Living Dunes

充满生机的沙丘

When you think of a sand dune, you probably picture a barren pile of lifeless sand. But

sand dunes are actually dynamic natural structures. They grow, shift and travel. They

crawl with living things. Some sand dunes even sing.

A )Although no more than a pile of wind-blown sand, dunes can roll over trees and

buildings, march relentlessly across highways, devour vehicles on its path, and threaten

crops and factories in Africa, the Middle East, and China. In some places, killer dunes even

roll in and swallow up towns. Entire villages have disappeared under the sand. In a few

instances the government built new villages for those displaced only to find that new

villages themselves were buried several years later. Preventing sand dunes from

overwhelming cities and agricultural areas has become a priority for the United Nations

Environment Program.

B )Some of the most significant experimental measurements on sand movement were

performed by Ralph Bagnold, a British engineer who worked in Egypt prior to World War

II. Bagnold investigated the physics of particles moving through the atmosphere and

deposited by wind. He recognised two basic dune types, the crescentic dune, which he

called "barchan", and the linear dune, which he called longitudinal or "sief" (Arabic for

"sword"). The crescentic barchan dune is the most common type of sand dune. As its

name suggests, this dune is shaped like a crescent moon with points at each end, and it is

usually wider than it is long. Some types of barchan dunes move faster over desert sur-

faces than any other type of dune. The linear dune is straighter than the crescentic dune

with ridges as its prominent feature. (Jnlike crescentic dunes, linear dunes arc longer than

they are widein fact, some are more than 100 miles (about 160 kilometers) long. Dunes

can also be comprised of smaller dunes of different types, called complex dunes.

C )Despite the complicated dynamics of dune formation, Bagnold noted that a sand dune

generally needs the following three things to form: a large amount of loose sand in an

area with little vegetation--usually on the coast or in a dried-up river, lake or sea bed; a

wind or breeze to move the grains of sand; and an obstacle, which could be as small as a
rock or as big as a tree, that causes the sand to lose momentum and settle. Where these

three variables merge, a sand dune forms.

D ）As the wind picks up the sand, the sand travels, but generally only about an inch or

two above the ground，until an obstacle causes it to stop. The heaviest grains settle

against the obstacle, and a small ridge or bump forms. The lighter grains deposit

themselves on the other side of the obstacle. Wind continues to move sand up to the top

of the pile until he pile is so steep that it collapses under its own weight. The collapsing

sand comes to rest when it reaches just the right steepness to keep the dune stable. The

repeating cycle of sand inching up the windward side to the dune crest, then slipping

down the dune‘s slip face allows the dune to inch forward, migrating in the direction

the wind blows.

E ）Depending on the speed and direction of the wind and the weight of the local sand,

dunes will develop into different shapes and sizes. Stronger winds tend to make taller

dunes; gentler winds tend to spread them out. If the direction of the wind generally is the

same over the years, dunes gradually shift in that direction. But a dune is curiously

dynamic creatureM, wrote Farouk El-Baz in National Geographic. Once formed, a dune

can grow, change shape, move with the wind and even breed new dunes. Some of these

offspring may be carried on the back of the mother dune. Others are bom and race

downwind, outpacing their parents.

F ）Sand dunes even can be heard 'singing' in more than 30 locations worldwide，and in

each place the sounds have their own characteristic frequency, or note. When the

thirteenth century explorer Marco Polo encountered the weird and wonderful noises

made by desert sand dunes, he attributed them to evil spirits. The sound is unearthly. The

volume is also unnerving. Adding to the tone's otherworldliness is the inability of the

human ear to localise the source of the noise. Stephane Douady of the French national

research agency CNRS and his colleagues have been delving deeper into dunes in

Morocco, Chile, China and Oman, and believe they can now explain the exact mechanism

behind this acoustic phenomenon.

G ）The group hauled sand back to the laboratory and set it up in channels with

automated pushing plates. The sands still sang, proving that the dune itself was not

needed to act as a resonating body for the sound, as some researchers had theorised. To

make the booming sound, the grains have to be of a small range of sizes, all alike in

shape: well- rounded. Douady's key discovery was that this synchronised frequency--

which determines the tone of sound一is the result of the grain size. The larger the grain,

the lower the key. He has successfully predicted the notes emitted by dunes in Morocco,

Chile and the US simply by measuring the size of the grains they contain. Douady also

discovered that the singing grains had some kind of varnish or a smooth coating of

various minerals: silicon, iron and manganese, which probably formed on the sand when

the dunes once lay beneath an ancient ocean. But in the muted grains this coat had been

worn away, which explains why only some dunes can sing. He admits he is unsure exactly

what role the coating plays in producing the noise. The mysterious dunes, it seems, aren't

quite ready yet to give up all of their secrets.

Storytelling
Storytelling, From Prehistorie Caves To Modern Cinemas

讲故事，从史前洞穴到现代影院

A )It was told, we suppose, to people crouched around a fire: a tale of adventure, most

likely-relating some close encounter with death; a remarkable hunt, an escape from

mortal danger; a vision, or something else out of the ordinary. Whatever its thread, the

weaving of this story was done with a prime purpose. The listeners must be kept

listening. They must not fall asleep. So. as the story went on, its audience should be

sustained by one question above all. What happens next?

B )The first fireside stories in human history can never be known. They were kept in the

heads of those who told them. This method of storage is not necessarily inefficient. From

documented oral traditions in Australia, the Balkans and other parts of the world we

know that specialised storytellers and poets can recite from memory literally thousands

of lines, in verse or prose, verbatim-word for word. But while memory is rightly
considered an art in itself, it is clear that a primary purpose of making symbols is to have

a system of reminders or mnemonic cues-signs that assist us to recall certain information

in the mind's eye.

C )In some Polynesian communities a notched memory stick may help to guide a

storyteller through successive stages of recitation. But in other parts of the world, the

activity of storytelling historically resulted in the development or even the invention of

writing systems. One theory about the arrival of literacy in ancient Greece, for example,

argues that the epic tales about the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus-

traditionally attributed to Homer-were just so enchanting to hear that they had to be

preserved. So the Greeks, c. 750-700BC, borrowed an alphabet from their neighbors in

the eastern Mediterranean, the Phoenicians.

D )The custom of recording stories on parchment and other materials can be traced in

many manifestations around the world, from the priestly papyrus archives of ancient

Egypt to the birch-bark scrolls on which the North American Ojibway Indians set down

their creation- myth. It is a well-tried and universal practice: so much so that to this day

storytime is probably most often associated with words on paper. The formal practice of

narrating a story aloud would seem-so we assume-to have given way to newspapers,

novels and comic strips. This, however, is not the case. Statistically it is doubtful that the

majority of humans currently rely upon the written word to get access to stories. So what

is the alternative source?

E )Each year,over 7 billion people will go to watch the latest offering from Hollywoodt

Bollywood and beyond. The supreme storyteller of today is cinema. The movies, as

distinct from stilt photography, seem to be an essentially modem phenomenon. This is an

illusion, for there are, as we shall see. certain ways in which the medium of film is

indebted to very old precedents of arranging “sequences” of images. But any account

of visual storytelling must begin with the recognition that all storytelling beats with a

deeply atavistic pulse: that is,a 'good story' relies upon formal patterns of plot and

characterisation that have been embedded in the practice of storytelling over many

generations.

F )Thousands of scripts arrive every week at the offices of the major film studios. But

aspiring screenwriters really need look no further for essential advice than the fourth-
century BC Greek Philosopher Aristotle. He left some incomplete lecture notes on the art

of telling stories in various literary and dramatic modes, a slim volume known as The

Poetics. Though he can never have envisaged the popcorn-fuelled actuality of a multiplex

cinema, Aristotle is almost prescient about the key elements required to get the crowds

flocking to such a cultural hub. He analyzed the process with cool rationalism. When a

story enchants us, we lose the sense of where we are; we are drawn into the story so

thoroughly that we forget it is a story being told. This is?in Aristotle's phrase, the

suspension of disbelief.

G )We know the feeling. If ever we have stayed in our seats, stunned with gnef,as the

credits roll by, or for days after seeing that vivid evocation of horror have been nervous

about taking a shower at home, then we have suspended disbelief. We have been caught,

or captivated, in the storyteller's web. Did it all really happen? We realty thought so~for a

while. Aristotle must have witnessed often enough this suspension of disbelief. He taught

at Athens, the city where theater developed a$ a primary form of civic ritual and

recreation. Two theatrical types of storytelling, tragedy and comedyt caused Athenian

audiences to lose themselves in sadness and laughter respectively. Tragedy, for Aristotle,

was particularly potent in its capacity to enlist and then purge the emotions of those

watching the story unfold on the stage, so he tried to identify those factors in the

storyteller's art that brought about such engagement. He had, as an obvious sample for

analysis, not only the fifth- century BC masterpieces of Classical Greek tragedy written by

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Beyond them stood Homer, whose stories even then

had canonical status: The Iliad and The Odyssey were already considered literary

landmarks-stories by which all other stories should be measured. So what was the secret

of Homer's narrative art?

H It was not hard to find. Homer created credible heroes. His heroes belonged to the

past, they were mighty and magnificent, yet they were not, in the end, fantasy figures. He

made his heroes sulk, bicker, cheat and cry. They were, in short, characters~protagonists

of a story that an audience would care about, would want to follow, would want to know

what happens next. As Aristotle saw, the hero who shows a human side-some flaw or

weakness to which mortals are prone~is intrinsically dramatic.

 The Forgotten Forest

被遗忘的森林

Found only in the Deep South of America, longleafpine woodlands have dwindled to

about 3 percent of their former range, but new efforts are under way to restore them.

THE BEAUTY AND THE BIODIVERSITY of the longleaf pine forest are well-kept secrets,

even in ：its native South. Yet it is among the richest ecosystems in North America,

rivaling tallgrass prairies and the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest in the number

of spedes it shelters. And like : those two other disappearing wildlife habitats, longleaf is

also critically endangered.

In longleaf pine forests, trees grow widely scattered, creating an open, parklike

environment, more like a savanna than a forest. The trees are not so dense as to block

the sun. This openness r creates a forest floor that is among the most diverse in the

world, where plants such as many-flowered grass pinks, trumpet pitcher plants, Venus

flytraps, lavender ladies and pineland bog- ! buttons grow. As many as 50 different

spedes of wildflowers, shrubs, grasses and ferns have been I cataloged in just a single

square meter.

Once, nearly 92 million acres of longleaf forest flourished from Virginia to Texas, the only

place in the world where it is found. By the turn of the 21st century, however, virtually all

of it had i been logged, paved or farmed into oblivion. Only about 3 percent of the

original range still supports longleaf forest, and only about 10,000 acres of that is uncut

old-growth-the rest is forest j that has regrown after cutting. An estimated 100,000 of

those acres are still vanishing every year. ! However, a quiet movement to reverse this

trend is rippling across the region. Governments, i private organisations (including NWF)

and individual conservationists are looking for ways to ; protect and preserve the

remaining longleaf and to plant new forests for future generations.

Figuring out how to bring back the piney woods also will allow biologists to help the

plants ; and animals that depend on this habitat. Nearly two-thirds of the declining

threatened or I endangered spedes in the southeastern United States are associated with

longleaf. The outright destruction of longleaf is only part of their story, says Mark
Danaher, the biologist for South Caro- v lina's Francis Marion National Forest. He says the

demise of these animab and plants also is tied j to a lack of fire, which once swept

through the southern forests on a regular basis. "Fire is absolutely critical for this

ecosystem and for the species that depend on it," says Danaher. !

Name just about any spedes that occurs in longleaf and you can find a connection to fire.

Bach- j man's sparrow is a secretive bird with a beautiful song that echoes across the

longleaf flatwoods.It tucks its nest on the ground beneath clumps of wiregrass and little

bluestem in the open under-story. But once fire has been absent for several years, and a

tangle of shrubs starts to grow, the sparrows disappear Gopher tortoises, the only native

land tortoises east of the Mississippi, are also abundant in longleaf. A keystone species

for these forests, its burrows provide homes and safety to more than 300 species of

vertebrates and invertebrates ranging from eastern diamond- back rattlesnakes to

gopher frogs. If fire is suppressed, however, the tortoises are choked out. "If we lose fire",

says Bob Mitchell, an ecologist at the Jones Center, "we lose wildlife."

Without fire, we also lose longleaf. Fire knocks back the oaks and other hardwoods that

can grow up to overwhelm longleaf forests. They are fire forests," Mitchell says. "They

evolved in the lightning capital of the eastern United States."And it wasn't only lightning

strikes that set the forest aflame. '"Native Americans also lit fires to keep the forest

open," Mitchell says. "So did the early pioneers. They helped create the longleaf pine

forests that we know today."

Fire also changes how nutrients flow throughout longleaf ecosystems, in ways we are just

beginning to understand. For example, researchers have discovered that frequent fires

provide extTa calcium, which is critical for egg production, to endangered red-cockaded

woodpeckers. Frances James, a retired avian ecologist from Florida State University, has

studied these small black- and-white birds for more than two decades in Florida's

sprawling Apalachicola National Forest. When she realised female woodpeckers laid

larger clutches in the first breeding season after their territories were burned, she and her

colleagues went searching for answers. wWe learned caldum is stashed away in woody

shrubs when the forest is not burned/ James says. wBut when there is a fire, a pulse of

calcium moves down into the soil and up into the longleaf. Eventually, this calcium makes

its way up the food chain to a tree-dwelling species of ant, which is the red- cockaded's
favorite food. The result: more caldum for the birds, which leads to more eggs, more

young and more woodpeckers.

Today, fire is used as a vital management tool for preserving both longleaf and its

wildlife. Most of these fires are prescribed burns, deliberately set with a drip torch.

Although the public often opposes any type of fire--and the smoke that goes with it--

these frequent, low-intensity bums reduce the risk of catastrophic conflagrations.

wForests are going to bum/ says Amadou Diop, NWF's southern forests restoration

manager. It‘s just a question of when. With prescribed bums, we can pick the time and

the placed."

Diop is spearheading a new NWF effort to restore longleaf. "'It's a species we need to go

back to/ he says. Educating landowners about the advantages of growing longleaf is part

of the program, he adds, which will soon be under way in nine southern states. "Right

now, most longleaf is on public land," says Jerry McCollum, president of the Georgia

Wildlife Federation. "Private land is where we need to work," he adds, pointing out that

more than 90 percent of the acreage within the historic range of longleaf falls under this

category.

Interest among private landowners is growing throughout the South, but restoring

longleaf is not an easy task. The herbaceous layer--the understory of wiregrasses and

other plants--also needs to be re-created. In areas where the land has not been chewed

up by farming, but converted to loblolly or slash pine plantations, the seed bank of the

longleaf forest usually remains viable beneath the soil. In time, this original vegetation

can be coaxed back. Where agriculture has destroyed the seeds, however, wiregrass must

be replanted. Right now, the expense is prohibitive, but researchers are searching for

low-cost solutions.

Bringing back longleaf is not for the short-sighted, however. Few of us will be alive when

the pines being planted today become mature forests in 70 to 80 years. But that is not

stopping longleaf enthusiasts. Today,it's getting hard to find longleaf seedlings to buy,"

one of the private landowners says. "Everyone wants them. Longleaf is in a resurgence."
 Accidental Scientists

A）A paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are

looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if,

on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know

when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In the philosophy

of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivism and inductivism: In

the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start

with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and

see what turns up.

B）As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in

between these two impossible-to-realise extremes. You want to have a good enough

idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value,

and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative

outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too

much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a position something like that. !t9s a

fascinating word, and the late Robert King Merton—“the father of the sociology of

science”一liked it well enough to compose its biography, assisted by the French cultural

historian Elinor Barber

C ）The word did not appear in the published literature until the early 19th century and

did not become well enough known to use without explanation until sometime in the

first third of the 20th century. Serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant

surprise”, specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking

for it. The first noted use of ^serendipity^ in the English language was by Horace

Walpole. He explained that it came from the fairy tale, called The Three Princes of

Serendip (the ancient name for Ceylon, or present day Sri Lanka), whose heroes 4

D ）Antiquarians, following Walpole, found use for it, as they were always rummaging

about for curiosities, and unexpected but pleasant surprises were not unknown to them.

Some people just seemed to have a knack for that sort of thing, and serendipity was used

to express that special capacity. The other community that came to dwell on serendipity

to say something important about their practice was that of scientists, and here usages
cut to the heart of the matter and were often vigorously contested. Many scientists,

including the Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon and, later, the British immunologist

Peter Medawar, liked to emphasise how much of scientific discovery was unplanned and

even accidental. One of the examples is Hans Christian 0rsted's discovery of

electromagnetism when he unintentionally brought a current-carrying wire parallel to a

magnetic needle. Rhetoric about the sufficiency of rational method was so much hot air.

Indeed, as Medawar insisted, *There is no such thing as The Scientific Method,M no way

at all of systematising the process of discovery. Really important discoveries had a way of

showing up when they had a mind to do so and not when you were looking for them.

Maybe some scientists,like some book collectors, had a happy knack; maybe serendipity

described the situation rather than a personal skill or capacity.

E ）Some scientists using the word meant to stress those accidents belonging to the

situation; some treated serendipity as a personal capacity; many others exploited the

ambiguity of the notion. Yet what Cannon and Medawar took as a benign nose-thumbing

at Dreams of Method, other scientists found incendiary. To say that science had a

significant serendipitous aspect was taken by some as dangerous denigration. If scientific

discovery were really accidental, then what was the special basis of expert authority? In

this connection, the aphorism of choice came from no less an authority on scientific

discovery than Louis Pasteur: ^Chance favors the prepared mind." Accidents may happen,

and things may turn up unplanned and unforeseen, as one is looking for something else,

but the ability to notice such events, to see their potential bearing and meaning, to

exploit their occurrence and make constructive use of them—these are the results of

systematic mental preparation. What seems like an accident is just another form of

expertise. On closer inspection, it is insisted, accident dissolves into sagacity.

F） The context in which scientific serendipity was most contested and had its greatest

resonance was that connected with the idea of planned science. The serendipitists were

not all inhabitants of academic ivory towers. As Merton and Barber note, two of the great

early-20th- century American pioneers of industrial research—Willis Whitney and Irving

Langmuir, both of General Electric—made much play of serendipity, in the course of

arguing against overly rigid research planning. Langmuir thought that misconcqtions

about the certainty and rationality of the research process did much harm and that a
mature acceptance of uncertainty was far more likely to result in productive research

policies. For his own part, Langmuir said that satisfactory outcomes c So, from within the

bowels of corporate capitalism came powerful arguments, by way of serendipity, for

scientific spontaneity and autonomy. The notion that industry was invariably committed

to the regimentation of scientific research just doesn't wash.

G ）For Merton himself--who one supposes must have been the senior author—

serendipity represented the keystone in the arch of his social scientific work. In 1936, as a

very young man, Merton wrote a seminal essay on The Unanticipated Consequences of

Purposive Social Action. It is, he aigued, the nature of social action that what one intends

is rarely what one gets: Intending to provide resources for buttressing Christian religion,

the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution laid the groundwork for secularism;

people wanting to be alone with nature in Yosemite Valley wind up crowding one

another. We just don't know enough—and we can never know enough—to ensure that

the past is an adequate guide to the future: Uncertainty about outcomes, even of our

best-laid plans, is endemic. AH social action, including that undertaken with the best

evidence and formulated according to the most rational criteria, is uncertain in its

consequences.

Tasmanian Tiger

塔斯马尼亚虎

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading

Passage 2 below

Although it was called tiger, it looked like a dog with black stripes on its back and it was

the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modem times. Yet, despite its fame for being

one of the most fabled animals in the world, it is one of the least understood of

Tasmania's native animals. The scientific name for the Tasmanian tiger is Thylacine and it

is believed that they have become extinct in the 20th century.

Fossils of thylacines dating from about almost 12 million years ago have been dug up at

various places in Victoria, South Austnilia and Western Australia. They were widespread in

Australia 7000 years ago, but have probably been extinct on the continent for 2000 years.
This is believed to he because of the introduction of dingoes around 8000 years ago.

Because of disease, thylacine numbers may have been declining in Tasmania at the time

of European settlement 200 years ago, but the decline was certainly accelerated by tlie

new arrivals. The last known Tasmanian Tiger died in Hobart Zoo in 1936 and the aninml

is officially dassilied jis extinct. Technically, this means that it has not been ofiicially

sighted in the wild or captivity for 50 years. However, there are still unsubstantiated

sightings.

Hans Naarding, whose study of animalii had taken him around the world, was conducting

a survey of a species of endangered migratory, bird. What he saw that night is now

regarded as the most credible sighting recorded of thylacine that many believe has been

extinct for more than 70 years.

"I had to work at night",Naarding Uikes up the story. "I was in the habit of inlermittently

shining a spotliglit around. The beam fell on an animal in front of the vehicle, less tlian

10m away. Instead of risking movement by grabbing for a camera, I decided to register

very cairefiilly what I was seeing. The animal was about the size of a small shepherd dog,

a very healthy male in prime condition. What set it apart from a dog, though, was a

slightly sloping hindquarten with a fairly thick tail being a straight continuation of the

backline of the animal. It had 12 distinct stripes on its hack, continuing onto its butt. I

knew perfectly well what I was seeing. As soon as I reachetl for the camera, it disappeared

into the tea-tree underprowth and scrub."

The director of Tasmania's National parks at the time, Peter Morrow, decided in his

wisdom to keep Naarding's sighting of the thylacine secret for two years. When the news

finally broke, it was accompanied by pandemonium. I was besieged by television crews,

including four to five from Japan, and otliers from the United Kingdom, Germany, New

Zealand and South Ainerica,w said Naarding.

Government and private search parties combed the region, but no further sightings were

made. The tiger, as always, had escaped to its lair, a place many insist exists only in our

imagination. But since then, the thylacine has staged something of a comeback,

becoming part of Australian mythology.

There have been more than 4,000 claimed sightings of the beast since it supposedly died

out, and the average claims each year reported to authorities now number 150. Associate
professor of zoology at the University of Tasmania, Randolph Rose, has said he dreams of

seeing a thylacine. But Rose, who in his 35 years in Tasmanian academia has fielded

countless reports of thylacine sightings, is now convinced that his dream will go

unfulfilled.

"The consensus among conservationists is that, usually, any animal with a population

base of less than 1,000 is headed for extinction within 60 years,” says Rose. “Sixty years

ago, there was only one thylacine that we know of, and that was in Hobart Zoo,he says.

Dr. David Pemberton, curator of zoology at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery,

whose PhD thesis was on the thylacine, says that despite scientific thinking that 500

animals are required to sustain a population, the Florida panther is down to a dozen or so

animals and, while it does have some inbreeding problems, is still ticking along. Mril take

a punt and say that, if we manage to find a thylacine in the scrub, it means that there are

50-plus animals out there.

After all, animals can be notoriously elusive. The strange fish known as the coelacanth,

with its "proto-legs", was thought to have died out along with the dinosaurs 700 million

years ago until a specimen was dragged to the surface in a shark net off the south-east

coast of South Africa in 1938.

Wildlife biologist Nick Mooney has the unenviable task of investigating all wsightingsw of

llie tiger totalling 4,000 since the mid-1930s, and averaging about 150 a year. It was

Mooney who was first consulted late last month about the authenticity of digital

photographic images purportedly taken by a German tourist while on a recent bushwalk

in the state. On face value, Mooney says, the account of the sighting, and the two

photographs submitted as proof, amount to one of the most convincing cases for the

species' survival he has seen.

And Mooney has seen it all—the mistakes, the hoaxes, the illusions and the plausible

accounts of sightings. Hoaxers aside, most people who report sightings end up believing

they have seen a thylaeine, and are themselves believable to the point they could pass a

lie-detector test, according to Mooney. Otliers, having tabled a creditable report, then

become utterly obsessed like the Tasmanian who has registered 99 thylacine sightings to

date. Mooney has seen individuals bankrupted by the obsession, and families destroyed.

"It is a blind optimism tliat something is, rather than a cynicism that something isn’t,”
Mooney says. “If something crosses the road, it’s not a case of ‘I wonder what tliat

was?* Rather, it is a case of 'that's a thylacine!' It is a bit like a gold prospector's blind

faith, "it has got to be there".

However, Mooney treats all reports on face value. I never try to embarrass people, or

make fools of them. But the fact that I don't pack the car immediately they ring can often

be taken as ridicule. Obsessive characters get irate tliat someone in my position is not out

there when they think the thylacine is there."

But Hans Naarding, whose sighting of a striped animal two decades ago was the

highlight of Ma life of animal spotting", remains bemused by the time and money people

waste on tiger searches. He says resources would be better applied to saving the

Tasmanian devil, and helping migratory bird populations that are declining as a result of

shrinking wetlands across Australia.

Could the thylacine still be out there? MSure,w Naarding says. But he also says any

discovery of surviving thylacines would be Mrather pointless". MHow do you save a

species from extinction? What could you do with it? If there are thylacines out there, they

are better off right where they are."

Classifying Societies

l though humans have established many types of societies throughout history,

sociologists and anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to the

degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages

such as resources, prestige or power, and usually refer to four basic types of societies.

From least to most socially complex they are clans, tribes, chiefdoms and states.

Clan

These are small-scale societies of hunters and gatherers, generally of fewer than 100

people, who move seasonally to exploit wild (undomesticated) food resources. Most

surviving hunter- gatherer groups are of this kind, such as the Hadza of Tanzania or the

San of southern Africa. Clan members are generally kinsfolk, related by descent or
marriage. Clans lack formal leaders, so there are no marked economic differences or

disparities in status among their members.

Because clans are composed of mobile groups of hunter-gatherers, their sites consist

mainly of seasonally occupied camps, and other smaller and more specialised sites.

Among the latter are kill or butchery sites條ocations where large mammals are killed and

sometimes butchered?and work sites, where tools are made or other specific activities

carried out. The base camp of such a group may give evidence of rather insubstantial

dwellings or temporary shelters, along with the debris of residential occupation.

Tribe

These are generally larger than mobile hunter-gatherer groups, but rarely number more

than a few thousand, and their diet or subsistence is based largely on cultivated plants

and domesticated animals. Typically, they are settled farmers, but they may be nomadic

with a very different, mobile economy based on the intensive exploitation of livestock.

These are generally multi-community societies, with the individual communities

integrated into the larger society through kinship ties. Although some tribes have officials

and even a wcapitalw or seat of government, such officials lack the economic base

necessary for effective use of power.

TTie typical settlement pattern for tribes is one of settled agricultural homesteads or

villages. Characteristically, no one settlement dominates any of the others in the region.

Instead, the archaeologist finds evidence for isolated, permanently occupied houses or

for permanent villages. Such villages may be made up of a collection of free-standing

houses, like those of the first farms of the Danube valley in Europe. Or they may be

clusters of buildings grouped together, for example, the pueblos of the American

Southwest, and the early farming village or small town of (^atalhoyiik in modem Turkey.

Chiefdom

These operate on the principle of ranking—differences in social status between people.

Different lineages (a lineage is a group claiming descent from a common ancestor) are

graded on a scale of prestige, and the senior lineage, and hence the society as a whole, is

governed by a chief. Prestige and rank are determined by how closely related one is to

the chief, and there is no true stratification into classes. The role of the chief is crucial.
Often, there is local specialisation in craft products, and surpluses of these and of

foodstuffs are periodically paid as obligation to the chief. He uses these to maintain his

retainers, and may use them for redistribution to his subjects. The chiefdom generally has

a center of power, often with temples, residences of the chief and his retainers, and craft

specialists. Chiefdoms vary greatly in size, but the range is generally between about 5000

and 20,000 persons.

Early State

These preserve many of the features of chiefdoms, but the ruler (perhaps a king or

sometimes a queen) has explicit authority to establish laws and also to enforce them by

the use of a standing army. Society no longer depends totally upon kin relationships： it

is now stratified into different classes. Agricultural workers and the poorer urban dwellers

form the lowest classes, with the craft specialists above, and the priests and kinsfolk of

the ruler higher still. The functions of the ruler are often separated from those of the

priest： palace is distinguished from temple. The society is viewed as a territory owned

by the ruling lineage and populated by tenants who have an obligation to pay taxes. The

central capital houses a bureaucratic administration of officials; one oi their principal

purposes is to collect revenue (often in the form of taxes and tolls) and distribute it to

government, army and craft specialists. Many early states developed complex

redistribution systems to support these essential services.

This rather simple social typology, set out by Elman Service and elaborated by William

Sanders and Joseph Marino, can be criticised, and it should not be used unthinkingly.

Nevertheless, if we are seeking to talk about early societies, we must use words and

hence concepts to do so. Service's categories provide a good framework to help organise

our thoughts.

Otters
A）Otters are scmiaqualic (or in the case of the sea otter, aquatic) monirnals. rHiey ure

mi'inbers of the Mustelid family which includes badgers, polecats, martens, weasels,

stoats an have inluibited the earth for the last 30 million years and over the years have
undergone subtle changes to the carnivore bodies to exploit the rich aquatic

environment. Otters have long liiin body and short legs~ideal for pushing dense

undergrowth or hunting in tunnels. An adult male may be up to 4 feet long and 30

pounds. Females are smaller, around 16 pounds typically. The Eurasian otter nose is

about ihc smallest among the otter species and has a characteristic shape described as a

shidlow "W".An otter's tail (or rudder, or stern) is stoul at tlie base and tapers towards the

tip where il flattens. ITiis forms part of the propulsion unit when swimming fast under

water. Oder fur consists of iwo types of hair: stout guard hairs which form a waterproof

outer covering, and undcrfiir which is dense and fine，equivalent to an otter's thermal

underwear. The fur must he kept in good condition by grooming. Sea water reduces the

waterproofing and insulating qualities of otter fur when salt water gets in the fur. This is

why freshwater pools are important to otters living on the coast. After swimming, they

wash the salts ofT in the pools and then squirm on the ground to rub dry against

vegetation.

B) Scent is used for hunting on land, for communication and for detecting danger.

Otterine sense of smell is likely to similar in sensitivity to dogs. Otters have small eyes

and arc probably short-siglited on land. Bui they do have the ability to modify the shape

of the lens in the eye to make it more spherical, and hence overcome the refraction of

water In clear water and good liglit, otters can hunt fish by sight. The otter's eyes and

nostrils are placed high on its head so that it c-an see and breulhc oven when the rest of

die body is submerg'd, "The long whiskers growing iinmnd the muzzle are used to detect

the presence of fish. They detect regular vihrutions cruised by the beat of the fish's tail as

it swims awuy. I'his tdlows otters to hunt even in very murky water. Underwater, the otter

holds its legs against the body, except for steering, and the hind end of the body is flexed

in a series of vertical undulations. River otters have webbing which extends for much

of the length of each digit, though not lo the very end. Giant otters ami sea otters have

even more prominent webs, while the Asian short-clawed otter lias no webbing-they hunt

for shrimps in ditches and paddy fields so they need the swimming speed. Otter ears are

protected by valves which close them against water pressure.

C A number of constraints and preferences limit suitable liabitats for otters. Water is a

must and the rivers must be large enough to support a healthy population of fish. Being
such shy and wary creatures. they will prefer territories where mail's activities do nol

impinge grcally. Of course, there must also be no other otter already in residence-this has

only become significant again recently as populalions start to recover. A typical range for

a mule river otter might he 25km of river, a female's range loss than half this. I lowcver,

ihc pnMluclivity of the river affecls ihis hugely and one sitidy found male ranges between

12 and 80km. Coastal oilers havr a mucli more abundant Uwd supply aiul ranges for

males and females may be just a few kilometers of coastline. Because male ranges are

usually larger, a male otter may find his range overlaps with two or three females. Otters

will eat anytliing that they can get hold of there are records of sparrows and snakes and

slugs gobbled. Apart from fish the most common prey are crayfish, oralis and water birds.

Small munmmls are occasionally taken, most mmmonly rabbits but soinelimes even

moles.

D )Eurasian otters will bretnJ any time where food is readily available. In places where

condition is more severe, Sweden for example where the lakes are frozen for much of

winter, cubs arc bom in Spring, This ensures that they are wdl grown before severe

weather returns. In the Shetlands. cubs are bam in summer when fish is more abundant.

Though otters can breed every year, some do not. Again, this depends on food

availability. Other factors such as food range and quality of the female muy have an

effect. Gestation for Eurasian otter is 63 days, with the exception of North American river

otter whose embryos may undergo delayed implantation.

E )Otters normally give birth in more secure dens to avoid disturbances. Nests are

linceing the most common). For some unknown reason, a^astal otters lend to produce

smaller litters. At five weeks they open their eyes~a liny cub of 700g. At seven weeks

they're weaned onto solid food. At five weeks they leave the nest, blinking into daylight

for the first time. After three months they finally meet the water and learn to swim. After

eight months they are hunting, though the mother still provides a lot of food herself.

Finally, after nine months she ttan chase them all away with a clear conscience, and relax-

until the next fella shows up.

F) The plight of the British oiler was recognised in the early 60s,but it wasn^t until the

late 70s that ihe chief cause was discovered. Pcslicides. such as diddrin and aldriiu were

first used in 1955 in iigriculture and other industries--these clicmiads are very persistenl
and liad already been recognised as the muse of huge declines in the population of

ficregrinc falcons, sparrowhawks and oilier predators. The pesticides entered the river

systems and the food chain-micro-organisms. fish and finally otters, with every step

increasing ihc concentration of the chemicals. From 1962 the chemicals were phased out,

but while some species recovered quickly, otter numbers did not and continued to fall

into the 80s/niis was probably mainly to habitat destruction and road deaths. Acting on

popuIations fragmented by the sudden decimalion in the 50s and 60s, the loss of just a

handful of otters in one area can make an entire population unviable and spoil the end.

G )Otter numkiers anr recovering all around Britain--populations arc growing again in the

few areas where they had remained and have expanded from those areas into the rest

of the country. This is almost entirely due to law and conservation efforts, slowing down

and reversing the destruction of suitable otter habitat and reintroductions from captive

breeding programs. Releasing captive-bred otters is seen by many as a last resort, The

argument runs that where there is no suitable habitat for them they will not survive after

release and when there is suitable habitat, natural populations should be able lo expand

inlo the area. However, reintroducing animals into a fragmented and fragile population

may add just enough im|petus for it to stabilise and expand, rather than die out. This is

what the Otter Trust accomplished the 1980s. The Otter Trust has now finished its captive

breeding program entirely. Great news because it means it is no longer needed.

Wealth In A Cold Climate

Latitude is crucial to a nations economic strength.

A） Dr William Masters was reading a book about mosquitoes when inspiration struck.

"There was this anecdote about the great yellow-fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in

1793/ Masters recalls. "This epidemic decimated the city until the first frost came.* The

inclement weather froze out the insects, allowingPhiladelphia to recover.

B） If weather could be the key to a city’s fortunes. Masters thought, then why not to

the historical fortunes of nations? And could frost lie at the heart of one of the most

enduring economic mysteries of all~~why are almost all the wealthy, industrialised
nations to be found at latitudes above 40 degrees? After two years of research, he thinks

that he has found a piece of the puzzle. Masters, an agricultural economist from Purdue

University in Indiana, and Margaret McMillan at Tufts University, Boston, show that

annual frosts are among the factors that distinguish rich nations from poor ones. Their

study is published this month in the Journal of Economic Growth. The pair speculate that

cold snaps have two main benefits~they freeze pests that would otherwise destroy crops,

and also freeze organisms, such as mosquitoes, that carry disease. The result is

agricultural abundance and a big workforce.

C） The academics took two sets of information. The first was average income for

countries, the second climate data from the University of East Anglia. They found a

curious tally between the sets. Countries having five or more frosty days a month are

uniformly rich, those with fewer than five are impoverished. The authors speculate that

the five-day figure is important; it could be the minimum time needed to kill pests in the

soil. Masters says: "For example, Finland is a small country that is growing quickly, but

Bolivia is a small country that isn't growing at all. Perhaps climate has something to do

with that." In fact, limited frosts bring huge benefits to farmers. The chills kill insects or

render them inactive; cold weather slows the break-up of plant and animal material in the

soilt allowing it to become richer; and frosts ensure a build-up of moisture in the ground

for spring, reducing dependence on seasonal rains. There are exceptions to the "cold

equals richN argument. There are well-heeled tropical places such as Hong Kong and

Singapore, a result of their superior trading positions. Likewise, not all European

countries are moneyed~in the former communist colonies, economic potential was

crushed by politics.

D） Masters stresses that climate will never be the overriding factor—the wealth of

nations is too complicated to be attributable to just one factor. Climate, he feels,

somehow combines with otherfactors~such as the presence of institutions, including

governments, and access to trading routes—to determine whether a country will do well.

Traditionally, Masters says, economists thought that institutions had the biggest effect on

the economy, because they brought order to a country in the form oft for example, laws
and property rights. With order, so the thinking went, came affluence. MBut there are

some problems that even countries with institutions have not been able to get around,

he says. uMy feeling is that, as countries get richer; they get better institutions. And the

accumulation of wealth and improvement in governing institutions are both helped by a

favourable environment, including climate。”

E） This does not mean, he insists, that tropical countries are beyond economic help and

destined to remain penniless. Instead, richer countries should change the way in which

foreign aid is given. Instead of aid being geared towards improving governance, (t should

be spent on technology to improve agriculture and to combat disease. Masters cites one

example: "There are regions in India that have been provided with irrigation~agricultural

productivity has gone up and there has been an improvement in health." Supplying

vaccines against tropical diseases and developing crop varieties that can grow in the

tropics would break the poverty cycle.

F ）Other minds have applied themselves to the split between poor and rich nations,

citing anthropological, climatic and zoological reasons for why temperate nations are the

most affluent. In 350BC, Aristotle observed that **those who live in a cold climate...are full

of spirit". Jared Diamond, from the University of California at Los Angeles, pointed out in

his book Guns, Germs and Steel that Eurasia is broadly aligned east-west, while Africa and

the Americas are aligned north-south. So, in Europe, crops can spread quickly across

latitudes because climates are similar. One of the first domesticated crops, einkom wheat,

spread quickly from the Middle East into Europe; it took twice as long for cron to spread

from Mexico to what is now the eastern United States. This easy movement along simitar

latitudes in Eurasia would also have meant a faster dissemination of other technologies

such as the wheel and writing. Diamond speculates. The region also boasted

domesticated livestock, which could provide meat, wool and motive power in the fields.

Blessed with such natural advantages, Eurasia was bound to take off economically.

G） John Gallup and Jeffrey Sachs, two US economists, have also pointed out striking

correlations between the geographical location of countries and their wealth. They note
that tropical countries between 23.45 degrees north and south of the equator are nearly

all poor In an article for the Harvard International Review, they concluded that

"development surely seems to favour the temperate-zone economies, especially those in

the northern hemisphere, and those that have managed to avoid both socialism and the

ravages of war. But Masters cautions against geographical determinism, the idea that

tropical countries are beyond hope: "Human health and agriculture can be made better

through scientific and technological research," he says, Nso we shouldn't be writing off

these countries. Take Singapore: without air conditioning, it wouldn't be rich.

Musical Maladies
Norman M. Weinberger reviews the latest work of Oliver Sacks on music.

Music and the brain are both endlessly fascinating subjects, and as a neuroscientist

specialising in auditory learning and memory, I find them especially intriguing. So I had

high expectations of Musicophilia, the latest offering from neurologist and prolific author

Oliver Sacks. And I confess to feeling a little guilty reporting that my reactions to the

book are mixed.

Sacks himself is the best part of Musicophilia. He richly documents his own life in the

book and reveals highly personal experiences. The photograph of him on the cover of the

book which shows him wearing headphones, eyes closed, clearly enchanted as he listens

to Alfred 1 Brendel perform Beethoven's Pathitique Sonata--makes a positive impression

that is borne out by the contents of the book. Sacks's voice throughout is steady and

erudite but never pontifical. He is neither self-conscious nor self-promoting.

The preface gives a good idea of what the book will deliver. In it Sacks explains that he

wants to convey the insights gleaned from the ^enormous and rapidly growing body of

work on the . neural underpinnings of musical perception and imagery, and the complex

and often bizarre disorders to which these are prone." He also stresses the importance of

Mthe simple art of observation" and Mthe richness of the human context.He wants to

combine observation and I description with the latest in technology,” he says, and to
imaginatively enter into the expe-rience of his patients and subjects. The reader can see

that Sacks, who has been practicing neurology for 40 years, is torn between the old-

fashionedw path of observation and the new-fangled, high-tech approach: He knows that

he needs to take heed of the latter， but his heart lies with the former.

The book consists mainly of detailed descriptions of cases, most of them involving

patients whom Sacks has seen in his practice. Brief discussions of contemporary

neuroscientific reports are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Part I, MHaunted by

Music," begins with the strange case of Tony Cicoria, a nonmusical, middle-aged surgeon

who was consumed by a love of music after being hit by lightning. He suddenly began to

crave listening to piano music， which _ he had never cared for in the past. He started to

play the piano and then to compose music，1 which arose spontaneously in his mind in a

u torrentw of notes. How could this happen? Was I the cause psychological? (He had had

a near-death experience when the lightning struck him.) Or was it the direct result of a

change in the auditory regions of his cerebral cortex? Electro-encephalography (EEG)

showed his brain waves to be normal in the mid-1990s, just after his trauma and

subsequent Mconversionw to music. There are now more sensitive tests, but Cicoria has

declined to undergo them; he does not want to delve into the causes of his musicality.

What a shame!

Part II, “A Range of Musicality,” covers a wider variety of topics，but unfortunately，

some of the chapters offer little or nothing that is new. For example, chapter 13, which is

five pages long, merely notes that the blind often have better hearing than the sighted.

The most interesting chapters are those that present the strangest cases. Chapter 8 is

about “amusia，”an inability to hear sounds as music， and “dysharmonia，”a highly

specific impairment of the ability to hear harmony, with the ability to understand melody

left intact. Such specific dissociationsw are found throughout the cases Sacks recounts.

To Sacks's credit, part III, "Memory, Movement and Music," brings us into the

underappreciated realm of music therapy. Chapter 16 explains how "melodic intonation

therapy" is being used to help expressive aphasic patients (those unable to express their
thoughts verbaDy following a stroke or other cerebral incident) once again become

capable of fluent speech. In chapter 20, Sacks demonstrates the near-miraculous power

of music to animate Parkinson’s patients and other people with severe movement

disorders, even those who are frozen into odd postures. Scientists cannot yet explain how

music achieves this effect.

To readers who are unfamiliar with neuroscience and music behavior, Musicophilia may

be something of a revelation. But the book will not satisfy those seeking the causes and

implications of the phenomena Sacks describes. For one thing, Sacks appears to be more

at ease dis* cussing patients than discussing experiments. And he tends to be rather

uncritical in accepting scientific findings and theories.

It's true that the causes of music-brain oddities remain poorly understood. However,

Sacks could have done more to draw out some of the implications of the careful

observations that he and other neurologists have made and of the treatments that have

been successful. For example, he might have noted that the many specific dissociations

among components of music comprehension, such as loss of the ability to perceive

harmony but not melody, indicate that there is no music center in the brain. Because

many people who read the book are likely to believe in the brain localisation of all mental

functions, this was a missed educational opportunity.

Another conclusion one could draw is that there seem to be no Mcuresff for neurological

problems involving music. A drug can alleviate a symptom in one patient and aggravate

it in another, or can have both positive and negative effects in the same patient.

Treatments mentioned seem to be almost exclusively antiepileptic medications, which

"damp down" the excitability of the brain in general; their effectiveness varies widely.

Finally, in many of the cases described here the patient with music-brain symptoms is

reported to have "normal" EEG results. Although Sacks recognises the existence of new

technologies, among them far more sensitive ways to analyze brain waves than the

standard neurological EEG test, he does not call for their use. In fact, although he exhibits
the greatest compassion for patients, he conveys no sense of urgency about the pursuit

of new avenues in the diagnosis and treatment of music-brain disorders. This absence

echoes the book's preface, in which Sacks expresses fear that wthe simple art of

observation may be lost" if we rely too much on new technologies. He does call for both

approaches, though, and we can only hope that the neurological community will

respond.

Morse Code
Morse code is being replaced by a new satellite-based system for sending distress calls
at sea. Its dots and dashes have had a good run for their money.

“Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.” Surprisingly this message,
which flashed over the airwaves in the dots and dashes of Morse code on January 31st
1997, was not a desperate transmission by a radio operator on a sinking ship. Rather, it
was a message signalling the end of the use of Morse code for distress calls in French
waters. Since 1992 countries around the world have been decommissioning their Morse
equipment with similar (if less poetic) signoffs as the world’s shipping switches over to a
new satellite-based arrangement, the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. The
final deadline for the switch-over to GMDSS is February 1st,a date that is widely seen as
the end of an era.

The code has, however, had a good history. Appropriately for a technology commonly
associated with radio operators on sinking ships, the idea of Morse code is said to have
occurred to Samuel Morse while he was on board a ship crossing the Atlantic. At the
time Morse was a painter and occasional inventor, but when another of the ship’s
passengers informed him of recent advances in electrical theory, Morse was suddenly
taken with the idea of building an electric telegraph to send message in codes. Other
inventors had been trying to do just that for the best part of a century. Morse succeeded
and is now remembered as” the father of the telegraph” partly thanks to his single
mindedness—it was 12 years, for example, before he secured money from Congress to
build his first telegraph line—but also for technical reasons.

Compared with rival electric telegraph designs, such as the needle telegraph developed
by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain, Morse’s design was very simple: it
required little more than a “key” (essentially, a spring-loaded switch) to send messages,
a clicking “sounder” to receive them, and a wire to link the two. But although Morse’s
hardware was simple, there was a catch: in order to use his equipment, operators had to
learn the special code of dots and still dashes that still bears his name. Originally, Morse
had not intended to use combinations of dots and dashes to represent individual letters.
His first code, sketched in his notebook during that transatlantic voyage ,used dots and
dashes to represent the digits 0 to 9. Morse’s idea was that messages would consist of
strings of numbers corresponding to words and phrases in a special
numbered dictionary.But Morse later abandoned this scheme and, with the help of an
associate, Alfred Vail, devised the Morse alphabet, which could be used to spell out
messages a letter at a time in dots and dashes.

At first ,the need to learn this complicated-looking code made Morse’s telegraph seem
impossibly tricky compared with other, more user-friendly designs. Cooke’s and
Wheatstone’s telegraph, For example, used five needles to pick out letters on a
diamond-shaped grid. But although this meant that anyone could use it, it also required
five wires between telegraph stations. Morse’s telegraph needed only one .And some
people, it soon transpired, had a natural facility for Morse code.

As electric telegraphy took off in the early 1850s, the Morse telegraph quickly became
dominant, It was adopted as the European standard in 1851, allowing direct connections
between the telegraph networks of different countries. (Britain chose not to participate.,
sticking with needle telegraphs for a few more years. By this time Morse code had been
revised to allow for accents and other foreign characters, resulting in a split between
American and International Morse that continues to this day.

On international submarine cables, left and right swings of a light-beam reflected from a
tiny rotating mirror were used to represent dots and dashes. Meanwhile a distinct
telegraphic subculture was emerging, with its own customs and vocabulary, and a
hierarchy based on the speed at which operators could send and receive Morse code.
First-class operators, who could send and receive at speeds of up to 45 words a minute,
handled press traffic, securing the best—paid jobs in big cities. At the bottom of the pile
were slow, inexperienced rural operators ,many of whom worked the wires as part-
timers. As their Morse code improved, however, rural operators found that their new-
found skill was a passport to better pay in a city job. Telegraphers soon swelled the
ranks of the emerging middle classes. Telegraphy was also deemed suitable work for
women. By 1870, a third of the operators in the Western Union office in New York, the
largest telegraph office in America, were female.

In a dramatic ceremony in 1871, Morse himself said goodbye to the global community of
telegraphers he had brought into being. After a lavish banquet and many adulatory
speeches, Morse sat down behind an operator’s table and, placing his finger on a key
connected to every telegraph wire in America, tapped out his final farewell to a standing
ovation. By the time of his death in 1872, the world was well and truly wired: more than
650,000 miles of telegraph line and 30000 miles of submarine cable were throbbing with
Morse code; and 20,000 towns and villages were connected to the global network. Just
as the Internet is today often called an” information superhighway “,the telegraph was
described in its day as an “ instantaneous highway of thought.”

But by the 1890s the Morse telegraph’s heyday as a cutting-edge technology, was
coming to an end, with the invention of the telephone and the rise of automatic
telegraphs, precursors of the teleprinter,neither of which required specialist skills to
operate. Morse code, however, was about to be given a new lease of life thanks to
another new technology: wireless. Following the invention of radiotelegraphy by
Guglielmo Marconi in 1896 ,its potential for use at sea quickly became apparent. For the
first time, ships could communicate with each other, and with the shore,whatever the
weather and even when out of visual range. In 1897 Marconi successfully sent Morse
code messages between a shore station and an Italian warship 19 km (12 miles)
aways.By l910, Morse radio equipment was commonplace on ships.

From a novice to an expert

Becoming an Expert
Expertise is commitment coupled with creativity. Specifically, it is the
commitment of time, energy, and resources to a relatively narrow field of
study and the creative energy necessary to generate new knowledge in that
field. It takes a considerable amount of time and regular exposure to a
large number of cases to become an expert.
A
An individual enters a field of study as a novice. The novice needs to
learn the guiding principles and rules of a given task in order to perform
that task. Concurrently, the novice needs to be exposed to specific cases,
or instances, that test the boundaries of such heuristics. Generally, a
novice will find a mentor to guide her through the process. A fairly simple
example would be someone learning to play chess. The novice chess player
seeks a mentor to teach her the object of the game, the number of spaces,
the names of the pieces, the function of each piece, how each piece is
moved, and the necessary conditions for winning or losing the game.
B
In time, and with much practice, the novice begins to recognize patterns of
behavior within cases and. thus, becomes a journeyman. With more practice
and exposure to increasingly complex cases, the journeyman finds patterns
not only within cases but also between cases. More importantly, the
journeyman learns that these patterns often repeat themselves over time.
The journeyman still maintains regular contact with a mentor to solve
specific problems and learn more complex strategies. Returning to the
example of the chess player, the individual begins to learn patterns of
opening moves, offensive and defensive game-playing strategies, and
patterns of victory and defeat.
C
When a journeyman starts to make and test hypotheses about future behavior
based on past experiences, she begins the next transition. Once she
creatively generates knowledge, rather than simply matching superficial
patterns, she becomes an expert. At this point, she is confident in her
knowledge and no longer needs a mentor as a guide—she becomes responsible
for her own knowledge. In the chess example, once a journeyman begins
competing against experts, makes predictions based on patterns, and tests
those predictions against actual behavior, she is generating new knowledge
and a deeper understanding of the game. She is creating her own cases
rather than relying on the cases of others.
D
The chess example is a rather short description of an apprenticeship model.
Apprenticeship may seem like a restrictive 18th century mode of education,
but it is still a standard method of training for many complex tasks.
Academic doctoral programs are based on an apprenticeship model, as are
fields like law, music, engineering, and medicine. Graduate students enter
fields of study, find mentors, and begin the long process of becoming
independent experts and generating new knowledge in their respective
domains.
EPsychologists and cognitive scientists agree that the time it takes to
become an expert depends on the complexity of the task and the number of
cases, or patterns, to which an individual is exposed. The more complex the
task, the longer it takes to build expertise, or, more accurately, the
longer it takes to experience and store a large number of cases or
patterns.
F
The Power of Expertise
An expert perceives meaningful patterns in her domain better than non-
experts. Where a novice perceives random or disconnected data points, an
expert connects regular patterns within and between cases. This ability to
identify patterns is not an innate perceptual skill; rather it reflects the
organization of knowledge after exposure to and experience with thousands
of cases. Experts have a deeper understanding of their domains than novices
do, and utilize higher-order principles to solve problems. A novice, for
example, might group objects together by color or size, whereas an expert
would group the same objects according to their function or utility.
Experts comprehend the meaning of data and weigh variables with different
criteria within their domains better than novices. Experts recognize
variables that have the largest influence on a particular problem and focus
their attention on those variables.
G
Experts have better domain-specific short-term and long-term memory than
novices do. Moreover, experts perform tasks in their domains faster than
novices and commit fewer errors while problem solving. Interestingly,
experts go about solving problems differently than novices. Experts spend
more time thinking about a problem to fully understand it at the beginning
of a task than do novices, who immediately seek to find a solution. Experts
use their knowledge of previous cases as context for creating mental models
to solve given problems.
H
Better at self-monitoring than novices, experts are more aware of instances
where they have committed errors or failed to understand a problem. Experts
check their solutions more often than novices and recognize when they are
missing information necessary for solving a problem. Experts are aware of
the limits of their domain knowledge and apply their domain's heuristics to
solve problems that fall outside of their experience base.
I
The Paradox of Expertise
The strengths of expertise can also be weaknesses. Although one would
expect experts to be good forecasters, they are not particularly good at
making predictions about the future. Since the 1930s, researchers have been
testing the ability of experts to make forecasts. The performance of
experts has been tested against actuarial tables to determine if they are
better at making predictions than simple statistical models. Seventy years
later, with more than two hundred experiments in different domains, it is
clear that the answer is no. If supplied with an equal amount of data about
a particular case, an actuarial table is as good, or better, than an expert
at making calls about the future. Even if an expert is given more specific
case information than is available to the statistical model, the expert
does not tend to outperform the actuarial table.
J
Theorists and researchers differ when trying to explain why experts are
less accurate forecasters than statistical models. Some have argued that
experts, like all humans, are inconsistent when using mental models to make
predictions. A number of researchers point to human biases to explain
unreliable expert predictions. During the last 30 years, researchers have
categorized, experimented, and theorized about the cognitive aspects of
forecasting. Despite such efforts, the literature shows little consensus
regarding the causes or manifestations of human bias.

High Speed Photography

A. Photography gained the interest of many scientists and artists from its inception.
Scientists have used photography to record and study movements. Photography is used
by amateurs to preserve memories, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to
send messages, and as a source of entertainment. Various technological improvements
and techniques have been allowed for visualizing events that are too fast or too slow
for the human eyes.

B. One of such techniques is called high-speed photography or professionally known as

time-lapse. Time lapse photography is the perfect technique for capturing events and
movements in the natural world that occur over a timescale too slow for human
perception to follow. This life cycle of a mushroom, for example, is incredibly
subtle to the human eye. To present its growth in from of audiences, the principle
applied is a simple one: a series of photographs are taken and used in sequence to
make a moving-image film, but since each frame is taken with a lapse at a time
interval between each shot, when played back at normal speed, a continuous action is
produced and it appears to speed up. Put simply: we are shrinking time. Objects and
events that would normally take several minutes, days or even months can be viewed to
completion in second having been sped up by factors of tens to millions.
C. Another commonly used technique is high-speed photography, the science of taking
pictures of very fast phenomena. High-speed photography can be considered to be the
opposite of time-lapse photography. Imagine a hummingbird hovering almost completely
still in the air, feeding on nectar. With every flap, its wings bend, flex and change
shape. These subtle movements precisely control the lift its wings generate, making
it an excellent hoverer. But a hummingbird flaps its wings up to 80 times every
second. The only way to truly capture this motion is with cameras that will, in
effect, slow down time. To do this, a greater length of film is taken at a high
sampling frequency or frame rate, which is much faster than it will be projected on
screen. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be slowed down
proportionately.

D. A film camera normally records images at twenty four frames per second. During
each 1/24th of a second, the film is actually exposed to light for roughly half the
time. The rest of the time, it is hidden behind the shutter. Thus exposure time for
motion picture film is normally calculated to be one 48th of a second (1/48 second,
often rounded to 1/50 second). Adjusting the shutter angle on a film camera (if its
design allows), can add or reduce the amount of motion blur by changing the amount of
time that the film frame is actually exposed to light. In time-lapse photography, the
camera records images at a specific slow interval such as one frame every thirty
seconds (1/30 frame/s). In long exposure time-lapse, the exposure time will
approximate the effects of a normal shutter angle.

E. But things cannot get any more complicated in the case of filming a frog catching
its prey. Frogs can snatch up prey in a few thousandths of a second-striking out with
elastic tongues. But this all happened too fast, 50 times faster than an eye blink.
So naturally people thought of using high-speed camera to capture this Fantastic
movement in slow motion. Yet one problem still remains- viewers would be bored if
they watch the frog swim in slow motion for too long. The solution is a simple one-
adjust the playback speed, which is also called by some the film speed adjustment.

F. Sometimes taking a good picture or shooting a good film is not all

about technology, but patience, like in a case of bat. Bats are small, dark-colored;
they fly fast and are active only at night. To capture bats on film, one must use
some type of camera-tripping device. Photographers or film-makers often place camera
near the bat cave, on the path of the flying bats. The camera must be hard-wired with
a tripping device so that every time a bat breaks the tripping beam the camera fires
and it will keep doing so through the night until the camera’s battery runs out.

G. Is it science? Since the technique was first pioneered around two hundred years
ago, photography has developed to a state where it is almost unrecognizable. Some
people would even say the future of photography will be nothing like how we imagine
it. No matter what future it may hold, photography will continue to develop as it has
been repeatedly demonstrated in many aspects of our life that ‘a picture is worth a
thousand words’.

Antarctica – in from the cold?

A little over a century ago, men of the ilk of Scott, Shackleton and Mawson battled
against Antarctica’ s blizzards, cold and deprivation. In the name of Empire and in an
age of heroic deeds they created an image of Antarctica that was to last well into the
20th century – an image of remoteness, hardship, bleakness and isolation that was the
province of only the most courageous of men. The image was one of a place removed
from everyday reality, of a place with no apparent value to anyone.

As we enter the 21st century, our perception of Antarctica has changed. Although
physically Antarctica is no closer and probably no warmer, and to spend time there still
demands a dedication not seen in ordinary life, the continent and its surrounding ocean
are increasingly seen to an integral part of Planet Earth, and a key component in the
Earth System. Is this because the world seems a little smaller these days, shrunk by TV
and tourism, or is it because Antarctica really does occupy a central spot on Earth’s
mantle? Scientific research during the past half century has revealed – and continues to
reveal – that Antarctica’s great mass and low temperature exert a major influence on
climate and ocean circulation, factors which influence the lives of millions of people all
over the globe.
C

Antarctica was not always cold. The slow break-up of the super-continent Gondwana
with the northward movements of Africa, South America, India and Australia eventually
created enough space around Antarctica for the development of an Antarctic
Circumpolar Current (ACC), that flowed from west to east under the influence of the
prevailing westerly winds. Antarctica cooled, its vegetation perished, glaciation began
and the continent took on its present-day appearance. Today the ice that overlies the
bedrock is up to 4km thick，and surface temperatures as low as -89.2deg C have been
recorded. The icy blast that howls over the ice cap and out to sea – the so-called
katabatic wind – can reach 300 km/hr, creating fearsome wind-chill effects.

Out of this extreme environment come some powerful forces that reverberate around the
world. The Earth9 s rotation, coupled to the generation of cells of low pressure off the
Antarctic coast, would allow Astronauts a view of Antarctica that is as beautiful as it is
awesome. Spinning away to the northeast, the cells grow and deepen, whipping up the
Southern Ocean into the mountainous seas so respected by mariners. Recent work is
showing that the temperature of the ocean may be a better predictor of rainfall in
Australia than is the pressure
difference between Darwin and Tahiti – the Southern Oscillation Index. By receiving
more accurate predictions, graziers in northern Queensland are able to avoid
overstocking in years when rainfall will be poor. Not only does this limit their losses but it
prevents serious pasture degradation that may take decades to repair. CSIRO is
developing this as a prototype forecasting system, but we can confidently predict that as
we know more about the Antarctic and Southern Ocean we will be able to enhance and
extend our predictive ability.

E
The ocean’ s surface temperature results from the interplay between deep-water
temperature, air temperature and ice. Each winter between 4 and 19 million square km
of sea ice form, locking up huge quantities of heat close to the continent. Only now can
we start to unravel the influence of sea ice on the weather that is experienced in
southern Australia. But in another way the extent of sea ice extends its influence far
beyond Antarctica. Antarctic krill the small shrimp-like crustaceans that are the staple
diet for baleen whales, penguins, some seals, flighted sea birds and many fish – breed
well in years when sea ice is extensive, and poorly when it is not. Many species of
baleen whales and flighted sea birds migrate between the hemispheres and when the
krill are less abundant they do not thrive.

The circulatory system of the world’ s oceans is like a huge conveyor belt， moving
water and dissolved minerals and nutrients from one hemisphere to the other, and from
the ocean’s abyssal depths to the surface. The ACC is the longest current in the world,
and has the largest flow. Through it, the deep flows of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific
Oceans are joined to form part of a single global thermohaline circulation. During winter,
the howling katabatics sometimes scour the ice off patches of the sea, s surface leaving
large ice-locked lagoons, or ‘polynyas’ . Recent research has shown that as fresh sea
ice forms，it is continuously stripped away by the wind and may be blown up to 90km in
a single day. Since only fresh water freezes into ice, the water that remains becomes
increasingly salty and dense, sinking until it spills over the continental shelf. Cold water
carries more oxygen than warm water, so when it rises, well into the northern
hemisphere, it reoxygenates and revitalises the ocean. The state of the northern oceans,
and their biological productivity, owe much to what happens in the Antarctic.

G Antarctica has, truly, ‘come in from the cold’ . As we learn more about its effect on
climate, ocean circulation and biota we see that it is not a place that is unconnected to
the rest of the world; nor is it useless and barren. On the contrary; it is a powerful engine
that has impacts on human， animal and plant life across the globe. Australia’ s
Antarctic scientific research program, undertaken by government and university
scientists and facilitated by the Australian Antarctic Division, publishes about 300
research papers and articles annually and is fully engaged in answering fundamental
questions about the Continent’s physical and biological attributes, and its role in System
Earth. Much of this research was on show at the Australian Academy of Technological
Sciences and Engineering’ s symposium “Looking South – Managing Technology,
Opportunities and the Global Environment” held in Hobart late last year.

Knowledge in Medcine
What counts as knowledge? What do we mean when we say that we know something?
What is the status of different kinds of knowledge? In order to explore these questions
we are going to focus on one particular area of knowledge—medicine.

How do you know when you are ill? This may seem to be an absurd question. You know
you are ill because you feel ill; your body tells you that you are ill. You may know that
you feel pain or discomfort but knowing you are ill is a bit more complex. At times,
people experience the symptoms of illness, but in fact they are simply tired or over-
worked or they may just have a hangover, At other times, people may be suffering from
a disease and fail to be aware of the illness until it has reached a late stage in its
development. So how do we know we are ill, and what counts as knowledge?

Think about this example. You feel unwell. You have a bad cough and always seem to
be tired. Perhaps it could be stress at work, or maybe you should give up smoking. You
feel worse. You visit the doctor who listens to your chest and heart, takes your
temperature and blood pressure, and then finally prescribes antibiotics for your cough.

Things do not improve but you struggle on thinking you should pull yourself together,
perhaps things will ease off at work soon. A return visit to your doctor shocks you. This
time the doctor, drawing on years of training and experience, diagnoses pneumonia.
This means that you will need bed rest and a considerable time off work. The scenario is
transformed. Although you still have the same symptoms, you no longer think that these
are caused by pressure at work. You now have proof that you are ill. This is the result of
the combination of your own subjective experience and the diagnosis of someone who
has the status of a medical expert. You have a medically authenticated diagnosis and it
appears that you are seriously ill; you know you are ill and have evidence upon which to
base this knowledge.

This scenario shows many different sources of knowledge. For example, you decide to
consult the doctor in the first place because you feel unwell—this is personal knowledge
about your own body. However, the doctor’s expert diagnosis is based on experience
and training, with sources of knowledge as diverse as other experts, laboratory reports,
medical textbooks and years of experience.

One source of knowledge is the experience of our own bodies; the personal knowledge
we have of changes that might be significant, as well as the subjective experience of
pain and physical distress. These experiences are mediated by other forms of
knowledge such as the words we have available to describe our experience and the
common sense of our families and friends as well as that drawn from popular culture.
Over the past decade, for example. Western culture has seen a significant emphasis on
stress-related illness in the media. Reference to being ‘stressed out’ has become a
common response in daily exchanges in the workplace and has become part of popular
common-sense knowledge. It is thus not surprising that we might seek such an
explanation of physical symptoms of discomfort.

We might also rely on the observations of others who know us. Comments from friends
and family such as ‘you do look ill’ or ‘that’s a bad cough’ might be another source of
knowledge. Complementary health practices, such as holistic medicine, produce their
own sets of knowledge upon which we might also draw in deciding the nature and
degree of our ill health and about possible treatments.

Perhaps the most influential and authoritative source of knowledge is the medical
knowledge provided by the general practitioner. We expect the doctor to have access to
expert knowledge. This is socially sanctioned. It would not be acceptable to notify our
employer that we simply felt too unwell to turn up for work or that our faith healer,
astrologer, therapist or even our priest thought it was not a good idea. We need an
expert medical diagnosis in order to obtain the necessary certificate if we need to be off
work for more than the statutory self-certification period. The knowledge of the medical
sciences is privileged in this respect in contemporary Western culture. Medical
practitioners are also seen as having the required expert knowledge that permits them
legally to prescribe drugs and treatment to which patients would not otherwise have
access. However there is a range of different knowledge upon which we draw when
making decisions about our own state of health.

However, there is more than existing knowledge in this little story; new knowledge is
constructed within it. Given the doctor’s medical training and background, she may
hypothesize ‘is this now pneumonia?’ and then proceed to look for evidence about it.
She will use observations and instruments to assess the evidence and—critically—
interpret it in the light of her training and experience. This results in new knowledge and
new experience both for you and for the doctor. This will then be added to the doctor’s
medical knowledge and may help in future diagnosis of pneumonia.

However, there is more than existing knowledge in this little story; new knowledge is
constructed within it. Given the doctor’s medical training and background, she may
hypothesize ‘is this now pneumonia?’ and then proceed to look for evidence about it.
She will use observations and instruments to assess the evidence and—critically—
interpret it in the light of her training and experience. This results in new knowledge and
new experience both for you and for the doctor. This will then be added to the doctor’s
medical knowledge and may help in future diagnosis of pneumonia.

Thomas Young
The Last True Know-It-All
A Thomas Young (1773-1829) contributed 63 articles to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, including 46 biographical entries (mostly on scientists and
classicists) and substantial essays on "Bridge,” "Chromatics," "Egypt,"
"Languages" and "Tides". Was someone who could write authoritatively about
so many subjects a polymath, a genius or a dilettante? In an ambitious new
biography, Andrew Robinson argues that Young is a good contender for the
epitaph "the last man who knew everything." Young has competition, however:
The phrase, which Robinson takes for his title, also serves as the subtitle
of two other recent biographies: Leonard Warren's 1998 life of
paleontologist Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) and Paula Findlen's 2004 book on
Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), another polymath.
B Young, of course, did more than write encyclopedia entries. He presented
his first paper to the Royal Society of London at the age of 20 and was
elected a Fellow a week after his 21st birthday. In the paper, Young
explained the process of accommodation in the human eye on how the eye
focuses properly on objects at varying distances. Young hypothesized that
this was achieved by changes in the shape of the lens. Young also theorized
that light traveled in waves and he believed that, to account for the
ability to see in color, there must be three receptors in the eye
corresponding to the three "principal colors" to which the retina could
respond: red, green, violet. All these hypothesis were subsequently proved
to be correct.
C Later in his life, when he was in his forties, Young was instrumental in
cracking the code that unlocked the unknown script on the Rosetta Stone, a
tablet that was "found" in Egypt by the Napoleonic army in 1799. The stone
contains text in three alphabets: Greek, something unrecognizable and
Egyptian hieroglyphs. The unrecognizable script is now known as demotic
and, as Young deduced, is related directly to hieroglyphic. His initial
work on this appeared in his Britannica entry on Egypt. In another entry,
he coined the term Indo-European to describe the family of languages spoken
throughout most of Europe and northern India. These are the landmark
achievements of a man who was a child prodigy and who, unlike many
remarkable children, did not disappear into oblivion as an adult.
D Born in 1773 in Somerset in England, Young lived from an early age with
his maternal grandfather, eventually leaving to attend boarding school. He
haddevoured books from the age of two, and through his own initiative he
excelled at Latin, Greek, mathematics and natural philosophy. After leaving
school, he was greatly encouraged by his mother's uncle, Richard
Brocklesby, a physician and Fellow of the Royal Society. Following
Brocklesby's lead, Young decided to pursue a career in medicine. He studied
in London, following the medical circuit, and then moved on to more formal
education in Edinburgh, Gottingen and Cambridge. After completing his
medical training at the University of Cambridge in 1808, Young set up
practice as a physician in London. He soon became a Fellow of the Royal
College of Physicians and a few years later was appointed physician at St.
George's Hospital.
E Young's skill as a physician, however, did not equal his skill as a
scholar of natural philosophy or linguistics. Earlier, in 1801, he had been
appointed to a professorship of natural philosophy at the Royal
Institution, where he delivered as many as 60 lectures in a year. These
were published in two volumes in 1807. In 1804 Young had become secretary
to the Royal Society, a post he would hold until his death. His opinions
were sought on civic and national matters, such as the introduction of gas
lighting to London and methods of ship construction. From 1819 he was
superintendent of the Nautical Almanac and secretary to the Board of
Longitude. From 1824 to 1829 he was physician to and inspector of
calculations for the Palladian Insurance Company. Between 1816 and 1825 he
contributed his many and various entries to the Encyclopedia Britannica,
and throughout his career he authored numerous books, essays and papers.
F Young is a perfect subject for a biography - perfect, but daunting. Few
men contributed so much to so many technical fields. Robinson's aim is to
introduce non-scientists to Young's work and life. He succeeds, providing
clear expositions of the technical material (especially that on optics and
Egyptian hieroglyphs). Some readers of this book will, like Robinson, find
Young's accomplishments impressive; others will see him as some historians
have - as a dilettante. Yet despite the rich material presented in this
book, readers will not end up knowing Young personally. We catch glimpses
of a playful Young, doodling Greek and Latin phrases in his notes on
medical lectures and translating the verses that a young lady had written
on the walls of a summerhouse into Greek elegiacs. Young was introduced
into elite society, attended the theatre and learned to dance and play the
flute. In addition, he was an accomplished horseman. However, his personal
life looks pale next to his vibrant career and studies.
G Young married Eliza Maxwell in 1804, and according to Robinson, "their
marriage was a happy one and she appreciated his work." Almost all we know
about her is that she sustained her husband through some rancorous disputes
about optics and that she worried about money when his medical career was
slow to take off. Very little evidence survives about the complexities of
Young's relationships with his mother and father. Robinson does not credit
them, or anyone else, with shaping Young's extraordinary mind. Despite the
lack of details concerning Young's relationships, however, anyone
interested in what it means to be a genius should read this book.