Imagine an experiment. Take an iceberg lettuce, Lactuca sativa, and leave it in a warm oven for a few days. What will happen? The outcome is not surprising. It shrinks by a very large amount. Who cares? I’ve been thinking about this ‘shrinkage effect’ for some time now, and it turns out that it matters…
Month: November 2012
Hiding in plain sight
How many species are living around you right now? The answer may be larger than you think. Last week I was in the mountains of Greece with a group of biologists, and we challenged ourselves to answer this question. In two hours of walking around the forest, how many species could we find and positively…