction, can
conspire to make life a living hell.
on Jeopardy?
Nope. Scientists wanted Ozzy ALCOHOLISM IN YOUR GENE S?
Alcoholism includes cravings, loss of control, physical
Osbourne. dependence and tolerance. The National Council on
50 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
YOUNG OZZY: MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY IMAGES. ALL OTHER COLLAGE ELEMENTS, SHUTTERSTOCK: ZITA, VSHIVKOVA, S_BUKLEY
Alcoholism and Drug Dependence esti- one relates to why people like to hit the
mates that 1 in every 12 adults suffers pub after a stressful day at work. A 2004
from alcohol abuse or dependence in the
What death- study by geneticist Tatiana Foroud at the
United States alone. Americans spend defying genes Indiana University School of Medicine
nearly $200 million a day on booze, and linked a gene called GABRG3 to alco-
about 100,000 people die each year from
could Ozzy holism. This gene makes a subunit of
alcohol-related causes, such as drunken possibly have the brain cell receptor that recognizes
driving, suicide or falling down stairs. gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a
Alcohol addiction is clearly a serious
that would allow so-called “inhibitory” neurotransmit-
problem, but I’m not trying to cast alcohol someone to ter that tells the brain to calm down.
as the devil’s nectar. The important ques- Without it, a person is more likely to turn
tion is why some people can’t stop imbib-
survive cocaine to booze to do the same. This discovery
ing when they know they should. The for breakfast and gave credence to the theory that the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and disease is linked to an overactive brain.
Alcoholism says that genes are responsi- four bottles of Due to its sedative properties, alcohol
ble for about half of someone’s propensity cognac a day for relaxes hyperactive neurons, serving to
to develop alcohol addiction. But as with dam the raging rivers in the mind.
Ozzy’s genome, there is rarely a single gene decades?
that fully explains this complex behavior. WHY SOME JUST S AY NO
Indeed, numerous genes have been Genes that govern how the body deals
linked to alcohol dependence. The first with alcohol or other drugs also influence
52 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
body’s attempt to resume normalcy is why drinkers build more alcohol. Such a feedback mechanism is analogous
up tolerance to alcohol, which means they must ingest more to how the satiety hormone leptin tells the brain when the
and more to get the same feeling of satisfaction. To novice stomach is full. Studies like these suggest that people’s
drinkers, one shot may produce a buzz. But after a few ability to know their limits with alcohol may be because
weeks of drinking, it will take two or three shots to reach they were lucky to be born with a more effective liver-brain
that buzz, because their liver is processing the alcohol communication system.
more efficiently.
After prolonged drinking, people need to consume W H AT A L O N G , S T R A N G E T R I P I T ’ S B E E N
alcohol just to feel normal. To compensate for alcohol’s You may never have thought about it this way, but just
sedative effects, our brain chemistry adapts to make more about everyone is or has been addicted at one point to
neurotransmitters that activate neurons to excite them caffeine. Sure, caffeine is mild compared with hardcore
again. If alcohol intake suddenly stops, the brain is no drugs, but the fundamental principles are the same.
longer being sedated, but those excitatory neurotransmit- We enjoy the jolt of energy that caffeine brings, but soon
ters are still cranked up to 11. This is why people undergo- we can’t seem to function without it. We get tired and
ing withdrawal experience the shakes, cranky. Many people are complete ogres
anxiety and restlessness. until they have had their morning cof-
Because the brain takes time to Alcohol interacts fee. After a little while, we find ourselves
recalibrate to the lack of alcohol, many having a second or third cup because one
people with withdrawal symptoms with numerous just doesn’t cut it anymore. Try to stop,
resume drinking just to calm down. The other systems and you will be tortured with fatigue,
excess alcohol that needs to be consumed headaches and irritability. It’s easier just
starts to wreak havoc on other bodily in the brain, to brew another pot and keep the habit
systems including the liver, kidneys and going. If asked to give up the coffee pot,
stomach. Benzodiazepines like Xanax
and genetic many would say you’d have to pry it from
and Valium are sometimes administered variations can their cold, dead hands.
to people undergoing alcohol withdrawal It’s the same basic cycle for those with
as a means to replace the effects of alco-
exist in any of other addictions, but the substances
hol with a medicine that increases the them, explaining involved are much more difficult to
anxiety-reducing neurotransmitter quit. Perhaps we can use this common
GABA. The administration of benzodi-
why responses to ground to reshape our approach for
azepines can be better controlled than alcohol and the helping people with addiction issues.
alcohol intake and often helps restore the The addiction is punishing enough, and
proper balance between excitatory and tendency to further punitive action has proven to be
inhibitory activities in the neurons. become addicted an abysmal failure that has needlessly
Alcohol interacts with numerous other ruined the lives of many good people.
systems in the brain, and genetic varia- vary so widely. The true crime of people with addiction
tions can exist in any of them, explaining is having the wrong genes in the wrong
why responses to alcohol and the ten- place at the wrong time. With better
dency to become addicted vary so widely. education, we might prevent more people
Traditionally, scientists have uncovered from doing drugs in the first place. With
genes associated with increased drinking, but a 2016 a better understanding of the biology behind addiction,
study led by Gunter Schumann at King’s College London we can develop effective treatments. With a better idea of
revealed a gene that may explain why some people know the genes predisposing people to an addictive personality,
their limits. A variant in the gene that makes a protein we can screen for people who may be at risk. We need a war
called beta-Klotho was found in about 40 percent of study on addiction, not a war on drugs, and certainly not a war on
participants who show a decreased desire to drink alcohol. those who are addicted. D
The beta-Klotho protein is a receptor in the brain that
catches a hormone called FGF21, which the liver secretes
when it is processing alcohol. Schumann and his team Excerpted from Pleased to Meet Me, originally
believe that beta-Klotho may be involved in cross-talk published by National Geographic Partners,
between the liver and the brain, a type of SOS that there is LLC, on August 6, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by
too much alcohol in the liver. When the team genetically William J. Sullivan.
engineered mice without beta-Klotho, these mice drank
ALL WET
Scientists have recently speculated that Earth’s vast stores of water may have come from the same collection of gas and dust that
birthed and surrounded our infant planet, shown in this artist’s rendering. But many researchers are skeptical of the new idea, and
still believe our water came from other solar system objects that bombarded a young Earth. Learn more about this decades-long
mystery starting on page 56. Then, on page 62, take a tour of the lunar landmarks named for women. — BILL ANDREWS; IMAGE BY NASA/JPL-CALTECH
56 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
SPECIAL BONUS CONTENT FROM ASTRONOMY MAGAZINE
Where Did
Earth’s Water
Come From?
Most astronomers believe asteroids carried water
to early Earth. But new research suggests it may
have come from even closer to home.
O
Karen Meech doesn’t spend a lot of time digging through
« Earth’s rocks. An astronomer by trade, she is usually behind
the telescope, investigating comets and looking for hints about
how Earth got its water. But a field trip to Iceland in 2004 ulti-
mately sent her scrambling through the craters of Hawaii nearly
a decade later in search of clues about the liquid that helped birth
life on this planet.
On that fateful Icelandic tour, Meech saw geothermal areas
with gas billowing out of the ground. The guide told the group
not to worry — it was only water. “Then she said, ‘This is prob-
ably primordial water,’ and it set a lightbulb off,” Meech says.
58 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
in our solar system’s history, it scattered
the rocky debris in all directions. Like
comets, some of the material rained down
on Earth. Unlike comets, asteroids don’t
lock up water as ice. Instead, they trap
its components — hydrogen and oxygen
— inside minerals. Also, the heavy water
content in asteroids falls much closer to
Earth’s current ratio. That’s why asteroids
are the leading suspect for the source of our
planet’s water.
“Really, we’re not talking about water;
we’re talking about hydrogen,” says Anne
Peslier, a geochemist at NASA’s Johnson
Space Center. Peslier studies the geo-
chemistry of Earth’s mantle and the other
terrestrial planets, including the hydrogen
trapped within minerals.
When Earth formed, the hydrogen sur-
rounding the growing planet was captured
in its rocks and minerals. When hydrogen-
rich and oxygen-rich minerals melt
because of the mantle’s heat, the resulting The cliffs near Baffin Island, Canada, grant researchers access to material from Earth’s deep mantle,
water can spew from the planet’s crust. which may contain the fingerprints of our planet’s earliest water.
Most of the mantle is rocky, and enor-
mous quantities of hydrogen and oxygen olivine crystals were captured early enough normal and heavy water. Hallis was
could be trapped inside. Researchers esti- during Earth’s formation and remained intrigued by the chance to scramble
mate that as much as 10 oceans of water undisturbed for the planet’s 4.5 billion- across craters in Hawaii and along the
may exist within the mantle. year lifetime, they could reveal how much shores of Baffin Island in Canada in
Erupting volcanoes usually bring up the ancient ratios of heavy and normal search of clues. Baffin is one of the few
magma from the upper part of Earth’s water shifted, if they changed at all. The places where Earth’s deep mantle is acces-
mantle, the region closer to the surface. tiny time capsules could provide answers sible. The chain of eruptions that formed
This material is more likely to be polluted to the long-standing questions regarding the island also created Greenland and
by hydrogen from the crust, which con- the source of Earth’s water. Iceland. “The Baffin Island samples are
tains the same higher D/H ratios measured But first, they had to be found. the most pristine examples that we have
in the oceans today. More pristine samples of the deep mantle,” Hallis says.
lie much farther down in the mantle. HUNTING PRIMORDIAL WATER Hallis also received samples collected
Although it’s hot there, less than 20 percent While Meech knows a great deal about by Don Francis, now an emeritus profes-
of the mantle rock has melted, Peslier says. water in the solar system, she wasn’t as sor at McGill University in Montreal,
When the melted material erupts, it can familiar with rocks on Earth. She pulled from a tiny uninhabited island called
have a violent effect on the solid rock. in Hallis, then a postdoctoral student, Padloping, off the eastern coast of
FROM TOP: TIMKAL/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; JAMES ST. JOHN/FLICKR
“If [the lavas] go fast enough and bru- to lead geological excavations in a Canada and northwest of Baffin Island.
tally enough, they sometimes break hunt for those early fingerprints of According to Hallis, Francis collected the
off pieces of what they are travers- first of his samples in 1985. The isolation
ing along the way,” Peslier Green olivine crystals in lava of Padloping Island meant that research-
can contain and protect
says. She describes the hydrogen collected during ers had to travel there by boat and set up
result — called mantle Earth’s formation, allowing camp. The sheer cliffs made falling rocks
xenolith, after the Greek researchers to determine plentiful, and Francis picked up the
its ratio of deuterium to
word for “foreign rock” hydrogen. This sample best-looking minerals from the beach.
— as crystals of bright of mantle xenolith from A return trip in 2004 netted even more
Peridot Mesa in Arizona
green olivine and black exhibits high-quality samples.
pyroxene embedded in green peridotite (olivine) “Something I would really like to do is
embedded in gray
the black lava. phonotephrite (volcanic) go back [to Padloping Island],” Hallis says.
If the hydrogen-rich host rock. The imposing cliffs make it challenging
act as a barrier to prevent weathering once a good fit for the source of Earth’s water.” in minerals locked in its interior, a region
the rocks are on the surface. Even so, neither comets nor asteroids could have
they weren’t entirely perfect. Carbonaceous chondrites
polluted. Later volcanic eruptions hurled
“Even with the most contain either water that material to the surface, to be returned
pristine samples that we or minerals affected to Earth by astronauts.
by the presence
have, it’s not 100 percent of water. These Why is this important? The high tem-
exactly deep mantle,” meteorites were peratures post-collision would have been
thought to be a good
Hallis says. “It’s always candidate for Earth’s similar to those found in the solar nebula,
going to have some early water delivery Hallis says. That helps to make the case
system, but their
incorporation of the heavy water content
that even in the hot early solar system,
[upper] mantle in there, suggested otherwise. volatiles and water could be accreted.
60 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
The asteroid Vesta, imaged above by NASA’s
Dawn spacecraft, contains water with a similar
flavor to that of Earth’s. This suggests both
bodies’ water may have come from the same
available reservoir. The young star HL Tauri,
imaged at right in radio wavelengths, has a
protoplanetary disk with gaps where planets may
be forming — and accreting hydrogen, oxygen,
and water from their surroundings.
to the Baffin Island estimates. her results. “Lydia’s interpretation was current technology can do.
“Now that we are finding low values in unique,” Alexander says. “There may be Alexander says that Hallis’ goal of
Earth, the moon, and Vesta, and also in other ways of getting hydrogen into the hunting down nitrogen from future
the water reservoir of the asteroids, now melt inclusions that she was measuring.” samples will also help firm up any doubts
maybe the [nebula] story is possible,” Alexander’s chief concern stems from about the primordial nature of the Baffin
says Alice Stephant of Arizona State the fact that only a single source of rocks Island samples. “If she can show that
University, who studies Vesta. “It seems — the Baffin Island samples — was used there is both light hydrogen and light
like they all share a common reservoir to estimate the entire planet’s ancient nitrogen in these inclusions, I think that
that is lower [in deuterium] than what ratios. “The bulk of Earth may have a would be a smoking gun,” he says.
we thought.” completely different composition, and “If the nitrogen follows the hydrogen,
there may be something weird about then we proved our theory that [the
T H E SM O K I N G G U N ocean islands’ basalts,” he says. He hopes samples] are primitive,” Hallis says. D
The lower D/H ratios revealed by Hallis, that other scientists will follow Hallis’
Meech, and their colleagues are not lead and measure the D/H ratio from a Nola Taylor Redd is a freelance science writer
yet widely accepted. Conel Alexander, variety of deep-mantle plumes. with a focus on space and astronomy.
O
The
The Apollo program transformed return to family and friends. You might
« our understanding of the moon. It expect this longing for home would
helped unlock our satellite’s complex his- inspire them to name newly found lands
tory, and proved that the moon formed after their distant loved ones. You’d
Women
when a Mars-sized object slammed into be wrong.
Earth in the solar system’s earliest days. Christopher Columbus didn’t name
Apollo’s legacy extends to the naming anything after his wife, Filipa Moniz
of several lunar features. Craters honor Perestrelo. Neither Ferdinand Magellan
Moon
The mountain named after
landing. Remarkably, this recently named
mountain is one of only a few lunar fea-
tures that carry a woman’s name.
IT ’S A MAN’S WORLD
Virginia after a woman, but it was his
royal patroness, Elizabeth I of England,
often referred to as the “Virgin Queen.”
Sadly, for every million people who have
heard of these explorers, perhaps only
Marilyn Lovell made her Explorers, at least since Odysseus, have one knows the name of any of their wives.
one of a handful of women struggled between the urge to forge Telescopic explorers of the moon,
NASA
immortalized on the moon. ahead toward new discoveries and to beginning with Jesuit priest Giovanni
62 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
SPECIAL BONUS CONTENT FROM ASTRONOMY MAGAZINE
Catharina
Hypatia
When Giovanni Riccioli first named features on the moon in 1651, he immortalized only two women with craters: Catharina and Hypatia.
Riccioli, were equally lacking in sensitiv- singularly lacking in female company as accomplishments, selenographers
ity. On his 1651 map, Riccioli introduced the monasteries of Mount Athos. bestowed their names on lunar craters.
the now hallowed tradition of naming Shakespeare wrote in the moon- Still, women remained a distinct minority.
craters after noted scientists, philoso- enchanted A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Among those honored were redoubtable
phers, and explorers. He selected 147 “The course of true love never did run 18th- and 19th-century figures such as
new names; all but two of those names smooth”; this has been even truer on the Nicole-Reine Lepaute, Mary Somerville,
honor men, some of whom were still moon’s rugged surface. Astronomers and Caroline Herschel (whose crater,
alive at the time. Riccioli even reserved wanting to immortalize their loved C. Herschel, is much less distinguished
a prominent crater for himself. ones sometimes had to disguise their than that given to her brother William).
Of the two women he honored, Saint purposes. A case in point: On the map More recently, women honored on the
Catharine of Alexandria got the bigger of the moon compiled at the moon include Maria Mitchell
prize. Catharina is an imposing crater Paris Observatory under the and several of the human
that adjoins Cyrillus and Theophilus in direction of Jean Dominique “The course “computers” who analyzed
an impressive chain. A much-revered Cassini, a woman’s face in photographic plates at the
Christian martyr, Saint Catharine, alas, profile projects from the
of true Harvard College Observatory:
apparently never existed. Her legend mountainous Promontorium love never Williamina Fleming, Antonia
seems to be based on that of Hypatia of Heraclides into the smooth did run Maury, Annie Jump Cannon,
Alexandria — a Neoplatonist philoso- bay of Sinus Iridum. Through and Henrietta Swan Leavitt.
pher, astronomer, and mathematician — a telescope at low power, this smooth” — Marie Curie, the first double
and the second woman Riccioli honored. feature appears striking when and it’s Nobel laureate, was honored
Hypatia Crater is less than half the size of it lies on the terminator, but with her maiden name,
Catharina and far less prominent. under higher magnification,
even truer Sklodowska, nine years before
The lack of women on Riccioli’s map it disappears into a miscellany on the her husband, Pierre, got his
largely reflects the subordinate roles they of hills and ridges. moon’s own crater.
played in Greco-Roman and Christian Who was this mysterious The first woman in
societies, and the fact that women were lady in the moon? Although rugged space, Russian cosmonaut
generally dissuaded from scholarly it is impossible to know for surface. Valentina Tereshkova, is the
endeavors. It may also reflect the real- certain, a co-author of this only one officially honored
ity that many scholars were priests or story (Sheehan) and French while alive — she’s still going
CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/UA/LPL
bachelors. According to the late English scholar Francoise Launay have argued strong in 2019. In the latest count of the
astronomy popularizer Patrick Moore, that it was meant to be a celestial portrait more than 1,600 craters on the moon,
French philosopher René Descartes of Cassini’s wife, Geneviève de Laistre. only about 30 bear a woman’s name.
claimed that named lunar craters are Part of this reflects stringent rules set
inhabited by the spirits of their name- A L ADIE S CLUB STAR TS TO F ORM by the International Astronomical
sakes. Had what Descartes said been As more women gained recogni- Union (IAU), the governing body for
true, the moon would have been as tion for their scientific aptitude and naming features on the moon and other
Above: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this oblique view of Mount Marilyn through its narrow-
angle camera. Right: Jim and Marilyn Lovell pose at the Adler Planetarium’s 2018 Celestial Ball in Chicago.
planetary bodies. The rules were adopted Lovell, and Bill Anders first circumnavi- that lacked the contrast — and impact
to prevent solar system nomenclature gated the moon. Though often overlooked — of a blue Earth above the gray moon
from becoming utterly chaotic and in favor of Apollo 11’s lunar landing in set against the stark blackness of space.
capricious. But it also, no doubt, exposes July 1969, the December 1968 flight of It also mattered that a robot took the
the long-standing sexism and discour- Apollo 8 was probably more significant earlier image whereas a human took the
agement of women in mathematics and — and certainly more radical. As the first second. The astronauts saw the scene with
science in Western culture. manned mission to leave Earth orbit and their own eyes, reacted to it, and snapped
Though generally (and in view of past reach the moon’s sphere of gravitational the picture.
abuses, not unreasonably) strict about influence, it accomplished a Although Apollo 8 accom-
adopting the names of people still alive, truly astronomical leap for- plished many firsts, it also
the IAU has overlooked this rule on occa- ward in distance. It would be In the was a trailblazer for Apollo
sion. Tereshkova is a prime example, and as if the Wright brothers, after latest 11. To fulfill President John F.
several Apollo astronauts also have been their first successful flight at Kennedy’s audacious goal of
honored. Other exceptions have sneaked Kitty Hawk, immediately set count of landing a man on the moon
in because only insiders knew their back out to fly around the globe. the more and returning him safely
stories. For example, American mappers Above all, Apollo 8 raised to Earth by the end of the
in 1976 named a small lunar crater “Kira” the consciousness of people
than 1,600 decade, Apollo 11 astronauts
in tribute to the eminently worthy Kira back home with a ravishing craters needed Apollo 8 to serve as
64 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
Astronomy Magazine and TravelQuest International Present
Discover
SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS
When the real thing took place on in Montes Secchi. belongs as much to them as to their hus-
Apollo 11 in July 1969, Mount Marilyn A long and sometimes bitter political bands who actually went to the moon. D
again pointed the way: battle ensued between those wanting
Buzz Aldrin: “We’re going over Mount to see Mount Marilyn adopted and the William Sheehan is a historian of astronomy
Marilyn at the present time, and it’s igni- IAU. Despite how unpopular the stance whose books include Epic Moon (with
tion point.” proved to be, the IAU steadfastly rejected Thomas Dobbins). Kevin Schindler is
CapCom [Bruce McCandless]: “Roger. the name chiefly on the grounds that the historian at Lowell Observatory in
Thank you. And our preliminary tracking the name Marilyn was commemorative Flagstaff, Arizona.
66 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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PROGNOSIS
BY LINDA MARSA
Depression in the
past two
sion in 30 years.
O
Jonathan Flint grew up surrounded by the notion of suicide. the estimated $500 million program the
« The bookshelves in his childhood home in London were “Manhattan Project for depression.” It
filled with tomes on the subject, as well as on bereavement and will involve dozens of UCLA faculty
counseling. His mother was an early volunteer at one of the first members as well as other institutions,
suicide prevention hotlines, and the friends she brought home and includes researchers from many
were involved, too. He even accompanied her one afternoon disciplines, from neuroscience, genetics
68 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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70 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
PROGNOSIS
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72 D IS C O V E R M A G A Z I N E .C O M
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1 With forelimbs like clawed shovels, little or no eye- probably can’t tell the sex of most moles just by looking
sight and a penchant for tunneling, the much-maligned at their genitalia. The females of several species have
mole is considered a monster by many a gardener. But genitals that appear similar to those of males, while for
dig into the details of these fossorial, or burrowing, males of some species, the penis is an internal organ.
mammals, and you might envy their superpow- 11 Yes, it can be confusing. So are the number of animals
ers. 2 Take the star-nosed mole. Found throughout called moles that aren’t moles at all. Mole rats are mem-
the northeastern U.S. and Canada, the semi-aquatic bers of several different rodent lineages spread across
Condylura cristata has 22 symmetrical, tentacle-like Africa and Eurasia, named for their subterranean,
appendages that sprout from its snout. 3 The wiggly, molelike lifestyle. 12 Separated from rodents by nearly
fleshy nose-fingers, or rays, have nothing to do with 100 million years of evolution, moles belong to the
smell. They’re covered with 25,000 sensory receptors family Talpidae. Their closest living relatives include
called Eimer’s organs that give the star-nosed mole a hedgehogs and shrews. 13 Meanwhile, the Mexican
supersized sense of touch. 4 C. cristata can identify, mole lizard is neither mole nor lizard. It’s an amphisbae-
capture and eat its prey, generally insects and worms, nian, a small group of reptiles also known as worm liz-
in an average of about 230 milliseconds. That’s roughly ards and often mistaken for snakes. 14 Formally known
three times faster than a human driver’s reaction time as Bipes biporus and found mostly in Baja California,
to a red light. 5 Move over, cheetahs: This lightning-fast the reptile has impressive, molelike forelimbs built for
detection-to-ingestion, called handling time, earned burrowing. Evolution nixed its hind limbs entirely,
the star-nosed mole the Guinness World Records title however. 15 If you want to nix blisters, you might try
FROM TOP: ERIC ISSELEE/SHUTTERSTOCK; ROD PLANCK/SCIENCE SOURCE IMAGES; CHRIS MATTISON/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; RDONAR/SHUTTERSTOCK
of fastest mammalian eater. Not moleskin. The fabric gets its name from mimicking the
bad for an animal that resembles burrowing mammal’s velvety pelt. The fur has no nap,
a baked potato. 6 While the star- or direction of growth, to avoid rubbing the wrong
nosed mole is impressive, don’t way as the animal moves through tight underground
underestimate the 20-plus other tunnels. 16 Another mole-inspired invention: the color
burrowing mole species, which taupe. The classic neutral shade’s name is the French
are spread across the Northern word for mole. The English term for the animal may
Hemisphere. 7 North America’s have descended from mulda, the proto-Germanic
Eastern mole, for example, has word for “loose earth.” 17 The Latin word moles gave
evolved a unique way to survive us a structural mole: a large breakwater or pier made
From top: The star- underground, an environment with decreased oxy- from piled earth or masonry. The oldest example of
nosed mole has 22
tentacle-like rays on gen and elevated carbon dioxide. 8 Other mammals this kind of mole, at Wadi al-Jarf, is more than 4,500
its snout that provide (including most moles) living in these conditions years old and dates to Egypt’s Old Kingdom period.
it with an exceptional
sense of touch; neither typically have what’s called a high affinity for oxygen. 18 Non-animal moles aren’t always massive. Sometimes
mole nor lizard, the That means oxygen binds super-efficiently to proteins they’re minute. The mole is one of seven base units in
Mexican mole lizard
is an amphisbaenian
in red blood cells that then deliver the crucial element the International System of Units (SI), the world’s most
reptile; an architectural throughout their bodies. 9 However, Eastern moles common measurement system. 19 Redefined in May
mole, or breakwater, have a lower affinity for oxygen. Instead, they get by using a more precise mathematical formula, the SI mole
protects a harbor on
the Baltic Sea. because their blood proteins release oxygen more eas- is widely used in chemistry to calculate and express
ily to muscles and other tissues. Their blood also may the mass of particles and molecules. 20 Holy moley, a
bind more efficiently to carbon dioxide, helping rid mole is so much more than a scapegoat for your lousy
the mole’s system of the excess gas as it moves around lawn. (By the way, that expression has nothing to do
down under. 10 A different kind of down under: You with the burrowing animals, either. It’s a 19th-century
euphemism for the exclamation “holy Moses.”) D
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