Nature: January 2004 Archive Page

We copulate, we procreate, the species thrives. Love and every other emotion that we connect to it are the froth of nature?s wildness. But if it is froth, it is wonderful froth. But I think that stepping back and admitting that romantic love is not an entity with a life of its own allows us to recognize that love, even romantic love, takes its likeness and continuity from the stories we tell about it. And as stories change, so does that experience. --John Spurlock --Love and Lovesickness 2 (The Blue Monkey Review)

Richard Dawkins's theory of the "meme" (a cultural unit that spreads, almost like a living virus, from brain to brain) is very useful in deconstructing cultural truths that are powerful because they work extremely well. Have you read the story of the creation of the diamond engagement ring custom? It does a great job deconstructing that particular "timeless" myth. (I recently blogged about diamond engagement rings.)

Mars Express, circling high above the surface, made the discovery on the Red Planet's south pole, said agency scientist Jean-Pierre Bibring -- an indication that Mars may once have sustained life. --Europe probe detects Mars water ice (CNN)

Interesting... CNN's European version of the Mars story says "More than 40 years of Mars exploration have yielded inconclusive evidence of whether water was present on the planet," while the American version of the story doesn't interpret the previous finds as inconclusive at all: "NASA's Mars Odyssey, also an orbiter, confirmed water ice at the north pole, along with dry ice -- frozen carbon dioxide -- in 2002."

So who gets credit for the discovery?

Light playing on water drops, dust or ice crystals in the atmosphere produces a host of visual spectacles - rainbows, halos, glories, coronas and many more. Some can be seen almost every day or so, some are once in a lifetime sights. Find out where to see them and how they form. Then seek and enjoy them outdoors. --Les Cowley --Atmospheric Optics

The huge index shows probably hundreds of images. I particularly liked the fogbow and the glory.

A good man-eating plant needs a deep root structure to anchor it in place when the man it's eating flails and fights for its life. So the deeper the seed, the stronger the root system. This is why you need so much blood meal. The man-eating plant doesn't care where it gets its blood. Whether in the hellish depths of earth or in the burning shine of the sun, it only thirsts -- at this point -- for blood protein. --Michael A. Arnzen --How to grow a man-eating plant (Eternal Night)

Mike is my next-door neighbor here on The Hill. I can't remember... does he have any plants in his office?

According to Mike, this story made the Top 10 "Best Horror Stories of 2003" in an online poll, and voting is still open through 21 Jan. Check out his humbly-worded entry in The Goreletter.

LBV-1806-20 may have formed in what Eikenberry called "violent, triggered star formation." In the process, a huge, massive star reaches the end of its lifespan and explodes in an intense supernova. The shockwave from that supernova then hits a young star just as its forming, compressing gas around it quickly -- over a period of 100,000 years or so -- at forces greater than the star is able to blow off on its own. --Biggest, Brightest Star Puzzles Astronomers (Space.com)

Plenty of space news lately, what with new photos from Mars, a comet-chasing probe, and the leak on the International Space Station.