The History Book Club discussion

This is the spoiler thread for the book The Sixth Extinction.

There are so many articles/videos/interviews etc. which deal with this book, climate change, environmental issues that I am setting up a thread to add any of these items to.

Please feel free to add your own. If you cite any book or author aside from the book being discussed - you have to add the proper citation, book cover, author's photo and author's link.

This way the adds will not be disruptive to the non spoiler conversation. And you can discuss any and all of these without spoiler html because this is not the book discussion thread nor a non spoiler thread. Setting up this spoiler thread for this book will also not clutter up the book discussion thread.

by Elizabeth Kolbert

A Reporter at Large AUGUST 24, 2015 ISSUE

The Weight of the World
Can Christiana Figueres persuade humanity to save itself?

BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Source: The New Yorker

Elizabeth Kolbert talks with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/zj9...

The Earth's 'Sixth Extinction' May Be One Of Our Own Making
FEBRUARY 11, 2014 4:00 PM ET

There have been five major mass extinctions over the last half-billion years, when the diversity of life on Earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists are currently monitoring an era of mass extinction predicted to be the most devastating since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. But this time around, says Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction, it's humans that are causing it.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

Writer Elizabeth Kolbert set out on a global journey to study extinction. She went on a nighttime trek through streams in Panama, where the once-common Panamanian golden frog, the color of a taxi cab, is now extinct in the wild. She swam in the frigid Tyrrhenian Sea off Naples, with scientists studying what happens to marine life when CO2 emissions make oceans more acidic. And she slogged through the sweltering Amazon Rainforest to chart the effects of habitat loss on biodiversity.

The title of Elizabeth Kolbert's new book, "The Sixth Extinction," means this: We are in the midst of another catastrophic epoch. And she explains, while the other mass extinctions, over half a billion years, were caused by geological forces, this one is caused by one species, human beings.

ELIZABETH KOLBERT: There are five previous mass extinctions, the most recent of which was the one about 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs. And there's a pretty broad consensus that that was caused by an asteroid impact. And so now you'll hear scientists say, we humans are the asteroid.

BLOCK: We are the asteroid because, what are they pointing to?

KOLBERT: Well, they're pointing to this idea that we're changing the world very, very rapidly. Maybe not quite as rapidly as an asteroid but, as you look through geological time, rapid change is very unusual. So among the ways that we are changing the world very rapidly is we're changing the atmosphere by pouring a lot of CO2 into it very, very quickly. That also has the impact of changing the chemistry of the oceans very quickly, because a lot of our carbon emissions end up in the oceans.

We are moving species around the world very fast. When you think about it, it's very, very hard for most organisms to, you know, cross an ocean. Or if they're a marine organism, cross land. That now happens all the time. We're just altering the surface of the Earth; something like 50 percent of the surface of the Earth has been altered by people by now. So those are just some of the ways that we are changing the world very, very quickly.

BLOCK: And when you look at species lost, what do the numbers show is going on right now?

KOLBERT: Well, if you look at the number of species, for example, that are on what's known as the Red List - which is kept by a group that sort of keeps the list of endangered species - they are increasing all the time. It's estimated that a quarter of all mammals on the planet are endangered. It's estimated that about a quarter of all sharks and rays are endangered. A third of all reef-building corals are endangered. Something like 40 percent of all amphibians are endangered. So these numbers are very, very high.

BLOCK: You profile a number of these species through the course of your book. And you go to the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef to look at coral, try to see what's going on with coral reefs. You're about 50 miles off the coast of Australia. How dire was the picture that was painted for you when you went there?

KOLBERT: Well, that was an amazing spot. We were on this tiny, little island that just pokes above the reef. So you're almost effectively living on the reef. And every day these scientists would go out and walk across the reef to go collect water samples. And they were trying to look at how the rate basically at which reefs putting on weight. Because, as one scientist put it to me, they have to keep growing just to keep constant.

And what we're doing by changing the chemistry of the water is we're making their job harder and harder and harder. And the Great Barrier Reef has lost something like 50 percent of its coral cover just over the last 30 years, which is a pretty astonishing figure. And there are very robust predictions in the scientific literature that by about 2050, the Great Barrier Reef is going to have a very, very hard time surviving.

BLOCK: You do have an amazing description in there. You happen to be there at the time of the annual mass spawning of coral. You call it synchronized group sex. And you go out for a nighttime snorkel to see what that's like. Can you describe it?

KOLBERT: What happens is that corals, once a year, they engage in this sort of orgy, I guess you could call it, where they all give up their gametes at one time. And these are these little, tiny bead-like things that contain both sperm and eggs, which is pretty unusual. And so, when they're ready to spawn, they spawn on the same night. This is so they can, you know, mix up their genes. It happens around a full-Moon.

It can be anticipated when it's going to happen. So that's how I knew to be there. And then we went out at night and it looks like it's snowing upwards. All of the coral suddenly start to release these little beads which float to the top, so it's sort of like a snow globe but going in reverse. And it's a wonderful, wonderful sight.

BLOCK: Lets talk more about the human role in this current mass extinction, because you have a line in your book where you say when you think about why humans are so dangerous, maybe you picture a poacher in Africa in 1947 or a logger in the Amazon gripping an ax. But then you say picture yourself holding a book in your lap. In other words, man's impact on nature and on species isn't necessarily malevolent by design.

It's part of what we're doing to the Earth by our very nature of being on the Earth that you're saying is implicated here.

KOLBERT: Yes, I think that a lot of these conversations are often as if there are good people, you know, and bad people. And my point is that change is really what is significant. And many of the qualities that are best about humans, most wonderful, most marvelous, most miraculous: our intelligence, our ability to cooperate and build these tremendous societies, our inventiveness, they have this interesting side-effect, which is that we don't wait for evolution to provide us with a new tool. We make that tool. And that just turns out to be when you're another creature who does have two proceed at a pace of evolution, to be very difficult to deal with.

BLOCK: Well, in the midst of all of the extinction that you're documenting in your book, you also profiled the people who are working as hard as they can to preserve what's left of species that are disappearing. And I was really interested to read about an institute for conservation research near San Diego, where they are taking care of a Hawaiian crow. The crows are extinct in the wild and this particular crow is named Nahoa(ph). And there's one woman who ministers to him in a very particular way. I guess that's for lack of a better word - I'll say she ministers him.

KOLBERT: Yes, she strokes him very lovingly, hoping that a male bird will find this, you know, sexually exciting. How's that? Let's put it that way, so that she can collect a vial of his semen and rush it to Maui.

BLOCK: And how has that been going?

KOLBERT: It hasn't been going well. She - during mating season, she tries to emulate when his mating season on Maui. So it's in the spring. She will spend hours during the several times a week. But when I was there, which is about nine months ago or so, she put it to me: He had still failed to produce any high-quality material.

BLOCK: And when you talked with this woman, who's so dedicated to this cause - her name is Barbara Durrant - what did she tell you about why she does what she does?

KOLBERT: Well, this is an institute a really devoted to trying to save some of our most endangered animals. And I guess I would say it's an act of love. I mean, it's an act of trying the best we can to preserve the remnant of this species in some way. And the really interesting and moving thing I found out about Nahoa, is he seems to have a lot of self-consciousness. And he - crows can imitate human speech. And Nahoa says, I know.

So it sounds a little bit demented, it's hard to understand. But that is the message that he gives you, I know.

BLOCK: You've covered the environment for a long time, written a lot about this. Were you surprised as you read more and studied more and traveled more for this book, surprised at what you found?

KOLBERT: Well, I think I was surprised by the scope and reach of what's going on. I recently, for example, just heard some very eminent scientists say, you know, this may be the last century that we see large animals out in the wild. We're just not going to see them anymore. They're going, to the extent that they exist at all, they will only be in zoos. That's a pretty sobering fact and even I, after researching this book, was pretty sobered to hear them.

BLOCK: Elizabeth Kolbert, her book is titled "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History." Elizabeth, thanks so much.

KOLBERT: Oh, thanks for having me.
Link to audio interview on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2014/02/11/2754047...

Source: NPR

ELIZABETH KOLBERT ON MASS EXTINCTIONS
Elizabeth Kolbert on the history of mass extinctions.

In the New Yorker - Podcast Outloud

http://www.newyorker.com/podcast/out-...

Source: New Yorker Podcast Outloud

Because I've mentioned the movie Idiocracy in a couple of comments, I'll add a link here. It isn't directly related to climate change, though I think anyone who reads The Sixth Extinction will see parallels. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

Thank you Andra - this is what this thread is for. I will have to look at it - I have not seen the movie before.

I happen to be finishing up the book Superfreakanomics as I begin The Sixth Extinction. I was surprised to find that the last chapter of Levitt and Dubner's book was entirely about the complexities of global warming and the human impact on non-human life (including extinction); while the chapter is more about the former, it does touch on the latter. I was taken more by surprised to read their rejection of what they argue are some of the alarmist attributions of global changes to human behavior.

I'm totally convinced that they would add The Sixth Extinction to the list of alarmist accounts. For anyone else who is interested, here's a link to their own summary of their arguments in this chapter, check out their own blog post in which they summarize the argument and refute its critics: http://freakonomics.com/2009/10/18/gl...

Lest my reference to Superfreakanomics seem an endorsement, it is worth noting that I suspend judgment regarding their conclusions pending more reading (of which The Sixth Extinction is a part).

Danielle that is what is scary about this - there are folks who are debunking it as alarmist when it truly is not. By the time these kinds of folks get on board it will be too late for us and them. However after reading the blog - I think what they said was that some of the solutions being proposed may be too little, too late - but then again you have to ask yourself - something needs to be done. And right now we are headed over the cliff.

Thank you for the link.

You might want to try you hand at citations - which is one of our guidelines.

You do not have to cite The Sixth Extinction because that is the book being discussed but you do have to cite other authors and other books:

by Steven D. Levitt

Bentley wrote: "Danielle that is what is scary about this - there are folks who are debunking it as alarmist when it truly is not. By the time these kinds of folks get on board it will be too late for us and the..."
Mea culpa, Bentley! I'll definite cite properly in the future. (Shameful admission: I'm a lit professor and should most certainly know better!)

That is ok Danielle we are here to help you - you will get the hang on it in no time. If you look to the right - one feature of the powerful goodreads software is keeping track of books cited and authors cited properly for our readers - it also lists other topics and other threads where the book or author is discussed.

George Cuvier



Georges Cuvier was one of the most influential figures in science during the early nineteenth century. A self-appointed referee of proper science from his stronghold in the elite Académie des Sciences, Cuvier was as successful in creating his own image as a great man of science as he was in the many areas of science he studied.

Cuvier was born on 23 August 1769, at Montbéliard, a French-speaking community in the Jura Mountains then rule by the Duke of Württemberg. Cuvier went to school at the Carolinian Academy in Stuttgart from 1784 to 1788. He was then a tutor for a noble family in Normandy. Here he first began to establish a reputation as a naturalist. In 1795 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire invited Cuvier to come to Paris. Cuvier was first appointed an assistant and later a professor of animal anatomy at the post-French revolution Musée National d'Histoire Naturelle. When Napoleon came to power Cuvier was appointed to several government positions, including State Councillor and Inspector-General of public education. After the restoration of the monarchy Cuvier still managed to preserve his status. In 1831 he was made Baron and a Peer of France. Cuvier had a deep abhorrence against a popularization or democratization of scientific knowledge.

Cuvier's scientific achievements are difficult to overestimate. It was widely recounted that he could reconstruct a skeleton based on a single bone. His work is considered the foundation of vertebrate palaeontology. Cuvier expanded Linneaun taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla. Cuvier arranged both fossils and living species in this taxonomy. Cuvier convinced his contemporaries that extinction was a fact- what had been a controversial speculation before. Cuvier strongly opposed Geoffroy's theory that all organisms were based on a basic plan or archetype and that they blended gradually one into another. Cuvier argued instead that life was divided into four distinct embranchements (life-vertebrates, molluscs, articulates (insects & crustaceans), and radiates). For Cuvier, it was function- not hypothetical relationships, that should form the basis of classification. This issue, which obviously could support or contradict a theory of evolution, was part of the famous Cuvier/Geoffroy debate in 1830. The debate has often been interpreted in the retrospect of a post-Darwin age as a debate over evolution. However the debate mostly revolved around the number of archetypes necessary to categorize all organisms. In his Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813) Cuvier proposed that new species were created after periodic catastrophic floods. His study of the Paris basin with Alexandre Brongniart established the basic principles of biostratigraphy.

Cuvier was a strong opponent of his colleague Lamarck's theory of evolution. (See Cuvier's Elegy of Lamarck) Cuvier believed there was no evidence for the evolution of organic forms but rather evidence for successive creations after catastrophic extinction events. Some of Cuvier's most influential followers were Louis Agassiz on the continent and in America, and Richard Owen in Britain.

More:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/...
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibr...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/lib...
http://www.britannica.com/biography/G...
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/georges-...
http://www.strangescience.net/cuvier.htm
by William Coleman (no photo)
by Richard Conniff
by Craig Steven Wilder
by Georges Cuvier
by Georges Cuvier

Thank you for the information and book suggestions, Quanjun.

Here is another that has a real kinship to this topic area Quanjun and by one of your favorite authors:

by Richard Dawkins

I agree that we have to do something about climate change and very soon.

Interestingly enough the Kindle version of Genome is on sale for 1.99 today. Since it may not hold up to the others but is maybe still worth a perusal, the price might make it worth it. ;-)

by Matt Ridley

Colony Collapse Disorder



Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen. Once thought to pose a major long term threat to bees, reported cases of CCD have declined substantially over the last five years. The number of hives that do not survive over the winter months – the overall indicator for bee health – has maintained an average of about 28.7 percent since 2006-2007 but dropped to 23.1 percent for the 2014-2015 winter. While winter losses remain somewhat high, the number of those losses attributed to CCD has dropped from roughly 60 percent of total hives lost in 2008 to 31.1 percent in 2013; in initial reports for 2014-2015 losses, CCD is not mentioned.

Discovering a Problem

During the winter of 2006-2007, some beekeepers began to report unusually high losses of 30-90 percent of their hives. As many as 50 percent of all affected colonies demonstrated symptoms inconsistent with any known causes of honey bee death:

Sudden loss of a colony’s worker bee population with very few dead bees found near the colony.

The queen and brood (young) remained, and the colonies had relatively abundant honey and pollen reserves.

But hives cannot sustain themselves without worker bees and would eventually die. This combination of events resulting in the loss of a bee colony has been called Colony Collapse Disorder.

Though agricultural records from more than a century ago note occasional bee “disappearances” and “dwindling” colonies in some years, it is uncertain whether the colonies had the same combination of factors associated with CCD. What we do know from the data from beekeepers for 2014/2015 is that, while colony loss from CCD has declined, colony loss is still a concern.

Dead Bees don’t Necessarily Mean CCD

Certain pesticides are harmful to bees. That’s why we require instructions for protecting bees on the labels of pesticides that are known to be particularly harmful to bees. This is one of many reasons why everyone must read and follow pesticide label instructions. When most or all of the bees in a hive are killed by overexposure to a pesticide, we call that a beekill incident resulting from acute pesticide poisoning. But acute pesticide poisoning of a hive is very different from CCD and is almost always avoidable.

There have been several incidents of acute poisoning of honey bees covered in the popular media in recent years, but sometimes these incidents are mistakenly associated with CCD. A common element of acute pesticide poisoning of bees is, literally, a pile of dead bees outside the hive entrance. With CCD, there are very few if any dead bees near the hive. Piles of dead bees are an indication that the incident is not colony collapse disorder. Indeed, heavily diseased colonies can also exhibit large numbers of dead bees near the hive.

Why It's Happening

There have been many theories about the cause of CCD, but the researchers who are leading the effort to find out why are now focused on these factors:
*Increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honey bees).
*New or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema.
*Pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control.

Stress bees experience due to management practices such as transportation to multiple locations across the country for providing pollination services.
Changes to the habitat where bees forage.
Inadequate forage/poor nutrition.
Potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above.

What is Being Done

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is leading the federal government response to CCD. In 2007, USDA established a CCD Steering Committee with representatives from other government agencies, and academia. EPA is an active participant in the CCD Steering Committee. The Steering Committee has developed the Colony Collapse Disorder Action Plan. The plan has four main components:

1. Survey/Data Collection to determine the extent of CCD and the current status of honey bee colony production and health.

2. Analysis of Bee Samples to determine the prevalence of various pests and pathogens, bee immunity and stress, and exposure to pesticides.

3. Hypothesis-Driven Research on four candidate factors including:
*new and reemerging pathogens,
*bee pests, environmental and nutritional stresses, and
pesticides.

4. Mitigative/Preventive Measures to improve bee health and habitat and to counter mortality factors.

In October 2013, the CCD Steering Committee hosted the national stakeholder conference on honey bee health. The conference brought together a broad group of stakeholders to examine the federal government's course of action to understand colony collapse disorder and honey bee health. Based on input from the stakeholders at this conference, the CCD steering committee is drafting a revised CCD and honey bee health action plan.

What EPA is Doing

Our role in the federal response to CCD is to keep abreast of and help advance research investigating pesticide effects on pollinators. While our longstanding regulatory requirements for pesticides are designed to protect beneficial insects such as bees, since 2007 we have been looking at many different ways of possibly improving pollinator protection. The Agency's efforts are now focused on EPA's role in the National Pollinator Health Strategy.
(Source: United States Environmental Protection Agency)

More:
by Keith Flynn (no photo)
by Rowan Jacobsen

The American Mastodon



The American mastodon (scientific name Mammut americanum) roamed North America from at least 3.75 million to 11,000 years ago. Mastodons, along with mammoths and modern elephants, are members of the order Proboscidea. As adults they stood between 2.5 and 3 meters (8-10 feet) at the shoulder and weighed betweeen 3500 and 5400 kilograms (4-6 tons).

Mastodons became extinct approximately 11,000 years ago. Today, paleontologists are trying to understand why.

Mastodon Bones

Their teeth had blunt cones. Mastodons probably used these teeth, as well as their tusks, to browse on herbs, shrubs, and trees.



American mastodons (Mammut americanum) are of interest because they were among the largest land animals living during the ice age (Quaternary the last 2 million years), were so widely distributed in North America, and are commonly represented by fossils. Furthermore, they have interesting historical connections. In 1739, an expedition from Montréal under the leadership of Charles Le Moyne, Baron de Longueuil, found bones and teeth on a journey down the Ohio River toward the Mississippi. But it was not until 1799 that the great French anatomist, Georges, Baron Cuvier, first recognized that they belonged to an elephant-like animal he called mastodon ("nipple tooth"). However, the Scottish naturalist Robert Kerr in 1792 first provided a scientific name Elephas americanus for the American mastodon, based on its unique cheek teeth "covered uniformly with enamel and furnished with a double row of high conic processes." Thomas Jefferson made it a duty of the explorers Lewis and Clark to learn of the existence of mastodons in the "West".

Compared to living elephants and mammoths, American mastodons tended to have straighter tusks and squatter (between 2 and 3 m in shoulder height), longer bodies (about 4.5 m). Generally, females were smaller. The upper tusks (enlarged second upper incisor teeth) extended 2 m or more beyond the sockets. Some mastodons had vestigial tusks in their lower jaw, but often they were lost by maturity.Male tusks are larger and heavier than those of females. The tusks show annual growth rings produced in part by seasonal variation in growth rate. Analysis of oxygen isotope composition in the rings can indicate season of death in a mastodon. Mastodon cheek teeth usually have several low, paired cusps constructed of thick enamel and are quite different in appearance from the series of appressed enamel plates that characterize cheek teeth of mammoths and modern elephants. During the life of the mastodonl, six molar-like teeth developed in each side of each jaw, making 24 in all. The teeth increased in size from tiny first premolars to massive third molars (the only teeth that remained in the jaw in old age). The teeth grew forward into position as in living elephants and mammoths.

American mastodons had coats of fine underwool, overlain by coarser guard hairs ranging from amber to dark brown. Judge Miller, in describing the discovery and appearance of a skeleton at Shawangunk, New York stated that "... around and in the immediate vicinity were locks and tufts of hair of dun brown, of an inch and a half to two inches and a half long and, in some instances, from four to seven inches in length."

Although there is controversy about its authenticity, the figure of an elephant-like animal incised on the surface of a whelk shell from peat deposits near Holly Oak, Delaware may provide a glimpse of the American mastodon as it appeared to Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago. The shell, collected in 1864, seems to have been used as a pendant, for two holes are bored in one end. The engraving shows a long, squat "elephant" with abundant hair and rather short, straight tusks. All its features are consistent with what is known of the appearance of the American mastodon, based on other evidence.

Mastodons (family Mammutidae) originated some 35 million years ago in North Africa, spreading to Eurasia about 20 million years ago, and entering North America via the Bering Isthmus (now Bering Strait) approximately 15 million years ago. Miomastodon (considered by some as Zyglolophodon), which lived during the Miocene (some 22 to 6 million years ago) in Eurasia and North America, gave rise to both the American mastodon (Mammut americanum) and its closest known relative, Borson's mastodon (Mammut borsoni), which lived in Europe about 3 million years ago. The earliest records of the American mastodon are from Washington and Idaho, and extend back about 3.7 million years. Between about 1.8 and 0.4 million years ago, the species occurred in Nebraska, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, as well as Washington, Idaho, and Florida.

Toward the close of the last glaciation (10,000 years ago) (1), American mastodons ranged from Alaska and the Yukon to central Mexico, and from Pacific to Atlantic coasts. Indeed, teeth have been dredged up by fishermen off the Atlantic Coast. Specimens have been found as far as 300 km from the present shoreline. Presumably, mastodons lived in areas of conifer forest and marsh on the Continental Shelf during a period of glacially-lowered sea levels about 20,000 years ago.

Environmental changes evidently affected mastodons. Members of the species associated with pine parkland in the Ozarks during the middle of the last glaciation were small with rugged teeth, whereas those associated with later full-glacial spruce woodlands or forests in the same region were large and had smooth teeth indicative of optimum conditions.

In Canada, most mastodon remains (more than 60 specimens) have been found in deposits that predate the last glaciation in southern Ontario. Fossils are known from every province and territory except Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

One of the most remarkable specimens is the Hillsborough Mastodon, which was found in 1936 by workers repairing a dam on the property of Captain Conrad Osman at Hillsborough, New Brunswick. The animal had become mired in a local swamp during a relatively warm interval of the last (Sangamonian) interglacial about 100,000 years ago. Despite the massive size of the bones, a study of tooth-wear suggests that the animal was a young adult, perhaps 15 to 18 years old at death. It is estimated to have weighed about 8.3 tonnes. Associated "dung balls" contain cut wood fragments and much clay. A cast of the skeleton is displayed at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John. Mastodon remains of similar age are known from sink holes at Miller Creek and East Milford, Nova Scotia. At the latter site, remains of an adult skeleton and a 7 year old were found with frog and turtle remains.

What did American mastodons eat? Of nine well-preserved specimens, two had food in the mouth (twigs of larch, and resins and tars with a high percentage of spruce pollen and some of pine, grass and composites). The remainder had stomach contents consisting of hemlock and cedar wood, conifer twigs, swamp plants and mosses. Nearly 250 litres of plant material were in the stomach of a mastodon found at Hackettstown, New Jersey. Perhaps mastodons used their tusks to pry off and break branches into bite-size pieces. When both tusks are preserved, one is usually shorter indicating preferential use (the way people are right-or left-handed).

In the Great Lakes region, mastodons are usually associated with other browsing animals adapted to forests, such as beavers (Castor), giant beavers (Castoroides) and giant moose (Cervalces). Elsewhere, they are often associated with grazers of more open country, such as mammoths (Mammuthus), horses (Equus) and bison (Bison). There is good evidence from Friesenhahn Cave in Texas that American scimitar cats (Homotherium serum) preyed on young mastodons.

Also, Paleo-Indians occasionally hunted mastodons from the Pacific Coast to the Great Lakes. In 1977, a bone projectile point was found embedded in a mastodon rib near Sequim, Washington. Evidently people living in a shrub-tundra landscape had killed and butchered the animal near a pond about 12,000 years ago. Mastodons were also butchered in southwestern Michigan about the same period. And stone tools characteristic of the Clovis culture were found directly associated with mastodon bones at Kimmswick, Missouri. Although people may have contributed to mastodon extinction, which occurred about 9000 years ago, rapidly changing climate seems to have been a more significant factor. Perhaps the resulting severe changes in plant community structure and composition changes unprecedented in earlier parts of the ice age were mainly responsible for the extinction of the American mastodon.

C.R. Harington, Canadian Museum of Nature
March, 1996
Reproduced courtesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
(Source: Illinois State Museum and Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre)

More:
by Brad Ricca (no photo)
by Stanley J. Olsen (no photo)

Sounds fabulous Quanjun - are you a scientist or majoring in science?

Very good - are you a college student or grad student - you seem very interested in this area.

You seem very interested in this subject matter so you should pursue that direction.

George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon



Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon was a mathematician, naturalist and author whose beliefs and theories greatly influenced the way other naturalists after his time thought. He is said to be the father of natural history for the latter part of that century.

Early Life and Education

Georges-Louis Leclerc was born on September 7, 1707 into a wealthy family in Montbard, France. His father was Benjamin Francois Leclerc, a local official who was in charge of salt tax and his mother was Anne Cristine Marlin who was also part of a family of minor local officials. Marlin, unlike other women at that time, was a very curious woman and was fond of learning about new things. This trait caused Leclerc to often claim that his curious and intelligent disposition came from her.

He was named after Georges Blaisot, his godfather, who was also an uncle of his mother. He was the Duke of Savoy’s tax collector. Upon his death, he left a considerable amount of fortune to the Leclercs as he remained childless at the time of his birth. They then bought an estate that gave his father the title of Lord of Buffon and Montbard. From then on, he was known as Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon. They moved to Dijon into a new mansion as his father became one of the ad visors in the Parliament of Burgundy. He inherited the entire estate when he turned 25.

Because they were well off, Leclerc never lacked the education that was considered a privilege for other kids his age. He attended the Jesuit Institute College des Godrans where he studied mathematics. He immediately showed a high degree of curiosity about almost everything he learns and often found the need to question a lot of things that were taught to him. Despite his obvious passions, his father insisted that he study law, which he started doing in 1723. He then attended Angers University in 1728 where he continued studying mathematics, as well as medicine and botany.

In 1752, he married Francoise de Saint-Belin-Malain, but she died 17 years later in 1769. She bore him one son in 1764, who died by guillotine in 1794.

Most Important Contributions

In 1727, while still attending College des Godrans, Leclerc learned about the theory on binomials and its formula that gives you the power of any binomial without having to multiply a long series of numbers. The same year, he theorized that the sun’s collision with a comet caused the formation of the planets. This has of course been proved to be impossible, but this marked a new era in science as it was the pioneering theory about the creation that did not involve God in the equation. It was stated from a purely scientific point of view and relied solely on the laws of physics that were set during that period of time.

Leclerc did not restrict himself to specific fields of expertise. He continued to explore different aspects that surrounded plant physiology, physics, astronomy and even ship construction. With each field of learning also came a lot of questions from him, as he analyzed and doubted a lot of the dogmas that were believed in and taught during his time. He recorded his discoveries and theories in a series of writings that discussed everything from the body structure and living habits of bats from South America and continued on to discuss the possible causes of being cross-eyed, a condition scientifically known as strabismus. There were 36 volumes all in all, with the entire collection called as Histoire Naturelle, Generale et Particuliere, which meant Natural History, General and Particular in English. The series was written as a form of encyclopedia and was completed over a 37-year period from 1749 to 1786.

Leclerc had a solid belief in organic change, but was not entirely able to discuss how these changes occurred and how they were completed. He religiously claimed that he published another set of writings called Les Epoques de la Nature in 1788 which again became controversial because of the way he openly negated the church’s claims that the world has been in existence for 6,000 years at that time. He theorized that this planet has been around long before that.

In 1777, Leclerc decided to do an experiment by dropping a needle on a lined piece of paper or floor. This was an experiment that showed how the probability of this needle crossing any of the lines on the floor or paper is in direct relation to pi’s value. This experiment on probability is now famously called as Buffon’s Needle.

Leclerc was acknowledged by several experts that came after him as someone who introduced a lot of ideas during his time with the highest scientific spirits. Ernst Mayr was quoted as saying that Leclerc was the first one to point out a lot of loopholes in the way evolution was taught. He was also seen to have brought about the early stages of comparative anatomy because of his beliefs in the unity of type. He made the first correlation between parent and child, saying that there are traits that are passed onto the offspring.

Other Contributions and Achievements

Leclerc was the one who translated Fluxions by Isaac Newton into French. He did the same thing for Vegetable Staticks by Stephen Hale. He showed his affinity with natural science when he became the administrator and director of the finest botanical garden in all of France, the Jardin des Plantes formerly known as Jardin du Roi, in 1739. While still holding this position, he was dubbed as a count in 1773. He held this position until his death. He died on April 16, 1788 in Paris, France.

Leclerc was not exactly the most popular scientist during his time mostly because he went against a lot of people, even those who have been scientists long before him. Because of this, his intelligence was not entirely celebrated by many. He continuously challenged the known authorities in chemistry, biology, mathematics, geology and theology. He did not respond to criticism either as he sees this to be beneath his dignity.
(Source: Famous Scientists)

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by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon