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E3-20250423-JV-NF-ORI

For my parents, who always supported me
and my silly science.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book investigates the history of various scientific discoveries, many of which have involved the use of animals. While my goal in writing this book is to enhance the appreciation of curiosity-driven research, the ethical considerations of animal research should not be ignored. As you read this book, I hope that you’ll reflect on the moral implications of past research and consider the growing use of alternative practices. As a scientist and an animal lover, I look forward to a future where tissue cultures, computer simulations, and other methods can entirely replace animal use in research. I hope the stories in this book will inspire a reflective consideration of the past and an optimistic outlook for a more humane future.

INTRODUCTION

About ten years ago, I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant surrounded by people that smelled distinctly like elephant shit. At the time, I was pursuing my doctoral degree in biology at Old Dominion University, but I volunteered at the Virginia Zoo on the weekends. This volunteer work was the highlight of my week. Every Saturday morning I would bounce out of bed and excitedly toss on a green polo shirt with the zoo’s logo on the chest. It’s tough to beat the joy of walking into a zoo before it has opened to the public. There is an entirely different feel to the air. The gibbons’ calls echo overhead, and the elephants make a deep rumble that vibrates in your core. A chorus of animals from Africa, Asia, and South America serenades the keepers who serve their breakfast. Even the shyest of residents can be found prowling around their enclosure before noisy visitors arrive for the day. Only those who forfeited their weekend sleep had the privilege of experiencing these sacred hours. These mornings were my sanctuary, reminding me of my love for the animal kingdom and equally fortifying me against the relentless rigors of a doctoral program.

The zookeepers and the volunteers had a lovely tradition of going to lunch together after the morning chores were completed, at which point we would all smell pungent enough to make anyone seated nearby lose their appetite. On one particular Saturday, over a plate of cheese enchiladas, I had one of the most uncomfortable conversations of my career. One of my fellow volunteers, Bob, was a retired army officer who had come to prefer spending his days feeding the giraffes over analyzing military tactics. He asked me what I was studying, and I replied that I was exploring squid biomechanics and sensory physiology. At the time, I really enjoyed peppering my conversations with words like “biomechanics,” delivered with just enough arrogance to deter further inquiry. Bob, however, wasn’t deterred. His eyes, sharp with scrutiny, posed a simple yet profound question: “Why?” He wasn’t probing the scientific essence but the purpose. The real-world implication. His blunt question caught me off guard and left me fumbling for a response. I clumsily mumbled about the intrinsic value of knowledge and some nebulous idea of understanding life as a squid. But Bob’s query dug deeper. He questioned the economic rationale—why the public dime funded my education and why national funds poured into a project that, to him, smacked of what he called “silly science.” Behind his inquiry was an earnest taxpayer’s need to see tangible returns on investment. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I simply couldn’t answer his question. My research wasn’t going to solve any major world issues. The scientific work that had consumed my life for the past three years wasn’t going to do anything as far as I could predict.

Perhaps my research was useless, but I recognize now that it was not worthless. I often think of that conversation in the Mexican restaurant and consider how I could have handled it differently. After a decade of working as a scientist, I have come to realize that we stand at a crossroads of discovery and public perception of science. On that day, over enchiladas, I failed to articulate the essence and significance of “silly science.” My goal in writing this book is to finally answer the question that I botched ten years ago.

As an animal physiologist, I work in the world of basic research. This branch of science is driven by curiosity and the observation of nature, not by immediate demands for application. Though a product isn’t the end goal, amazing applications have stemmed from basic discoveries in this field. Take, for example, the invention of Geckskin, a reusable, glue-free adhesive that can hold up to 700 pounds on a smooth, vertical surface. This product came from decades of research on the anatomy and mechanics of gecko toepads. These scientists weren’t trying to figure out how to build a super sticker; they simply wanted to know how geckos can walk upside down. Through basic research, biologists discovered that gecko toepads are covered in millions of tiny hairs that create a strong adhesive force, but hundreds of studies were performed before a product was ever conceived, created, and sold. Likewise, although squid have indeed been an engineering inspiration (check out the Robosquid), my research had nothing to do with application. Years after defending my doctoral work, I still don’t know how my research can directly benefit humankind. Luckily, I am in good company. Einstein also saw no immediate application when he developed his theory of relativity. It wasn’t until almost a hundred years later that his theory became useful in everyday life via GPS. Now, I’m no Einstein, not even relatively speaking, but we do share the enchanting and powerful world of curiosity-driven science.

Einstein found his academic home—and endless support for his curiosity-driven research—at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. The institute, the brainchild of Abraham Flexner, was envisioned to be a “paradise for scholars,” where researchers would have no administrative duties or students. Their job description was simply the “unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge.” As a professor who spends an extraordinary amount of time in faculty meetings, this does indeed sound like a paradise. It was Flexner’s belief that human curiosity, mixed with a dash of serendipity, was the path to transformative ideas. His conviction was that only from the perspective of hindsight would knowledge that was gained through unhampered inquiry end in practical applications. Einstein was hardly the only scholar to benefit from Flexner’s vision. His institute birthed thirty-five Nobel laureates, forty-two Fields medalists, twenty-one Abel Prize laureates, and many winners of Wolf and MacArthur prizes. Clearly, the focus on curiosity-driven research has led to scientific discoveries that rocked our world.1

Flexner gained insights into curiosity-driven research from the life of Michael Faraday. Faraday was one of the most influential scientists working in the field of electromagnetism and electrochemistry—even Einstein kept a picture of him on his study wall for inspiration. Flexner once said of Faraday’s work, “Any suspicion of utility would have restricted his restless curiosity. In the end, utility resulted, but it was never a criterion to which his ceaseless experimentation could be subjected.” A fun, though apocryphal, anecdote about Faraday’s investigation into the nature of electromagnetism beautifully captures the sentiment Flexner knew to be true. William Gladstone, the chancellor of the exchequer and a skeptical politician, questioned the practical nature of Faraday’s experiments on electromagnetism: What practical good would his experiments bring the nation? Faraday responded, “What good is a newborn baby?” Nearly two centuries later, almost all modern activities require people to use electricity or wireless communication based on Faraday’s research. His newborn baby grew!2

Like electromagnetism, the study of the atom and the development of quantum mechanics were seen as theoretical playgrounds for brilliant young physicists. With the same freedom to follow his curiosity as Faraday, Max Planck first developed the concept that energy could only occur in small packets called quanta. For example, light delivers energy in quanta called photons, and each photon’s energy is proportional to its specific frequency. This theory revolutionized our understanding of atomic processes, similar to how Einstein’s theory of relativity transformed our understanding of space and time, and has led to a world of microprocessors, lasers, and nanotechnology. It has been estimated that 30 percent of the US gross national product is based on inventions that harness our understanding of quantum mechanics, and more than half of all economic growth comes from innovations that began in the world of basic discovery.3 If nanotechnology and microprocessors don’t convince you, perhaps a look into medical advances will help. A team of researchers dove into the discovery of drugs and found that basic research is “the best route to the generation of powerful new medicines.” Most drugs don’t begin with research intended to make that drug. In fact, the results of their study showed that 80 percent of the medicines on their list led back to a discovery from basic research without any intention of creating a new drug.4

Unfortunately, the value of a basic scientific discovery is often lost on people, and particularly, it seems, on politicians. In 1975, Senator William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, began documenting what he deemed to be frivolity in government spending by creating the Golden Fleece Awards. His first award went to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for spending $84,000 to study love. Proxmire said, “I believe that 200 million other Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery, and right on top of the things we don’t want to know is why a man falls in love with a woman and vice versa.” This began what the Washington Post described as “the most successful public relations device in politics today.” Proxmire issued Golden Fleece Awards every month from 1975 until 1988, most of which were received with eye rolls and giggles. The awards included

A $46,100 grant to the NSF to study the impact of women in suggestive clothing on the male drivers of Chicago (1976).

A $6,000 grant to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to document the effects of marijuana on scuba divers (1979).

A $90,000 grant to the Department of Agriculture to determine behaviors associated with vegetarianism (1979).5

Historically, receiving the Golden Fleece Award was bad news for a scientist, as Dr. Ronald Hutchinson could tell you. Hutchinson was at the forefront of his field, with funding from several federal agencies, including the NSF, NASA, and the Office of Naval Research. He was studying aggression—specifically jaw clenching in rats, monkeys, and humans. Emboldened by the media success of his first Golden Fleece Award in 1975, Proxmire used Hutchinson’s research as his second example of wasted federal funds. Proxmire wrote a scathing press release, stating, “The funding of this nonsense makes me almost angry enough to scream and kick or even clench my jaw.… In fact, the good doctor has made a fortune from his monkeys and in the process made a monkey out of the American taxpayer.”6

Hutchinson responded by writing a defense of his research and called Proxmire’s mockery uninformed criticism that would damage public trust in science. He was hopeful that any negative attention he received would blow over and he could continue with his research. He was very wrong. “My children were harassed at school for having a crook for a father, my fire insurance was canceled as the company sought distance from an unsavory character, and anonymous death threats came in the mail,” he would say later. Because of Proxmire’s service on the committee that passed the annual funding for the NSF, Hutchinson’s research grant and contract support were terminated. His laboratory work, including his salary, had been supported by federal funding, so Hutchinson and his staff were laid off and the research ended. He even lost the National Institutes of Health Senior Scientist Award, which also supported his salary. Hutchinson sought legal action and sued Proxmire for defamation, loss of income, and invasion of privacy. His case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court. Proxmire eventually settled, paying $10,000 and Hutchinson’s court fees. Another consequence of the settlement was that Proxmire had to directly write to grant-funding agencies, promising “not to interfere in the executive deliberation of grant proposals nor attempt to intercede in opposition to them.” Because of this, other scientists who had been attacked could obtain retractions and bring media attention to the fact that their research had been misrepresented. Unfortunately, this didn’t deter Proxmire from continuing to single out “silly science” and publicly humiliating researchers for years to come.7

When Proxmire retired from the Senate in 1988, the award also became emeritus. However, in 2000, Taxpayers for Common Sense resuscitated the Golden Fleece Awards, and Proxmire served as an honorary chairman. Proxmire died in 2005, but his contempt for seemingly wasteful spending in science marched onward with rare bipartisan unity. Beginning in 2011, Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, produced an annual publication called The Wastebook, in which he blew the whistle on government spending. Many of the projects Coburn decided were wasteful fell under the umbrella of basic research. I don’t think Proxmire was purposefully anti-science in his policy as much as he was anti–federal spending—he fully owned his frugal reputation and even attended the staff Christmas party wearing a “Senator Scrooge” nametag.8 Coburn, on the other hand, was clearly anti-science. But to be fair, he was anti-everything. He was well-known for using a senatorial privilege (called a hold) where a single senator could block bills from being voted on. His use of this tactic became so common that he earned himself the nickname “Dr. No.” One of the first bills that he blocked was in 2007, honoring the one hundredth birthday of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. Coburn called the book “junk science” and “the catalyst in the deadly worldwide stigmatization against insecticides, especially DDT.”9 Coburn began reporting on research he thought was a waste of federal funding in 2008, with his newsletter titled “Worst Waste of the Year,” which ultimately highlighted more than $1 billion in perceived funding waste. Two examples were a $190,000 study on compost digested by worms and an $856,000 project to train mountain lions to walk on treadmills.10 Was he wrong to say these studies did nothing to better our existence? Maybe. But maybe not.

The reality is that there is a large gap between the knowledge that basic research can provide and its ultimate utility. Even when an application becomes apparent shortly after discovery, the importance of this work often goes unrecognized by those without expertise. In 2008, vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a blunder that echoed through the halls of research labs worldwide. She was giving her first policy speech, where she called for the federal government to fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act by alerting the public to money wasted by Congress. She said, “You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.” While it seems that she was referring to a particular study about pestilence on olive trees, which entomologists have identified as a huge economic problem for California, the fact that she would be flippant about any fruit fly research is enough to make Thomas Hunt Morgan, the founding father of modern genetics, roll over in his grave.11

For more than a century, the fruit fly has played an integral role in biomedical research. These little pests have exposed fundamental principles of genetics and earned ten scientists Nobel Prizes for their contribution to medical research. Thomas Hunt Morgan was the first biologist to win a Nobel Prize for his work on fruit flies in the early twentieth century. Morgan used the flies to locate genes on chromosomes in order to confirm that some genes are linked (i.e., inherited together). Without the help of the lowly fruit fly, we wouldn’t be close to our modern understanding of genetics. Morgan received his Nobel Prize in 1933, and it was only thirteen years later that Hermann Joseph Muller received a Nobel Prize for using X-ray irradiation to create mutations in fruit flies. Building upon the work done by these two, the team of Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, and Eric F. Wieschaus won their Nobel in 1995 for their work on genetic control of embryonic development. Fruit flies can help answer questions about genetics, cellular interaction, physiology, immunity, and behavior. Sharing over 60 percent of their DNA with humans, fruit flies have aided vital studies in cancer, diabetes, and autism.12 It’s a shame that Ms. Palin didn’t know this, as she mentioned that her nephew has autism in the very same speech.

Several features of fruit flies make them especially endearing to researchers. First, their annoyingly small size, especially if they are zipping around your kitchen, makes them very easy to keep in a lab. Unlike fish or mice, fruit flies can be raised and housed in a tiny tube about as long as your hand. This means millions of flies can be kept in the average lab space. They aren’t picky eaters and will subsist quite happily on only a mixture of cornmeal, yeast, and sugar. Their most outstanding feature, though, might be their remarkable reproduction rate. Given the opportunity, a female fruit fly will lay up to five hundred eggs in her lifetime, and those eggs will mature into reproductively capable adults in about a week. Imagine planning a complex genetic study on multiple generations and having results just a few weeks later. Additionally, while humans have twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, fruit flies only have four pairs. The reduced number of chromosomes means they are easier to manipulate, isolate, and mutate, making inherited conditions relatively easy to track. This feature alone makes these animals invaluable to the study of genetics. With so many charming attributes, it’s no wonder the fruit fly has been the buzz behind some of the greatest medical advances in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.13

Political controversies can be a huge disincentive for researchers to work on certain issues. In a recent survey, scientists responded that they preferred to submit a grant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that was self-censored for political acceptance than to seek alternative funding from an elusive nongovernmental source. Some scientists reported leaving their research positions and even exiting the US for a more supportive environment. One researcher left academia altogether after their research became a focus of debate, declaring, “This [controversy] ended my research career.” Not even senior, tenured faculty members who participated in the survey seemed immune to the shadowy effects of political controversy. Without question, being the target of a political dispute can devastate a research career and stifle innovation.14

No one wants to be the next “shrimp on a treadmill” headline. In 2011, biologist David Scholnick and his research on the physiological performance of shrimp in bacteria-laden water were blasted by Tom Coburn for squandering taxpayer money when a video clip of a shrimp running on a tiny treadmill went viral. Forbes described his research as wasting three million taxpayer dollars, and the AARP created a nationally televised commercial of lab-coat-wearing scientists observing shrimp on treadmills to highlight the lack of federal support for retiree health care services. Certain politicians went so far as to say studies of shrimp on a treadmill limited military spending.

Dr. Scholnick surely spent hours of time that could have been spent on his research dealing with media interviews and public threats, but he also leaned into the perceptions of silliness. In an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. Scholnick laid out his solution to the question of wasted funding—selling his shrimp treadmill for the modest price of $1 million (not including the shrimp). All of the profits, he said, “will go toward supporting marine biology research so that grandmothers across the country will no longer be denied medication, our heroic soldiers fighting abroad might be able to get the military equipment they need…” Unfortunately, no one took him up on his offer.15

Although it might look like government money is handed out willy-nilly, this is far from reality. Researchers must submit detailed proposals outlining their intended research, the potential significance of the work, a clear methodology, and a budget detailing how every dollar will be spent. These proposals are then peer reviewed by other experts in the field who assess the feasibility, significance, and potential impact of the research. Only the most promising and impactful proposals receive funding at a rate of around 25 percent. Furthermore, once a grant is awarded, researchers are not just given free rein with the funds. They are required to submit periodic progress reports and financial statements, ensuring that the money is being used effectively and for its intended purpose. After the grant period, a detailed report on the findings and implications of the research is also required. This oversight ensures accountability and maximizes the return on investment for the public’s money. The true cost of David Schnolnick’s infamous shrimp treadmill? It was less than fifty dollars.16

Clearly there’s a lot of noise around basic science. This is my effort to cut through it. In the upcoming chapters, I will tell the tales of pioneering, curiosity-driven—and sometimes silly—research initiatives that resulted in landmark discoveries. I will explore questions you probably never knew you wanted answers to: How did hamburgers soaked in blood and formaldehyde save the cattle industry? What do honeybees have to do with your search engine? And why would you dress a termite in a cape? Many of the discoveries I’ll discuss have already led to tangible applications. Some of them haven’t yet. Others might never have an application. And that is exactly the point—we can’t predict the future.

Science is not tidy. It’s not neat, and it’s not linear, despite what we learned in school. At times, it begins with an odd observation, sparking a trail of curiosity that leads deep into uncharted territories. Inspiration may strike as we study nature’s finely tuned mechanisms or when we are driven to rethink and reinvent established ideas. Occasionally, fortune smiles, presenting a golden opportunity out of the blue. The recipe for scientific breakthroughs often includes all these elements and even more.

After reading this book, I hope you will come to appreciate the deeply serious roots of silly science and understand that even the most trivial-sounding questions can change the world. And, Bob, if you are out there, I hope this book will finally give you a satisfying answer to your question of why silly science is worthy of public funding and respect.

¹

CHAPTER ONE

EUREKA!

King Hieron II of Syracuse suspected foul play. He had entrusted a goldsmith with a bar of gold to shape into a crown, but the king was worried that the goldsmith had mixed in some cheaper silver and pocketed the remaining gold. Determined to confirm his doubts, he commissioned Archimedes to figure out whether the crown was actually pure gold. This wasn’t going to be an easy task. A crown is a difficult shape to measure, and Archimedes wasn’t allowed to damage the integrity of its structure. Regardless, he accepted the challenge and began to ponder how he might solve this puzzle.

Archimedes was enjoying the public baths when he noticed something perplexing. As he lowered himself into the bathtub filled with water, he saw that the water level rose and spilled over the sides. Intrigued, he began to ponder the relationship between the water that overflowed from the tub and the size of his own body. It was at this moment that he saw the solution—the amount of water displaced was equal to the volume of his submerged body. He was so overcome with excitement that he leaped out of the bathtub and ran through the streets naked, shouting “Eureka!” to share his revelation with the world.

Archimedes’s excitement stemmed from the realization that the density of the crown was the key to solving this puzzle. He took pieces of silver and gold with the same mass and measured the volume of water each metal displaced. Silver displaced more water than gold. He realized that by comparing the crown to an equal mass of pure gold, the crown would displace more water if silver had been used to substitute the gold. He ran the experiment and found that the king had indeed been cheated. It wasn’t a good day for the goldsmith, but Archimedes’s “eureka moment” left an enduring legacy, reminding us that discoveries can spring from the most unexpected places, even a relaxing bath.1 Also, don’t try to rip off a king.

It was probably in a classroom where you first learned that there’s an organized, methodical way to tackle research called the scientific method. This systematic approach ensures our experiments yield reliable and consistent findings. But even a simple bath can be more scientific than you think. The very first step to the scientific method is simply noticing what is happening around you. Even the most intricate experiments and groundbreaking discoveries begin with one simple act—observation.

Pondering everyday questions like “Why does my dog always pee on the same tree every day?” is, in essence, the foundational stage of the scientific method. Even the most whimsical observations can result in new, profound knowledge. Think of it as the universe’s way of hiding its secrets in plain sight. History is brimming with tales of lighthearted observations that became catalysts for significant breakthroughs. In fact, it’s often in the embrace of the quirky that some of the most revolutionary ideas are born.

THE SCREWIEST IDEA

Based on Sarah Palin’s reaction to fruit fly research, I can only imagine the eyebrow she would have raised at spending taxpayer money on the sex lives of screwworms. Now, screwworms aren’t your garden-variety nuisance. Imagine maggots, then crank the horror factor up a few notches. These ravenous little guys are on the prowl for any warm-blooded snack, humans included. Got a tiny tick bite? Or maybe an unsuspecting nostril? Screwworms aren’t picky. From top to tail and every cringeworthy orifice in between, they’re ready to dine. Unlike their maggot cousins who munch on the deceased, these tiny little terrors feast on the living.

Screwworms, which are the larvae of a screwworm fly, were common and devastating killers throughout the early to mid-twentieth century. One female fly can lay up to 2,800 eggs during their ten- to thirty-day lifespan, which makes them almost impossible to control. She has the stamina to cover 125 miles on the hunt for prime real estate to lay those eggs, and once hatched, the larvae burrow deep into the flesh of their host. In the 1950s, screwworms were such a large problem for the cattle industry in the southern United States and Central America that protecting their herd and treating the infections cost ranchers $200 million per year (nearly $1.8 billion today). The only way to ensure the animals remained uninfected was to hire ranch hands to guard against screwworms around the clock. Miss an infection, and cows faced the grim reaper in less than two weeks. But thanks to an R-rated observation by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists Edward F. Knipling and Raymond C. Bushland, most people today have never even heard of screwworms.2

In the sweltering heat of southern Texas, Knipling grew up on a farm where money was tight, and hiring someone to babysit cows around the clock was out of the question. When infections happened, Knipling was the one who picked larvae from wounded cows. The experience nurtured a personal vendetta against screwworms. It wasn’t until years later, while working at the USDA research station in Menard, Texas, that he started to plot his revenge.

Knipling and fellow researcher Bushland had a rather peculiar afternoon hangout spot: the screwworm breeding facility. Affectionately dubbed the “stinkhouse” because it was full of dying rabbits used for breeding flies, it was where the two scientists conducted their research. Now, fly romance isn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s must-see list, and even if it were, it’s the kind of event where, if you blink, you will miss the whole show. But one day, with an observant squint, Knipling discerned a trend. The female screwworms seemed to have a one-and-done policy: mate once, lay some eggs, and then gracefully depart to the big fly party in the sky. On the other hand, the males were on a relentless pursuit of passion, trying to fit as many escapades as possible into their fleeting lives. Who cares, right? Well, this seemingly trivial piece of information led to what was called “the single most original idea of the 20th century” by the New York Times.3

Knipling wondered, What if the fly’s own libido could be its downfall? By pulling a sneaky move—sterilizing the male flies and letting the females squander their golden opportunity—they might just cause the screwworm population to crash. But there was a catch. Knipling was wary of sharing this risqué idea in scientific circles, and even more so with his employers at the USDA. Bushland, nonetheless, insisted that they share the sterile insect technique with other scientists, but Knipling had been right to worry. Their idea was met with a range of skepticism, including laughter. How do you sterilize a fly? How do you sterilize the millions of flies needed to make any difference? Shame will crush even the best ideas, and the sterile insect technique was put to bed for over a decade.

When World War II began, Knipling and Bushland began working for the USDA and the US Army on diseases that were transmitted by biting insects, such as lice and mosquitoes. Post-war, Knipling climbed the USDA ladder, settling in as the big boss at their Washington HQ. Bushland, on the other hand, was drawn back to his Texas roots. Bushland hadn’t totally given up on the idea of the sterile insect technique and continued to watch the mating patterns of screwworms with Knipling’s support from the USDA. Although he was able to confirm that the female flies were, in fact, monogamous, he wasn’t having any luck with a method of sterilizing enough male flies to make a difference in the overall population. It wasn’t until 1950 that Kipling came across an article in American Scientist that would give them a new and exciting idea. The article, by geneticist and Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller, described the dangers of nuclear war and radiation exposure, but what caught Knipling’s eye was his reference to his earlier work. Muller had found that excessive amounts of radiation sterilized fruit flies. Knipling wrote to Muller and asked for his thoughts on the sterile insect technique. Muller wrote back, saying, “I know nothing of screwworms, but your theory is sound.” That was all the encouragement they needed.

Knipling and Bushland began scraping together resources to test this new methodology. Eventually, Bushland convinced a friend at a US Army hospital to give him access to the hospital’s X-ray machine. They experimented with different levels of radiation on the male screwworm flies, as they had to be careful not to damage them beyond the point that they could mate. After many trials, they found the perfect formula. If they irradiated the flies when they were exactly five and a half days into the pupal stage—right when their testes are developing—they could sterilize them without affecting their zeal for romance. Step one of the sterile insect technique was a success.

A hospital’s X-ray machine was great for the early experiments, but Knipling and Bushland were thinking much, much bigger than one machine could handle. Bushland had an idea though. He traveled to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to procure a more potent source of radiation: cobalt-60—the byproduct of nuclear reactors. Now they had enough radiation to sterilize a large enough population of flies to make a difference.

The sterilization experiment was successful in the laboratory, but there was still doubt about whether it would work in the wild. A rare opportunity fell into their laps in 1953 when a letter from the governor of Curaçao came fluttering over Knipling’s desk. The island’s goat population was being decimated by screwworms, and they were desperate for advice. When Knipling looked at a map, he realized that the small, isolated island would be the perfect place to test his idea in the wild. To breed the number of flies necessary, they basically created a factory with millions of larvae. Instead of the dying rabbits of their early research days, the larvae were fed with a special recipe created by Bushland: raw hamburger soaked in blood and formaldehyde. The larvae thrived on this recipe, producing close to 200,000 sterile flies per week, which were then released into the wild.4 Within a year, Knipling and Bushland successfully eradicated the population of screwworm on Curaçao using the sterile insect technique.

The American press had a field day with the success of this test and the victory of “atom and romance” in a fight against these awful pests. The successful Curaçao experiments served as a model for screwworm eradication, but the US was still considerably larger than the island. Bushland and Knipling built an even larger factory where they increased their output to about 200 million flies every week. In entomological air raids, they loaded sterile flies onto planes and dropped them over infected areas. Rumor has it that the cargo was so smelly that the scientists bought cologne in bulk to spray on the boxes to appease the pilots.

The eradication program ran in the southern US for several years, and by 1959, screwworms were eliminated east of the Mississippi River. By 1966, they were completely gone from the United States. However, the use of the sterile insect technique didn’t end with the eradication of screwworms. It has been used to help control plant pests, livestock pests, and human disease vectors like mosquitoes, all without the use of pesticides. Knipling and Bushland’s simple observation saved Americans billions of dollars and provided a new sustainable strategy for controlling pests that is still used today.5

RODENT RUBDOWNS

Wander into the right lab at Duke University, and amid the gleaming equipment, you might just spot a scientist delicately giving baby rats a spa day. The funny thing is that these rodent rubdowns weren’t even the main agenda of this research lab. It’s a technique that emerged from an experiment gone awry.

Rats and mice are central to biomedical research. Our furry friends are the heroes of countless studies and have been fundamental to unraveling the complex dance of genes, body blueprints, and physiological rhythms that we share with them. Don’t cringe if the sight of a mouse is enough to send you leaping onto a chair, but of the roughly thirty thousand genes we each carry, a whopping 95 percent are shared across humans, mice, and rats. But it’s not just DNA that makes these critters a favorite in the lab. Their pocket-sized stature, rapid breeding, shorter life cycles, and easy care make them ideal for many kinds of experiments, especially when compared to the complexities of studying humans. Of course, a rat’s response to a treatment in a lab doesn’t always mirror human outcomes, but these pint-sized pets offer an indispensable launchpad for scientific exploration, laying the groundwork for many breakthroughs.6

In 1979, Saul Schanberg, a neuroscientist and medical doctor at Duke, was investigating growth markers in humans. He was particularly captivated by an enzyme called ornithine decarboxylase, a key player in cell growth and differentiation, as well as the production of growth hormone. With the backing of a grant from the NIH, Schanberg teamed up with his graduate student, Cynthia Kuhn, and lab technician, Gary Evoniuk, to decipher the complex relationship of these growth markers within the body. And on the journey, the rats would be their guide.

The team immediately ran into a wall of a problem. Their research plan required a series of precise injections over time, but trying to give a shot to a baby rat with mom watching was not going to happen. Mother rats, as it turns out, do not mess around when it comes to protecting their babies. So, they crafted a cozy, mom-free zone for the rat pups where all their needs, like warmth, food, and water, would be met, and where the researchers could give injections without being attacked.

Still, levels of those crucial growth markers, the very heart of their study, were unexpectedly low. Puzzled by these findings, they turned detectives. Thinking that the mother’s absence could be the culprit, they attempted a rather noir approach: an anesthetized rat mom to feed the babes. It was a no-go. Then came Rat Motel 2.0—same cage but with a divider between mom and pup—a keep-them-close-but-not-too-close solution. This didn’t bridge the growth-marker gap either. The researchers accepted defeat, but they didn’t give up entirely. Instead of asking, “How can we manipulate growth markers?” they pondered, “What on earth is making those markers plummet?” They scrutinized every possible culprit—the food the rats were getting, the room temperature, and even the chance that some stealthy pheromones were playing a role. Each led straight to a dead end.

Then came their moment. They’d observed mother rats tirelessly doting on their young with a relentless regimen of licks and grooming. Could the missing link be a lack of maternal licks? Rather than licking any rats, Evoniuk hit upon an ingenious stand-in: a camera lens brush—which just happens to be about the size of a rat tongue. With gentle strokes mimicking mom’s tender care, what unfolded was nearly magic. Enzyme levels and growth hormones boomed upward. Just a touch of “maternal” affection and the once-floundering rat pups began to thrive.7

Later in 1979, at an NIH study section, Schanberg met Tiffany Martini Field, a psychologist at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Field worked in pediatrics and was particularly interested in stimulating premature infants to grow at a healthy rate. She was trying different massage therapies but wasn’t getting positive results. While at the meeting, Schanberg explained that massaging rat pups had hugely improved their health. Field’s brain started spinning, and they compared notes. She’d been delicately brushing preemies while Schanberg was using a more “assertive” touch on his rat pups. Field set out to investigate whether she needed a new technique. She pumped up the pressure of her touch, and the babies’ heartbeats mellowed like magic. Relaxed and happy, the babies began eating better and started packing on the ounces faster. And surprise, surprise, there was a boost in growth hormones, bringing it all back to Schanberg’s original research question. Infant massage, it turned out, was a ticket to quicker growth and heightened baby alertness. Babies treated to fifteen-minute massage sessions three times a day chunked up 47 percent faster than their no-massage peers. They even clocked out of their hospital stay about six days sooner, even when they received the same nutrients as the other infants.8

At the time that Field published her results, the standard medical practice was for premature babies to be isolated in an incubator and fed intravenously for their own protection, but there was no doubt in Field’s mind that this was going to be a game changer in medicine.9 The medical community, however, was strangely unimpressed. Though revered for their rigorous standards, medical practices are sometimes slow to change, handcuffed by tradition. It wasn’t until First Lady Hillary Clinton, who was working to reform health care, cast a spotlight on Field’s work that it began to receive the attention it deserved.

A side effect of Field’s research was a dramatic reduction in national health care costs. Analyses estimate that simply by using the infant massage technique Field developed, hospitals can reduce the cost of caring for premature infants by about $10,000 per child, adding up to an annual savings of $4.7 billion. Hundreds of NICUs have jumped on the massage bandwagon, and that number’s only ticking upward.10 Not bad for a failed experiment.

THE LAW OF URINATION

If there was a billboard for silly science, David Hu’s face would be front and center. Hu is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and gets to dabble in a huge variety of research projects. He and his team of students have investigated many obscurities of the animal kingdom—everything from the art of the doggy shake ’n’ dry to the confounding cube-shaped poop of wombats. This story goes out to anyone who has ever changed a diaper.

As happens to many scientists who are also parents, Hu’s daily escapades involve a tenuous dance between test tubes and baby toys. One day, as Hu was changing a diaper, his son waited until he was naked, aimed directly at Hu, and with the precision of a marksman, urinated all over his shirt. The sleep-deprived saga of parenthood will lower anyone’s patience, but just as Hu was about to snap, he remembered a strategy his wife had shared to stay calm—counting out loud. The golden stream went on for what seemed an eternity, clocking in at a whopping twenty-one seconds. This seemed like an unusually long time for a ten-pound baby, and Hu began to worry that his son might have a serious medical problem. He finished putting on the diaper, placed his child on the ground, and went to the bathroom to clean himself up. After changing his shirt, he looked over at the toilet, and like a true scientist, he decided to run an experiment of his own. He unzipped his pants and, while taking “the most important pee of his life,” started counting how long it took for him to urinate. He counted for twenty-three seconds.11

This did not make sense to the man who had spent years studying fluid dynamics. Our kidneys filter out urea from our blood to create the urine that collects in our bladders. Therefore, the amount of urine that forms should be in direct proportion to the amount of blood in the body. Knowing that his body weight was at least ten times greater than his son’s, this just didn’t add up: surely an adult should urinate for much longer than an infant. Perplexed, Hu went to teach his undergraduate fluid mechanics course with this puzzle on his mind. He asked the class if they had any thoughts on the matter, and they just responded with quizzical looks and whispers. Nada. So, he asked if anyone would be willing to help him find a scientific explanation. Two ambitious premed students, the only kind of students desperate enough to volunteer for a project like this, raised their hands.

Take a deep dive into the anatomy of any creature, and you’ll hit upon some odd designs. The urinary system is no exception. Whether you’re a kangaroo, a canary, or a goldfish, the way that you pee is a tale of adaptation to a specific environment. The urinary system plays a vital role in maintaining the internal environment of any animal by regulating the balance of water and electrolytes, eliminating waste products, and controlling blood pressure. If we’re talking mammals, it’s a neat package: kidneys, ureters, a bladder, and the urethra, or as Hu endearingly dubs it, the “pee-pee pipe.” The kidneys are the bouncers of this club, filtering out what needs to go and holding tight to what needs to stay. Meanwhile, ureters shuttle the filtered pee from the kidneys straight to the bladder for storage. Lastly, the urethra transports the pee to its final destination outside the body, which, in this case, was onto Hu’s shirt.

In the world of animal physiology, one thing is for sure: size matters. And we aren’t just talking about pee-pee pipes here; the environmental stresses of being a tiny animal, like a mouse, are very different from those of a large animal, such as an elephant. It all boils down to a little math—specifically, surface-to-volume ratios. You may remember that for a simple shape like a ball, the surface area is related to the square of its radius, while the volume is related to the cube of its radius. It’s a bit more complicated for animal shapes, but essentially it means that our tiny friends have a lot more surface for their volume. Restroom rituals are not exempt from being affected by the animal’s surface-to-volume ratio. Due to their long lifespans and low metabolic rates, large animals like elephants deal with the challenges of storing waste a bit longer, and the need to manage toxins effectively. Their plumbing has evolved to be highly efficient, capable of filtering large volumes of fluids and concentrating waste in ways that conserve water and other vital resources. This is essential when roaming vast landscapes where water might be a luxury. On the other hand, smaller animals are generally about speed, which means they aren’t quite as good at a water-saving challenge. So, big or small, nature’s pee-pee protocol is tailored to size—and survival.12

Hu recruited graduate student Patricia Yang to oversee the student volunteers. Yang was studying physics and ocean engineering—neither of which teach you how to collect urine. The first animal they tried to collect urine from was a dog. They felt like if they could be successful with an animal that is very accustomed to urinating in front of humans, they would be able to move on to the bigger challenges at the zoo. Alas, they were not at all successful. Apparently, not even man’s best friend is okay with someone sprinting toward them with a cup during a private moment. After a redesign of their methods, the team tried using dog training pads to catch the urine. By weighing the pad after the dog has urinated, they could calculate the volume of urine. This strategy was a success. They took the show on the road to local farms, where they collected urine from goats, sheep, and cows. With weeks of solid experience under their belts, they felt ready to go to the zoo.

When doing research in a zoo, there’s an intricate list of rules—not just to keep us safe from the potentially dangerous animals but also to shield them from diseases we might carry. These limitations meant that getting within six feet of the animals was almost always impossible, a problem that the researchers hadn’t faced when collecting urine from domestic animals. The team switched to using high-speed video cameras to capture the deed in action. They learned the daily patterns of the animals and when they were most likely to urinate. Sometimes, this meant being up at the crack of dawn to catch an elephant’s morning whiz. Other times, it meant days of waiting—and waiting some more—just hoping that the animals they were watching were well-hydrated. After a few weeks of grueling effort, the students returned from the zoo downtrodden, very smelly, and disappointed with the results they had to share.13

The students trudged into Hu’s office with their tails between their legs. They had sampled over forty species of many different sizes, but all of them peed for the same amount of time. For anyone larger than a rat, nature’s call lasted between ten and thirty seconds, averaging around twenty-one seconds. After the students reported what they thought was a botched experiment, Hu instantly lit up with excitement. The fact that these animals all urinated within a small range was amazing! A dog has a bladder that is about the size of a cup, whereas an elephant’s bladder is the size of an entire garbage can, and yet they peed for approximately the same amount of time.

With an eagerness that can only come from a pure scientific heart, Hu and his students began an intense review of the anatomy of the mammalian urinary system. What they found was fascinating. Despite the huge size differences in the animals they studied, which spanned five orders of magnitude, the anatomy of the urinary system remained remarkably similar. This might not surprise you, but predicting how an animal’s organs change depending on body size is not intuitive. “Allometry,” a term coined by biologist Julian Huxley in the 1930s, examines how different body parts grow at different rates. Often, the growth of structures to body size does not happen linearly. For example, when you look at a newborn horse, it looks like they are standing on wobbly stilts for legs. As the little one grows, though, its legs will grow slower than the rest of the body, and when the foal is fully grown, it no longer looks like it’s performing a balancing act with every step. Shrink the femur of an elephant and a dog to match in size, and you’ll see the elephant’s is like a tree stump while the dog’s is much leaner. It’s nature’s architectural genius, fortifying the bone for the heft of the elephant. Such insights of scale give us a peek into how each creature, big or small, functions just right for its size. The urinary system, however, is nothing like a leg bone—it plays by the scaling rulebook called isometry and stays proportionately the same size even though large and small animals hold different volumes of pee.14

Until this research was done, scientists really didn’t know why mammals needed a urethra in the first place. The answer, Hu believes, is found in the physics of pressure and fluid dynamics. French mathematician Blaise Pascal found that fluid pressure isn’t actually a product of the amount of fluid; rather, it’s how it is arranged in space. In other words, fluids will exert different pressures depending on how they’re contained. Pascal developed a theorem, known as Pascal’s law, that the pressure in a pipe is proportional to its height. By increasing the height of a tube, the fluids can amplify the force of gravity and increase the pressure driving downward. This exact same process applies to the urethra. To give you a visual, an elephant’s urethra is like a three-foot-long slide, as wide as your fist, turning a urination event into something akin to five showerheads on full blast. An adult woman, however, has a petite two-inch urethra that is less than a quarter inch in width. After analyzing many pee-pee pipes, the team concluded that the urethra is consistently twenty times longer than its width. Yang took this information and created a standard mathematical formula for urination time in mammals: the Law of Urination. The Law of Urination, aka “the Other Golden Rule,” states that if the aspect ratio of the pipes remains the same, the time it takes to empty the bladder doesn’t depend upon the volume of the bladder; instead, it will always be approximately 21 ± 13 seconds.15

This discovery turns out to be more than just a fun fact to yell over to the person in the bathroom stall next to you. Before this study, it was unclear whether the bladder created pressure to empty fluid or if gravity was the driving force, but the Law of Urination says that it is the weight of the fluid in the urethra that pushes the fluid out in mammals larger than a rat. In other words, you can move fluids quickly using gravity without exerting extra pressure on the fluid. This information could be useful for engineers seeking more efficient water tanks or even fire hoses.16 Medical researchers and practitioners also consider the Law of Urination to be a valuable resource. With the standardized time it takes for a healthy individual to urinate, the Law of Urination could be useful in detecting health problems earlier and with less expense. For example, as men age, their prostate often increases in size, which narrows the diameter of the urethra, slowing the flow. This law could also advance the technology available to control incontinence. Engineers are even designing prosthetics to replace the whole urethra in the event of an injury, and they are using the Law of Urination as a baseline for a healthy individual. And to think that most people would have just flushed this discovery down the toilet.

MEDICINE FROM MONSTERS

On the night of March 19, 1953, an army officer stationed at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, had a little too much to drink. Perhaps he should have stopped at two beers. Or at least after two beers and six martinis. But after two beers, six martinis, and five scotch and sodas, it’s impressive that he was still even on his feet.

Now, it’s not rare for people to make poor choices when they are under the influence of that much alcohol, but most of the time, it doesn’t involve a Gila monster. These lizards live in the southwestern deserts of the US, and they don’t look nearly as menacing as their name suggests; in fact, they are kind of cute and stubby. They have a lovely black and orange pattern over their rough, beaded skin and only grow to be about two feet long. But Gila monsters hold a title that not many lizards can claim—they are venomous. They aren’t much of a threat to humans—unless you decide to play Russian roulette with your fingers and a Gila monster’s mouth—which is exactly what our drunken officer did that night.17

The Gila monster in question, initially captured for physiological studies at the University of Arizona, had been transported across several army posts, although why the lizard’s latest stop was the Nevada base remains a mystery. Whatever the reason, the fateful encounter was set in motion. In his state of questionable judgment, the officer removed the lizard from its enclosure and carried it back to the bar with the mission of putting on the show of a lifetime. He placed the lizard on the bar, and without hesitation, began poking his index finger in and out of the animal’s gaping jaws. The show didn’t last long—the Gila monster promptly bit down, chomping and gnawing four times before the officer could pry his bloody fingers out of the lizard’s mouth. Screaming in pain, he tried to milk the venom out of his finger, but no such luck. Before long, his heart began racing, his blood pressure went through the roof, and he was in serious pain. He spent the days that followed in bed feeling weak and dizzy—the Gila monster’s venomous bite is a doozy—but those last six martinis didn’t help either.18

The powerful secretions of venomous animals have fascinated humans for centuries, and many cultures have tried to harness that power. The earliest known evidence of research on venom came from Aristotle. More modern research began to take shape in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, led by Italian scientists Francesco Redi and Felice Fontana. Redi, who is considered one of the founders of toxicology, found that venom is released through a snake’s teeth. Fontana discovered the glands that produce snake venom and experimented with a variety of other venomous animals.19 Much of the early research on venom was focused on the immediate need for antivenoms to prevent fatalities. In 1895, Albert Calmette created a cobra antivenom by injecting a series of small, steadily increasing doses of venom, often in a horse or rabbit, which would in turn produce antibodies in their blood. Calmette would collect the blood and isolate the antibodies to create the antivenom. This technique has now been successfully adapted to a wide range of venomous species.20

There are an estimated 220,000 venomous species of animals on Earth. These species come from a whole range of animals, from spiders to stonefish. Even the adorable platypus has venom glands attached to the spurs on their hind legs. These 220,000 species are not closely related, and it appears that venom evolved at least nineteen independent times in different lineages.21 A trait has to be really advantageous to show up that many times independently. Animal venoms are mostly mixtures of peptides and proteins, and a single sample of venom could contain several hundred components that produce a wide array of physiological effects.22 Snake venom, for example, can affect the nervous system as a neurotoxin or as a hemotoxin that prevents blood from coagulating properly.23 Spider venom contains toxins that act on the sodium channels vital for the nervous system to properly function, causing the spider’s victim to experience irreversible paralysis.24 Bee and wasp venom can permeate the blood-brain barrier, affecting the central nervous system and changing how potassium moves through cell membranes, while fish venom has toxic effects, including necrosis of tissue, and can cause a direct attack on the cardiovascular system.25 Bites from our friend the Gila monster can cause all kinds of symptoms consistent with neurotoxicity, including pain, paralysis, and lowered heart rate. There is also evidence that their venom blocks the electrical stimulation of skeletal muscles.26 Those are some powerful peptides and proteins.

Research into these toxic compounds and their physiological impacts has opened the doors to new medical applications. It’s tough to know exactly when people began to think about venom for medical purposes beyond antivenom, but it was millennia ago. There is evidence of honeybee venom being used for therapeutic purposes in the second century BC in Eastern Asia. Many ancient cultures, including those of Egypt, India, and Greece, used leeches for the treatment of diseases because of the anticoagulant effect of their venom. Long before the invention of antivenom, Indigenous cultures were known to use venom for rituals and for hunting purposes.27 In ancient Rome, venom was used to treat smallpox, leprosy, and fever, and for wound healing. The first drug that used snake venom hit the market in 1981. It was medication to lower blood pressure, commonly referred to as an ACE inhibitor, called captopril. As of 2020, there are now eleven approved venom-based drugs for arthritis, heart failure, and other conditions.28 More recent research has widely expanded medicinal uses. Snake venom, for example, is now a diagnostic tool for researchers studying the coagulation of blood.29 Venom from spiders potentially holds medical applications for diseases such as strokes and cancer. The next iteration of erectile dysfunction drugs might be based on spider venom too.30

Research on Gila monster venom has been taking place for the past few decades, and the medical advances that have resulted are groundbreaking. One of the researchers involved was Jean-Pierre Raufman, a gastroenterologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Raufman was studying the physiological responses of venom from different animals, interested in seeing if venom could stimulate digestive enzymes in mammals.31 He found himself particularly intrigued by the Gila monster. These lizards have a unique physiology, and they only need to eat a few times a year. Instead of regular meals, the Gila monster slowly digests fat stored in its tail while remaining below ground. As a gastroenterologist, Raufman found this fascinating. How was this lizard capable of stabilizing its energy for so long between feedings?

Raufman acquired a sample of Gila monster venom and began testing its effects on mice. This was the first time he noted that the venom contained molecules that cause inflammation of the pancreas. This little tidbit of information sat unappreciated for nearly a decade until Raufman was giving a lecture at the Bronx Veterans Administration. Here he ran into an old collaborator, John Eng, a practicing physician and research scientist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center. Eng had spent years treating patients who suffered from diabetes, and he knew that maintaining normal glucose levels was crucial to the patient’s health. When he heard Raufman’s lecture, this new information about the effects of Gila monster venom intrigued him. Since insulin, the essential hormone for maintaining healthy glucose levels, is found in the pancreas, he wondered whether Gila monster venom could potentially help control the symptoms of diabetes. Eng suggested that he and Raufman look further into the potential medical applications of the Gila monster venom together.32

The duo jumped headfirst into the research and ordered powdered Gila monster venom from the Miami Serpentarium. The owner of this business was well-known for supplying venom to researchers and had apparently suffered more than 170 snake bites over the years for his valiant efforts—that is some serious dedication! As Eng looked into the chemical composition of the venom, he found a small peptide that piqued his interest. This peptide, which he named exendin-4, was remarkably similar to a peptide found in humans called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). GLP-1 has been a molecule of interest for the treatment of type 2 diabetes since the 1970s, when it was discovered to be partially responsible for sending the message from the intestine to the pancreas to release insulin after eating glucose. In the 1980s, Daniel Drucker of the University of Toronto was able to identify the peptide as a chain of thirty amino acids, but, despite the new information about the molecule, there was a big problem in using it as a treatment. GLP-1 had a very short half-life, and within a few minutes after each injection, it would largely disappear from the blood, making it an impractical treatment.33

Eng knew the limitations of GLP-1, and he was excited to test the effects of exendin-4 on mice. What he found was groundbreaking. When the new peptide was tested on diabetic mice, it reduced their blood glucose levels not for minutes but for hours. This was a huge improvement over the short-term control provided by GLP-1. Eng filed for a patent in 1993 with the hope that he could sell his discovery to a pharmaceutical company, but people were skeptical of his work. It was too strange—how could something derived from lizard venom work in humans? It took three years and tens of thousands of dollars in patent fees before he attracted the attention of a small pharmaceutical company named Amylin. Nine years later, in 2005, the Food and Drug Administration approved exenatide, known by the brand name Byetta. It has helped millions of people manage type 2 diabetes and reduce the risks of complications from the disease.

Though the drug was marketed for the treatment of diabetes, it was also found to help control another major medical issue—obesity. Obesity affects almost 42 percent of Americans and is correlated with life-threatening conditions such as stroke, heart disease, and cancer.34 Prior to 2005, there was no effective drug to treat obesity, but as of 2024, exendin-based drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, have all gone into clinical practice, and they are likely to see more competition soon. Patients say it curbs their cravings for food, so they eat much less. But while it’s easy to see how exendin-4 affects glucose levels in diabetes, the mechanisms behind the weight loss are more mysterious. It’s also unknown whether there will be any long-term side effects of using this drug to control obesity. Regardless, the drugs are growing in popularity and helping obese patients lose weight and avoid weight-related health conditions.35

None of these research teams anticipated the groundbreaking revelations their work would bring forth. Each began with an ordinary observation that sparked a question and employed the rigorous discipline of the scientific method to answer it, revealing its value. These scientists dared to dally into realms most would find absurd, transforming trivial into terrific and meaningful. Their pursuits remind us that in the world of science, no observation is too small to yield profound understanding. Of course, observation might spark a question, but the spark can still go out. How many people who enjoyed the Greek bathhouses noticed water would spill out of the tub when submerging themselves? Probably many. How many were curious enough to create a mathematical theorem? Just Archimedes. Observation might be the spark, but curiosity is the gasoline that sustains the fire of scientific discovery.

¹

CHAPTER TWO

CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT?

We are all born as curious little creatures, badgering our parents with questions of why as soon as we can talk. But somewhere on the path to becoming grown-ups, we are taught that curiosity gets you into trouble. You’ve heard the stories—Adam and Eve curiously nibbled a fruit, and bam, human suffering. And then there’s Pandora, who couldn’t keep herself away from that one box she was told not to open, unleashing horrors galore. Oh, and let’s not forget about the curious cat—poor thing never stood a chance. Moral of the story? Stop asking questions and follow the damn instructions, kid.

Scientists either played hooky on this day of class or didn’t care what trouble curiosity brought their way. Regardless, our curiosity was never curtailed, and we made an entire career out of it. Scientists sometimes ask questions that sound trivial or naively curious to those who stopped asking “why” a long time ago. For them, though, every question, no matter how seemingly silly, is fueled by a profound sense of wonder and a hunger to understand. It’s not just about idle musing; it’s about piecing together the colossal jigsaw puzzle that is the universe, one tiny piece at a time.

Let’s talk about the quintessential curious cat of science—Benjamin Franklin. Ben Franklin wasn’t exactly a Harvard graduate. In fact, he never even stepped foot in a college. He had to ditch school by the time he was ten due to his family’s financial situation, but that didn’t dampen his spirit. He was basically a self-made intellect, reading any books he could get his hands on. With his extensive interests, Franklin wandered around in the realms of electricity, optics, and meteorology. He even helped found the United States of America on the side.

One of Franklin’s most legendary antics was the kite experiment. Franklin didn’t just wake up one day and decide to fly a kite in a storm; he had a plan. A risky, daring plan to uncover what lightning really was. With a homemade kite, a metal key, and a ton of courage, he stepped into the storm. When he felt that spark, you might say it wasn’t just an electric shock. It was curiosity turning harebrained ideas into practical, real-world solutions, like our understanding of electricity. Curiosity, even the reckless kind, has its merits.1

FROM HOT SPRINGS TO HOTTER TECHNOLOGY

In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, a once-obscure scientific term entered the everyday vernacular: polymerase chain reaction (PCR). During the pandemic, a COVID-19 test became a ritual—a probing swab that felt like it was sampling your brain, followed by an anxious wait for the results from that omnipotent PCR test. But it was just the latest act for a technology that had been used to detect a slew of diseases and made stellar contributions to forensic science and the mammoth task of sequencing the human genome. Little wonder that the American Association for the Advancement of Science dubbed PCR among the “few technologies in the life sciences” that genuinely transformed the field. And we can trace it all back to a scientist curiously rooting around in Yellowstone Park’s boiling waters.2

In the summer of 1966, microbiologist Thomas Brock found himself winding his way westward in his car. On a whim, he decided to pull into the iconic Yellowstone Park, a place he’d never seen in person. Brock was expecting geysers and vast scenic beauty but was instead greeted by boiling springs. As steam wafted upward and the water bubbled ferociously, he spotted a surprising sight—blue-green algae thriving in the scalding waters. This made him scratch his head. In what universe did living organisms flourish in boiling temperatures? Yet, there they were.

Once Brock returned home, he was confounded to find very little existing research on these thermal wonders. So, he began his own research. The lethal environment lacked plants and animals, offering a unique, pure, microbial system undistorted by more complex life-forms. To investigate the microbes, he developed an ingenious technique of suspending microscope slides in the boiling abyss to soak for days. When he retrieved them, they were coated with a microbial film. As he peered through his microscope at his catch, he realized he was onto something revolutionary—the bacteria exhibited a slew of physical traits no one had seen before. This research piqued the interest of a young undergraduate, Hudson Freeze, who joined in the attempt to culture these mysterious microbes. Their combined efforts led to success when, in 1969, the team identified a new bacterium species, which they fittingly named Thermus aquaticus. These bacteria didn’t just survive but reveled in temperatures reaching 158°F, shattering the previously held belief that 131°F was the upper threshold for life.3 The burning question was obviously how these bacteria could pull off this thermal marvel. Delving into their molecular makeup, the duo discovered that, unlike almost all proteins, the enzymes within these bacteria remained stable, even at searing temperatures.

Some of those enzymes were about to run smack into one of biology’s biggest challenges. The relentless quest for the “secret of life” has pushed scientists for decades. Beginning early in the twentieth century, Thomas Hunt Morgan made groundbreaking revelations using our little ally, the fruit fly. He pinpointed that the chromosomes nestled in a cell’s nucleus were the key to heredity. The exact mechanics of heredity, however, remained a mystery. DNA, since its 1869 discovery by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher, was believed to be the script of genes. Yet, its architecture was still unknown. A significant stride forward was made by Linus Pauling, who, through X-ray experiments, had demonstrated that many proteins adopt a spiral shape. Pauling hypothesized that DNA was woven in a triple helix. Simultaneously, two other teams across the Atlantic were racing toward the same goal. Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, stationed at King’s College London, deployed X-ray crystallography to explore DNA’s design. Meanwhile, at Cambridge, James Watson and Francis Crick embraced a hands-on approach: they crafted paper models, drawing insights from protein structure X-rays and, crucially, leveraging Franklin’s telling photographs. The culmination of this fervent chase materialized in the April 1953 issue of the science magazine Nature, where both teams unveiled their findings. However, the limelight shone brighter on Watson and Crick, who debunked Pauling’s triplex theory, unveiling instead the double helix of DNA.4

The captivating images unveiled a DNA structure of two intertwined strands, each featuring complementary bases that ran in contrasting directions. Crosslinks interconnected this double-stranded arrangement, giving the appearance of a spiraled ladder. Every step or “rung” of this molecular ladder consisted of a pair of molecules: either adenine partnering with thymine or cytosine aligning with guanine. Each specific pairing was held in place by an interaction between certain atoms, known as hydrogen bonds. During cell division, the helical structure cleverly “unzips,” breaking these bonds and allowing each half to form a blueprint for two new DNA sequences, each identical to half of the original molecule. This groundbreaking revelation by Watson and Crick illuminated the fundamental process by which genetic traits are transmitted from one generation to the next. Their discovery of the iconic double-helix structure of DNA was duly recognized with the Nobel Prize in 1962, which they shared with Wilkins. Tragically, only three individuals can jointly receive a Nobel Prize, and they all must be living. The crucial contributions of Rosalind Franklin went unrecognized due to her untimely death from ovarian cancer a decade prior.5

Since the unveiling of DNA’s structure, it has captivated the scientific community, holding promise for transformative advances in health care, among other compelling applications. However, a key challenge stood in the way—each cell contains only a minuscule amount of DNA, making detailed study difficult. The solution was to amplify the DNA available by essentially replicating what naturally occurs within living cells when they reproduce and make copies of their DNA. The blueprint for this method seemed straightforward: utilize enzymes present within cells, known as polymerases, to produce multiple copies. Think of these polymerases as meticulous scribes, duplicating even the tiniest fragment of DNA. However, there was a catch to this simple plan—to prepare DNA for this replication process in a laboratory, it must be subjected to high temperatures. The problem was that most polymerases wilted in the heat. The workaround was to continuously introduce fresh enzymes throughout the amplification process, but this approach was labor-intensive and far from ideal.

In the early 1980s, Kary Mullis, a biochemist and technician at Cetus Corporation, stepped into the picture. Mullis was a strange guy. He wasn’t just an offbeat character; he practically invented his own beat. The Washington Post, in what can only be assumed was an exercise in restraint, described him as “perhaps the weirdest human ever to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry.” This is a man whose affection for LSD was no secret and who believed a scientific presentation could be jazzed up with pictures of naked women. In his book Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, Mullis recounts an otherworldly nocturnal rendezvous with a luminous raccoon who politely addressed him as “doctor.” But, it turns out that even the oddest ducks can have a revolutionary idea now and again.6

One fateful night in 1983, as Mullis cruised through the California landscape en route to his cabin, inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt. He knew exactly how he could synthesize enormous quantities of DNA. The simplicity of the solution was so piercing that he momentarily wondered if he was overlooking something. The following Monday, he returned to Emeryville, California, rolled up his sleeves at Cetus Corporation, and began working on his idea. This was the birth of the process that became known as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. The process of PCR was surprisingly straightforward, at least to Mullis’s colleagues in the biotechnology world. First, you heat a DNA molecule to separate the double helix into two strands, each of which will be used as a template for making a copy, the same way that replication occurs in a cell. When the sample cools, the two DNA strands would typically click back together, but you can prevent this from happening using short stretches of DNA, like the ones he was creating for other projects. These pieces of DNA, called primers, are easily synthesized in the lab. When the primers click into the strand of DNA, they serve as a landing pad for the enzyme DNA polymerase.

The remaining problem was that polymerases used to amplify DNA couldn’t take the heat. But Mullis knew about Brock and his strange bacterium—including one known as Taq. Taq is a unique polymerase that doesn’t wilt in high temperatures. This was the missing piece in Mullis’s puzzle. Unfazed by the heat, not only could the Taq polymerase gallantly traverse the DNA strand, making sure each nucleotide snapped into its rightful place, but one piece of DNA could be transformed into two in a single PCR cycle. Rinse and repeat this process, and in just thirty cycles, you have billions of copies. Mullis’s track record meant many of his peers raised eyebrows at this new claim. They pegged it as just another one of Mullis’s wild flights of fancy. However, by year’s end, he’d presented undeniable evidence, forcing skeptics to eat their words.7

Whether it’s identifying sneaky bacteria or stealthy viruses, or probing the very essence of our genetic makeup, PCR has been essential to biological science. The ambitious Human Genome Project? Essentially a PCR marathon from 1990 to 2003. In addition to COVID-19 testing, it enables the detection of other viral diseases such as HIV. From probing environmental puzzles to unearthing culinary secrets in food research, PCR has been ubiquitous. All these ripples of change from an unplanned stop at Yellowstone Park. Reflecting on the journey, Brock mused in a 2020 radio interview, “Isn’t it something? From poking around boiling waters in Yellowstone out of sheer curiosity to catalyzing worldwide practical applications.”8 To that, one can only nod and say, “Amen.”

DUCK DICKS AND TWISTY TRICKS

Patty Brennan didn’t set out to become one of the world’s premier experts in animal genitalia. Brennan was exploring the world of tinamous in Costa Rica for her doctorate at Cornell University when she encountered a bird penis for the first time. Tinamous are seriously quirky little birds. They have functional wings but seem to enjoy a stroll more than a flight. No surprise, then, that they are closely related to the family of birds that includes ostriches and emus, which can no longer fly at all. In addition to their strange mode of locomotion, the reproductive practices of the tinamous are pretty wild. While most birds sport major differences between males and females—usually the guys are all flashy, rocking bright colors and smooth dance moves—tinamous keep it subtle. Male or female, they both come in shades of brown. But here’s the kicker—tinamous have a pretty unique parenting style. The care falls 100 percent onto dad. Once the females lay their dazzling, colorful eggs, their contribution is done. They hit the road, leaving the males to play Mr. Mom—keeping the eggs warm, guarding the nest, and babysitting the little ones until they can fend for themselves.9

The peculiarities of the tinamous don’t stop with their parental strategies. Their mating methods are every bit as unique. Generally, birds keep things pretty straightforward in the reproductive department with a cloaca—a multipurpose opening that takes care of waste elimination and reproductive activities. For most birds, romance involves a “cloacal kiss,” a brief encounter where the male, perched on the female, aligns his cloaca to hers, does a little tail shimmy to transfer sperm, and—date over. But tinamous play by a different set of rules. The first time Brennan saw tinamous mating, it initially seemed pretty standard—same old bird love story she’d observed countless times. However, as the rendezvous reached its supposed conclusion, things took a left turn. The male grasped the female by the neck, and they started walking, still coupled together. When they finally parted, Brennan spotted something unusual dangling from his cloaca. At first, she figured it was some sort of worm. It was only when he retracted it back into his body that she realized she had witnessed a bird equipped with a penis.

Brennan was working at Cornell University’s top-notch ornithology department, a place where people knew their sparrows from their starlings, yet she was baffled by what she had seen. Why was the possibility of birds having a penis a surprise to her? Turns out, it was a groundbreaking realization, hinting at unseen complexities in avian anatomy and behavior. Brennan undertook further investigations of the world of bird genitalia as a postdoc at Yale University. While tinamous were the inspiration for her research, they’re the introverts of the bird world, elusive and tricky to study. Getting up close and personal with their intimate anatomy was practically an impossible task. So, to familiarize herself and get some dissection practice, she turned to ducks. Finding them was a breeze, with plenty of domestic ducks waddling around local farms. But the moment Brennan got a peek at the duck’s extravagant anatomy, she never looked back at the tinamous.

Animal shapes and forms can often be chalked up to Darwin’s big idea—evolution through natural selection. Darwin published his famous text, Origin of Species, explaining his theory in 1859. Here’s the gist: all creatures come from a shared ancient relative; every individual has variation from another; and if your unique traits make you a survival superstar, your genes get passed to the next generation. Simple, right? But some traits don’t fit the model—like a peacock’s tail. There is nothing about this flashy accessory that should aid in survival. It’s huge and colorful and practically screams to predators that it’s an easy meal. Darwin was aware that the glorious peacock tail didn’t fit his theory and wrote in 1860 that the sight of a peacock feather made him sick. He knew he needed an addendum to the theory of natural selection, and that addendum was sexual selection—some traits, while not directly boosting survival, make you irresistible to the opposite sex.10

An animal might be a perfect match for its environment, but if it doesn’t have any offspring to show for it, it’s essentially a loser in the evolutionary lottery. The goal isn’t only to survive; you also need to reproduce and pass those successful traits down the family tree. Darwin suggested that competition for mates could happen in one of two ways. First off, there’s the classic male showdown. Think of the impressive horns and antlers some species sport, allowing dudes to secure and defend their ladies and lands through physical dominance. But a flashy peacock tail doesn’t do much in a brawl with other males. Instead, male peacocks use their tails to compete for a female’s approval. He who flaunts the most fabulous features gets chosen to mate.

Though differences between the sexes are commonly seen throughout the animal kingdom, male and female peacocks look like entirely different species. While the male has his impressive array of iridescence, the females are a plain brown without any hint of grandeur. But the females don’t need dazzling displays of plumage because they’ve got the golden ticket—an egg. Creating life is draining, and usually it’s the females bearing the brunt of the work. Given the scarcity of her eggs compared to the millions of sperm a male churns out, each egg is like a treasure. She’s got to be choosy, opting for mates whose genes scream survival and vitality. The logic goes, if a male can afford to sport and maintain extravagant features, he’s likely in robust health. A peacock showing up with a skimpy tail? Probably not winning any dates since it hints at possible health issues. Even with the cumbersome tail, a peacock’s flamboyance pays off in the love department. Sexual selection takes a different form in ducks. With male ducks usually outnumbering females, the rivalry for a partner is fierce. The rejected ones often resort to aggressive tactics, with a shocking 40 percent of duck sexual interactions being forced. Although this strips the females of their choice in mates, it still prompted the evolution of a longer, ornate penis that was believed to have a higher success rate in egg fertilization.11

Penises, or a structure to penetrate the female for fertilization, are not uncommon in the animal kingdom, but most bird species—97 percent—lack penises. Among the 3 percent of birds that do have one, you’ll find ducks, geese, and swans, as well as the large flightless birds and tinamous. It has been suggested that most bird penises disappeared because it was just extra weight and detrimental to efficient flight. This is a fine hypothesis, except when considering their mammalian counterparts, bats, and the extremely large members they sport. Perhaps it was to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, though that hasn’t been a big enough deterrent in other groups to entirely drop their penises. It’s an evolutionary mystery that has yet to be fully unraveled.12

It’s hard to overstate how weird duck penises are compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. Mammals use a fully enclosed tube, sometimes supported by a bone and sometimes not, to transfer their sperm. In many reptiles, the sperm travels down an open groove on the surface of the penis. Snakes and lizards have two-pronged penises, but the unassuming echidna takes the prize with a four-pronged pecker. At least until you see a duck penis, that is. Most of the time, ducks will keep their appendage stashed away within a sac in their body, but when it’s time for mating, the penis makes quite the appearance. Exploding out of their body in just a third of a second is a lengthy, corkscrew-shaped phallus that is ready to roll. Now this, Brennan thought, was compelling.

Of course, even less studied than duck penises are duck vaginas. In general, females across the animal kingdom have not gotten nearly the attention that males have, likely because, until recently, there were mostly men doing the science. Brennan had been dissecting vaginas from other birds to look at sperm storage. What she found was mostly a normal little tube that was folded up. After she saw the duck penis, however, she knew there had to be something more interesting happening with duck vaginas. She asked the advisor of her lab if he had ever seen a duck vagina, and unsurprisingly, the answer was no. Determined to take a look, Brennan drove to a local farm, purchased two female ducks, and brought them back to the lab for examination. What she found next completely blew her mind. Unlike most bird species in which males don’t have a penis, the duck’s vagina was filled with labyrinthine elaborations. Brennan knew that about 40 percent of copulations were forced on females, but also that of those unwanted advances, only 2 to 5 percent resulted in a fertilized egg. Perhaps, she thought, the elaborate twists and turns were an evolutionary response to the assholery of male ducks, allowing them to block fertilization with spirals and dead-end streets.13 Brennan realized that the crazy-looking duck penis wasn’t there for competition with other males but in response to the female’s anatomy. Her first thought was that she was the luckiest person around because she had found something extraordinary in the first system she worked on. But her second thought was that perhaps it wasn’t luck at all. Maybe these elaborate structures are everywhere, but nobody is looking.14

Brennan wanted to test this female-centered hypothesis and found a local duck farmer who was willing to let her run some unconventional experiments. Apparently there are duck farms that collect sperm from their drakes to use for artificial insemination, and they do this by training them to ejaculate into a bottle. Don’t ask me how—I stopped my research on the process right there. But this was exactly the party trick Brennan needed to conduct her research. She arrived at the farm with a variety of transparent prosthetic duck vaginas of every shape and size and let the guys go to town. What she found next was exciting support for her hypothesis. The elaborate maze of the duck’s vagina significantly slowed the expansion of the duck penis, and the penises failed to reach full eversion 80 percent of the time.

And this is where female choice comes back into play. You see, when the female is penetrated by a male she didn’t choose, she maintains her inner maze to thwart reproduction. But when she finds the right guy, she’s able to open a clear pathway for fertilization. Female ducks might not always be able to control who mates with them, but they can control who fathers their offspring, and that is an evolutionary win. This new female-centric perspective sheds new light on the question of why most birds don’t have a penis. Brennan suspects that it had nothing to do with weight or disease but was instead the product of female choice. Over millions of years, she suggests, female birds have chosen less coercive males with smaller penises to the point where penises disappeared. Without a penis, it is practically impossible for a male to copulate without the female’s consent.15

There are important lessons to be learned from Brennan’s research. If a male is to successfully father offspring, he needs to be on his best behavior by walking the straight and narrow. If he doesn’t play by the female’s rulebook, he becomes an evolutionary loser—a warning that should be respected within more (hominid) species as well. Brennan’s investigation down the long and winding road of duck genitalia did something extraordinary. It provided a new framework for our understanding of evolution and sexual selection, putting a fresh spin on the battle of the sexes, not just in ducks but throughout the animal kingdom.

SHRIMP FIGHT CLUB

I want you to think back to summer days in the neighborhood swimming pool. Maybe you had an annoying sibling swimming around with you. And maybe you tried to fight them underwater a time or two, swinging your arms as fast as possible. But despite your best efforts, you moved in slow motion. The water’s high viscosity prevented you from gaining any kind of momentum, and you barely made an impact when you finally touched your target. It’s the sort of experience that makes you wonder how anything gets done underwater. So consider for a moment the mantis shrimp. Mantis shrimp aren’t the pink guys you encounter on your dinner plate. In fact, they are technically a stomatopod, the great-grandaddy of modern shrimp. They come in a wide variety of beautiful colors, but their most unique adaptation is their ability to break apart shells with an incredible punch.

Sheila Patek didn’t begin her career studying the boxing techniques of crustaceans. Patek began her scientific journey as an undergraduate at Harvard University. She is also an accomplished musician, so when she learned of a biology lab studying marine animals’ acoustics, she jumped at the opportunity to combine her two passions. Although it is often perceived as a quiet and peaceful place, the ocean is a cacophony of marine musicians. The whales are the sonorous bassists while the dolphins click and whistle their high-pitched solos. The fish are the relentless drummers, communicating in bursts of rhythmic beats, while the crustaceans add their own snap, crackle, and pop to the mix. Patek immersed herself in this underwater orchestra.16

Years later, Patek was working on her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, trying to figure out how the mantis shrimp make their distinctive contribution to the sounds of the sea, a low-frequency rumbling sound. As she spent more time with the mantis shrimp, she began to get curious about their appendages too. Mantis shrimp are named after the praying mantis because they hold their appendages in similar positions. She knew that this structure allowed for a very fast striking speed, so she thought she might as well look at the biomechanics of this phenomenon as well. Most of the time, the best way to tackle research on animal movement is to use a high-speed camera that records motion at a few hundred frames per second. But Patek immediately ran into a serious roadblock—the shrimp was so incredibly fast that not a single high-speed video camera at her university was fast enough to capture its strike.17

As luck would have it, a BBC crew was searching around the building for a story about new technologies in biology at around the same time Patek was looking for a solution to her camera speed problem. Patek offered the crew a deal—if they would rent a high-speed video system that was fast enough to catch the mantis shrimp’s strike, the crew could film her doing the research. They shook hands on it, and she got her high-speed camera in exchange for some time in the limelight. Next, she needed to figure out how to get the mantis shrimp to strike at its prey while in front of the camera. Turns out even mantis shrimp can get camera shy. She wired a snail to a stick to lure the animal within the camera’s view and recorded the strike at a whopping five thousand frames per second. Now she had the footage she needed to calculate the physics behind the shrimp’s incredible strike. Patek knew that their strike was very fast, but she was blown away to find that they were moving their appendages at 45 miles per hour when they hit the snail.18 Further data showed top speeds of 68 miles per hour, accelerating at the same order of magnitude as a bullet fired from a gun.19 And just like that, Patek captured the fastest strike of any animal that had ever been recorded.20

Of course, the next thing that Patek wanted to know after clocking those speeds was how on earth a little crustacean could move so quickly. Luckily, Malcolm Burrows, a professor at the University of Cambridge, had already taken a detailed look into the mechanisms behind their unique appendages. It turns out that they have a specialized “catch mechanism” in their leg, where a large muscle contracts, but a latch prevents the appendage from actually moving. Once the muscle is completely contracted, and all that energy is stored in elastic structures (aka springs), the latch releases and the spring propels the powerful movement faster than a blink. Imagine an arrow. If you were to just throw that arrow with your arm, it wouldn’t be particularly fast or powerful, but when you use a bow to slowly pull it back and then release the tension, you now have a weapon that can kill.21

Patek decided to embark on a scientific pilgrimage to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, which happened to be the proud home of the world’s finest collection of mantis shrimp. As she delved into the world of appendages and exoskeletons, she began considering a saddle-like structure that forms part of the top surface of a mantis shrimp’s limbs. Patek was familiar with the theory that the vibrant coloration of these structures possibly acted as the shrimp’s flashy billboards, but she hadn’t considered their biomechanics. The membranes surrounding these structures hinted at flexibility, and after wrestling with some calculations, she realized that this saddle must be the secret ingredient to the breakneck speed of the shrimp’s punch.

Analyzing their collection of video data, Patek saw the structure in action—compressions and extensions that amplified the shrimp’s spectacular strikes. It was like watching a biomechanical ballet unfold frame by frame. The saddle bore a shape well-known to engineers and architects—a hyperbolic paraboloid. This shape is known to be incredibly resilient and efficient. Mother nature had supplied the mantis shrimp with exactly the right body parts to produce its record-breaking speeds.

Next on Patek’s detective list was measuring the force behind this aquatic boxer’s punch. Speed was one thing, but they were also creating a force powerful enough to crack open a snail shell like a walnut. She put a bit of shrimp paste onto a tool called a load cell, and wham, the mantis shrimp smashed away. Patek assumed a cigar-sized animal couldn’t generate more than a hundred pounds of force, but the mantis shrimp immediately overloaded the hundred-pound load cell. Even the tiniest contenders in her lab were flexing their muscles, smashing well beyond a hundred pounds of force. So, she brought in a three-hundred-pound load cell and witnessed them unleash a whopping two-hundred-plus pounds of force. Another day, another world record for the mantis shrimp.22

When Patek looked more closely at the data, she noticed something she didn’t expect—there were two peaks of force. The first was obviously from the punch, but the second, occurring half a millisecond later, was a puzzler. A return to the high-speed videos revealed something she didn’t see before—a phenomenon known as cavitation (the formation of a vapor bubble when flows of water moving at extremely different speeds come into contact). The collapse of this vapor bubble is a spectacle, releasing sound, light, and heat-shock waves that equal the temperature of the sun. That second peak was the grand finale of the vapor bubble’s life. The mantis shrimp was exploiting fluid dynamics principles to add an extra layer of oomph to its punch—delivering a double whammy with grace and brute force.23

Cavitation is a known nemesis to engineers and is destructive enough to turn metal boat propellers into Swiss cheese. So, if cavitation has the power to take a bite out of sturdy metal propellers, what does it do to the mantis shrimp? Well, it appears the shrimp’s appendages don’t possess a superhero shield; their exoskeleton, too, succumbs to the ravages of cavitation, sometimes deteriorating to the point of exposing the flesh underneath. However, here’s the kicker: Being an arthropod, they molt, tossing their damaged armor and growing a new set. Once their new exterior is toughened up, they are ready to dive back into their action-packed lives.

In the pursuit of understanding the high-speed mechanism behind the mantis shrimp’s strike, Suzanne Cox, a graduate student with a penchant for robotics, constructed the Ninjabot—a robot that imitates the strike. It took a hefty 20 pounds of steel to mimic the action of a mere 0.14-ounce appendage, but the bot’s peak acceleration exceeds any other biomimetic robot to date.24 Other scientists have explored how mantis shrimp manage not to shatter their own limbs during their violent ventures. This pursuit has birthed innovative materials that resist fractures and endure high impacts. Patek’s research on the music of the mantis shrimp unwittingly became a muse for material scientists, and we are likely to see more engineering innovations in the future inspired by these punching shrimp.

WOVEN AND WIGGLY

In the heart of Anatolia lay the ancient city of Phrygia, home to a challenge that had confounded scholars, warriors, and philosophers alike for generations: the mystery of the Gordian knot. The knot, said to have been tied by Gordias, the father of King Midas, was bound to an alluring promise—the man who unraveled it would be the next person to rule all of Asia. In 333 BC, a bold figure marched into Phrygia and set his sights on the infamous puzzle. He scrutinized the knot, desperately trying to figure out how the rope was entangled. After many attempts to unravel it, he stepped back, pulled out his sword, and sliced the knot in half. This man was Alexander the Great, and true to prophecy, he ruled Asia until his death.25 The phrase “cutting the Gordian knot” is now used to describe a creative solution to a seemingly impossible problem. Maybe Alexander found a solution, but I think the California blackworm could have done it better.

Saad Bhamla didn’t know anything about California blackworms the first time he encountered them. At the time, he was studying for his PhD at Stanford University. California had been under drought conditions for most of his time there, although in 2016, there was a large enough rainfall to partially fill the dry Lake Lagunita. Most students were running with kayaks and floaties, excited to finally see water in the lake, but Bhamla was attracted to the spot for a different reason. In his studies, he had read about a kind of bacteria whose spores can lie dormant for decades, patiently awaiting the right environmental conditions before coming to life. Bhamla became curious about other organisms that could similarly withstand harsh conditions, and this rainfall presented a unique opportunity. What kinds of organisms would he find in a lake that had been dry and was suddenly refilled with water?

As he walked along a lakeside trail, something caught his eye—a goopy, brown blob. He grabbed a stick, and as all curious scientists do, he poked it. The blob didn’t just jiggle, it started wriggling all around. This blob was alive. And it wasn’t one organism; it was hundreds. Bhamla had discovered a mass aggregation of California blackworms. Blackworms are small—only 1.5 to 3 inches in length—with brown and red bodies. They often reside in shallow pools of water, and while they can be found swimming around on their own, they do prefer the company of others, often in the form of a worm blob, capable of moving as a cohesive unit.26 These worms weren’t just a blob, they were The Blob.

It’s not uncommon for animals to move together as a collective unit. Fish swim in schools, birds fly in flocks, and squid swim in squads. There are many advantages to gathering as a group, including protection from predators and access to mates, but California blackworms gather in a fashion unlike any other animal group Bhamla had seen. Once he brought the blob into the lab for closer examination, he saw that the worms wove their little bodies together into a ball. On the outermost layer, several worms left half of their bodies out of the ball to act as sensors. These individuals, which Bhamla called pullers, would wiggle around to feel out for cool, wet spots, and then lead the way as the rest of the worms followed in unison. The worms have even been known to work together, wiggling up the wall of a tank to make a jailbreak out of their laboratory enclosure.27 The blobs also moved away from stressors, such as light or heat, in an organized fashion.28 Bhamla found that when he picked up the worm ball, it flowed through his fingers like slime. But when he threw it on the ground, it bounced like a rubber ball—no, really, he tried—and the worms came out unscathed.

Fascinated by the blob’s resilience, Bhamla and his postdoctoral researcher Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin wanted to see exactly what the worms were capable of. Now, working on worm blobs isn’t for the faint of heart. Bhamla lost more than one potential graduate student over the ick factor. Ozkan-Aydin, however, had just had a baby, and she was unflappable. Together, they constructed a tiny worm gymnasium to study the athleticism of these wigglers. To test the strength of the blob, they thought it was best to begin by testing the strength of individual worms. Hooked to levers that measured their power, each worm underwent feats of strength in the tiny gymnasium. Much like humans, some individuals chose not to participate in the exercises, while others put in a solid effort. The worms that participated, the team found, were capable of moving a fifteen-worm blob on their own. Not only did the pullers do a tremendous job of initiating the blob’s movement, but they also lifted the blob to reduce friction.29 That’s a strong little worm.

But why go through all the trouble of traveling as a blob when you could just go your own way? It turns out that by gathering in knots of up to fifty thousand worms, they can protect themselves from drying out as their watery homes wax and wane. In fact, by blobbing, the worms can survive out of water ten times longer than they could as individuals.30

Tiny worms weaving themselves together in a knot is amazing, but how they untangle themselves is just as remarkable: While it can take a few minutes for the worms to tangle themselves together, they can unravel in just a fraction of a second.31 No sword required. Bhamla and his graduate student, Harry Tuazon, devised a masterful plan to figure out how they do it. The first challenge was to find a way to look inside the three-dimensional structure of the worm blob without disturbing its integrity. After some trial and error, they found that an ultrasound was the perfect tool. They borrowed a machine and placed a worm blob into nontoxic conductive jelly—lo and behold, they were able to visualize the entire structure of the blob. This, however, was only the beginning. Bhamla and Tuazon knew they were going to need expert mathematicians to help solve the problem. In what Bhamla called the “power of the cold email,” he approached Jörn Dunkel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vishal Patil from Stanford University. Most mathematicians will go their entire lives without reading an email that starts with “Hey I have these worms…” but as soon as Dunkel and Patil saw the video of the worm blob, they were hooked. Tuazon tracked the movement of each of the worms by hand, plotting 46,000 data points for Dunkel and Patil to analyze as they worked on the mathematics behind the tangles.32 When they examined the movements of an individual worm, they noticed that its body made a figure-eight pattern of wiggles. This wasn’t new information to the folks who study blackworms, but they wondered if this pattern might have something to do with their ultrafast untangling. With this idea in hand, the team created a mathematical model of the worm blob, showing how this twisty behavior gave them the ability to tangle into a cohesive unit while maintaining the option of a fast getaway.33

Although Bhamla’s research on worm blobs was purely curiosity driven, neat potential applications could stem from his lab’s work. For one, understanding the properties of the worm blobs could lead to novel ideas in the realm of soft robotics. For example, the potential to create materials that can morph into different shapes, tangling and untangling on demand. Perhaps this could lead to “smart” bandages that change shape as a wound heals. A material with mutable properties could also make for an impressive filter, altering itself to trap particles of different sizes.34

Bhamla and his team are still working to understand the mechanics of worm blobs, but their next steps include the addition of another worm—the leech. Leeches feed on worm blobs by grabbing a single worm and yanking it out of the mass. Given the intensive knot the worms tie themselves into, this is an impressive feat. Forcibly untangling the worm blob is a different challenge compared to understanding how the worms untangle themselves. It’s similar to trying to untangle a drawer full of extra cords all bundled together. Aside from having a strategy the next time you find yourself with a frustrating knot of cords, Bhamla sees another interesting potential behind this project.

Millions of medical masks are thrown away on a daily basis because they can’t be recycled. But what if the fibers of old masks could be unraveled to create new ones instead? He pitched his idea to 3M, a leading producer of medical masks, and though no one expected to see a proposal cross their desks that included the words “worm,” “sustainability,” and “circular economy” in a single sentence, 3M is now financially supporting this out-of-the-box idea and is excited to hear more about Bhamla’s curiosity-driven research on the mechanics of worm blobs.

Curiosity has long been the fuel for discovery—the insatiable questions of why and how that lead to the next “eureka moment.” But, curiosity is not just about seeking answers. It’s about embracing the thrill of the unknown. Not just the history of science, but the history of the world would have looked very different today if Thomas Brock had never stopped at Yellowstone Park one fateful day. Would Kary Mullis have ever perfected the process of DNA replication? Would the Human Genome Project have even been possible? I don’t know. But one thing is clear: individual curiosity was not enough to sustain any of these breakthroughs. Both Brock and Mullis made essential contributions to the innovation of PCR, and what we know about genetics might have been quite different had they not collaborated. Bhamla needed mathematicians. Patek needed roboticists. You see, science is rarely a one-man show. Observation and curiosity put scientists on the path to extraordinary findings, but it takes a team to navigate the labyrinth of scientific discovery.

¹

CHAPTER THREE

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

The myth of the lone genius is deeply ingrained in the annals of scientific history. We all know the names—Einstein, Newton, Tesla, Galileo, Darwin, Mendel—as if these scientists made groundbreaking discoveries all by their lonesome. But this is simply not true.

Einstein, for example, had many people who played crucial roles in forming his groundbreaking ideas. Two of the most influential figures in Einstein’s circle were Marcel Grossmann and Michele Besso, both of whom he met during his academic years. Marcel Grossmann wasn’t just a gifted mathematician—he was also a lifeline for Einstein during their time as students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. While Einstein had a freewheeling approach to academics, Grossmann was meticulous and organized. It’s said that during their time together, Einstein would often lean on Grossmann’s impeccably maintained notes when he missed a few too many classes daydreaming about the mysteries of the universe.1

Grossmann’s father gave Einstein his first job at the patent office in Berne in 1902. This position was pivotal for Einstein’s intellectual growth. Since it wasn’t a particularly demanding job, it gave him the time and mental space to develop his groundbreaking ideas. Michele Besso, an engineer and a friend from college, joined him in the same office two years later. Their time together led to some of Einstein’s most notable breakthroughs. In 1905, Einstein published his seminal paper on the special theory of relativity, and in a testament to Besso’s profound influence, he received the honor of being the singular person acknowledged in the paper. This wasn’t just a token nod; it was Einstein’s appreciative recognition of his valuable collaboration.

In 1907, Einstein began his academic quest to redefine the universe’s understanding of gravity. He was particularly interested in solving the mystery behind the peculiar orbit of Mercury. Observations indicated a persistent and baffling discrepancy: Mercury’s orbit deviated by about 43 seconds of arc per century from what Sir Isaac Newton’s laws predicted. This inconsistency perplexed the scientific community of the day. In 1909, Einstein traded his post at the patent office to become a professor at the University of Zurich. This was the time when he began to connect the dots—to understand the mystery of gravity, it had to be woven into the very fabric of space-time. Over the next few years, Einstein transitioned through academic roles, always with this cosmic puzzle at the front of his mind.

By 1912, Einstein went back to work with Grossmann. Grossmann was a master of the intricate mathematics of curved surfaces and became an invaluable collaborator. Apparently, the Mercury problem was eating away at Einstein so intensely that he begged Grossmann for his help, imploring that he would go crazy without his assistance. Luckily for Einstein, Grossmann was happy to help his friend. The culmination of their combined intellect was a seminal paper known as the Entwurf, or “draft” in English, which Einstein and Besso used to solve the problem of Mercury’s orbit. Their calculations were preserved in the “Einstein-Besso manuscript” of 1913, in which half of the calculations were done in Einstein’s handwriting and the other half in Besso’s. This collaboration, however, wasn’t without its disagreements. Based on their calculations, Einstein was confident that the theory had passed rigorous testing. But Besso was skeptical. Brushing aside Besso’s concerns, Einstein marched forward with his conclusion—a decision that would later haunt him.

Enter David Hilbert, a well-known mathematician, who revealed a significant flaw in the Einstein-Besso manuscript. Besso was right. Einstein reapproached the problem of Mercury’s orbit with new calculations, and this time he was able to reconcile the perplexing 43-second discrepancy that had defied Newtonian physics. Fearing that Hilbert might beat him to the punch, Einstein rushed to share his results with the scientific community. Hilbert, ever the gracious colleague, wrote a congratulatory note to Einstein. He joked, “If I could calculate as fast as you can, the hydrogen atom would have to bring a note from home to be excused for not radiating.” Einstein never told him that Besso’s previous work was why he could do the calculations so quickly.2

Every groundbreaking moment in science’s history is a result of teamwork. The brilliant minds we often celebrate usually had a think tank, a brainstorming partner, or even a friendly (or unfriendly) rival spurring them on. Curiosity-driven research is particularly dependent on collaboration because each new piece of information, seen from the right perspective, can be a building block to a whole new understanding of our world.

KILLER OR CURE?

Baldomero “Toto” Olivera was navigating high school life in the Philippines when he stumbled upon an enchanting pastime—shell collecting. In a nation boasting over seven thousand islands, each a tiny trove of biodiversity, he was in a shell collector’s paradise. Among the vast array of spirals and swirls, one group was especially interesting to him—the cone snails. Their allure wasn’t just their aesthetically pleasing conical shape and vibrant patterns. These beauties came with a bite. While most hunted worms, fish, and fellow mollusks, one of their kind had a particularly sinister reputation. The Conus geographus is whimsically dubbed the “cigarette cone” because, according to folklore, its sting packs such a potent punch that a victim could barely finish a cigarette before meeting their maker. Olivera wanted to study these animals for his undergraduate thesis in chemistry but was deterred when his advisory committee told him that he “wouldn’t be able to do anything with that.” He put his interest down for almost a decade before picking it up again.3

After graduation, Olivera moved to the United States, where he earned his PhD at Caltech working on the biophysical chemistry of DNA, followed by postdoctoral research on biochemistry at Stanford University. He knew he wanted to return to the Philippines, and he eventually did so as an assistant professor in the College of Medicine at the University of the Philippines.4 Little did Olivera know that for years he was just a stone’s throw away from his soon-to-be collaborator, Lourdes Cruz. Cruz also attended the University of the Philippines, although she and Olivera never had a class together. Like Olivera, she also traveled to the United States, where she earned her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Iowa before returning to the Philippines. After a brief stint at the International Rice Research Institute, she began working in the biochemistry department with Olivera at their alma mater.

They crossed paths when Olivera was splitting his time, with one foot in the world of DNA synthesis at Kansas State University and the other back home. Science in the Philippines had significant challenges, however. Imagine awaiting a crucial piece of equipment for so long that by the time it arrived, its intended purpose was all but a hazy memory. While the slow arrival of materials was a running joke in the lab, it frequently stymied progress. Determined to adapt and make a significant scientific splash without getting bogged down by these obstacles, both Olivera and Cruz looked for a project that needed only local resources. Luckily, Olivera had the perfect idea up his sleeve: cone snail venom.5

In the Philippines during the 1970s, shells weren’t just pretty souvenirs; they were a booming business unhindered by today’s regulations. Science often thrives on connections, and his network of shell collector acquaintances became indispensable allies. Instead of taking lunch breaks, Olivera and Cruz would meander through the bustling local shops, deep in conversation with shell dealers. Olivera and Cruz cultivated an atmosphere of trust with these dealers—so much so that they were occasionally entrusted with nature’s most exquisite, and priciest, specimens for research. The deal was that they could study them but had to return them in pristine condition to fetch a hefty price tag. But understanding these enigmatic snails wasn’t just a day job. Many nights were spent observing their moonlit behaviors. As the hours ticked by, the team grew fond of their tiny subjects, assigning them names and delighting in discovering that they had individual personalities.

During their initial research into understanding the venom, the team stumbled upon an interesting revelation: the proteins in cone snail venom had very few peptides. To put this into perspective, while snake venom generally has a length of about fifty amino acids, the cone snail’s venom was only thirteen amino acids in length. This discovery was merely the first of many singular characteristics of the venom. At the time, Olivera was offered a research position at the University of Utah. He accepted and moved to the States, while Cruz anchored their research back in the Philippines. But distance wasn’t a deterrent for the duo—they collaborated long-distance for years until Cruz, too, received an invitation from the University of Utah. The heart of their research was still in the Philippines, and while frequent travel may have added layers of complexity, it also was crucial to their success. Their lab in the Philippines continued its crucial role in venom extraction from cone snails, which was then analyzed in Utah, each lab amplifying the other’s strengths.

A major pivot came when two young, fresh undergraduates joined the lab in Utah. One was Craig Clark, a biology student with a penchant for the brain’s intricate workings. Up until this point, the lab had been testing the venom by injecting it into mouse skin, but the results were pretty lackluster. Clark suggested that they inject the venom directly into the brain. While Cruz and Olivera were skeptical, they had always championed a culture of curiosity in their lab and gave him the green light. Clark, it turned out, was onto something huge. The mice oscillated between frenzied hyperactivity and a slow lethargy. Some showcased evident neurological distress, with trembling limbs and staggered motions. Although the team didn’t know exactly what was happening, at this moment, amid the whirlwind of symptoms, they recognized they had discovered something incredibly exciting.

Six months into Clark’s brain injection research, the lab gained another bright light in J. Michael McIntosh. McIntosh was irresistibly drawn to the constituent of the venom that sent mice into shaky convulsions. He purified this peptide and deciphered its chemical structure. The lab named it omega-conotoxin, and it became the focal point of the lab’s work for years to come. The plot thickened when they discovered something peculiar: While the omega-conotoxin is a full-fledged paralytic agent for fish and frogs, it spared the mice. It paralyzes frogs by blocking calcium channels in the nerves that control muscles. As it turns out, mammals have the same calcium channels as part of their nervous systems, but instead of using them for muscle movement, we use them to sense pain.

This revelation held the potential to reshape the landscape of pain management, offering a potent pain suppressor that was not an opioid. With a financial boost from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health, omega-conotoxin transitioned from lab benches to pharmacy shelves as ziconotide, commercially known as Prialt. Administering it, however, isn’t as simple as popping a pill. Patients need a hockey-puck-sized device implanted in their abdomen, equipped with a pump requiring quarterly refills. While it may sound a tad futuristic and a bit cumbersome for those entwined in the agonizing grips of conditions like cancer or AIDS, it’s been nothing short of a miracle.6

COVID AND THE DISAPPEARING CAMEL

Everything about a llama is a little bit laughable, from their crooked ears and ridiculous eyelashes to their tendency to spit when dissatisfied. In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, these irritable camelids became a beacon of hope for a world grasping for good news. “Hoping Llamas Will Become Coronavirus Heroes,” the headline read in the New York Times7 as the world was introduced to Winter, a chocolatey brown llama, and Wally, Rocky, Marley, and Fifi, her fellow llamas, who were each contributing to significant COVID research.8

Llama’s blood first became a focus of human disease research in the 1980s when a different virus was spreading around the globe: HIV/AIDS. The genesis of HIV, while not precisely known, is thought to have occurred in the early twentieth century near Leopoldville, the bustling capital of the Belgian Congo. Although HIV wasn’t known at the time, Belgium’s government was generally concerned with “tropical” diseases, and in response, King Leopold II founded the School voor Tropenziekten in 1906, which has evolved into today’s Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. Even after the Democratic Republic of the Congo gained independence in 1960, Belgium’s labs have continued to focus on diseases from the Congo.9

In the midst of the AIDS crisis in Belgium, a group of students at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel were tasked with isolating antibodies from human blood as a final immunology exam. The students were wary of potential exposure to HIV from the human samples and refused to proceed. In came Serge Muyldermans, a postdoc in the lab, who proposed an alternative: mouse blood. But the students, showcasing an impressive blend of knowledge and ethics, argued that not only was the makeup of mouse blood already widely chronicled in academic texts, but using mice for the mere sake of an exam ran counter to their very objective of preserving life. The course professor, Raymond Hamers, was a man of eclectic interests, who, among other endeavors, had recently pioneered a postgraduate program called Tropical Molecular Biology. His trainees journeyed globally, collecting samples from livestock. One of them, Oumar Diall from Mali, had dispatched a trove of camel blood samples. These specimens had been deep-frozen in the lab, waiting for their moment in the sun. And their moment had finally arrived.10

The students set about their examination using the icy samples, but what they found was surprising. The camel blood samples contained a structure resembling an antibody but with a molecular weight puzzlingly lighter than what was typical for mammal antibodies. The initial reaction was one of skepticism. It seemed more likely that the blood had degraded during its journey from Mali, or that the students had made an error, rather than something special being present in the camel blood. To narrow down the possibilities, Hamers sought a camel from the Antwerp Zoo, just around the corner from the university. The fresh blood showed the same results. The students had inadvertently stumbled upon a discovery that would rock the world of immunology.

The next step was figuring out the mechanics of these distinctive antibodies, especially how they fought viruses. Hamers approached the Antwerp Zoo with a brave proposal: Would they consider instigating an immune response in their camels by introducing minuscule quantities of a virus? The zoo, predictably, wasn’t too keen on this idea. Eventually, however, with help from an academic ally in Morocco, Hamers’s lab scraped together resources to buy a camel that they kept close to a vet school in Rabat. They immunized the camel, anticipating transformative results, but when the time came to retrieve blood samples, they were in for a devastating surprise: their camel had vanished, and its disappearance remains an unsolved mystery to this day. They lacked the budget to buy another camel, but as fate would have it, Nayib Bendahman, a technician from Hamers’s lab who frequently visited his ailing father in Morocco, became their savior. Bendahman’s uncle had a camel farm. A camel was immunized, and although it took more than a year for samples of the prized camel blood to reach Belgium, it was worth the wait: those petite antibodies showcased a remarkable prowess in warding off viral invaders.11

To continue the work, the team wanted subjects closer to home. With the zoo’s camels off-limits, the researchers turned to a close relative: the llama. In that era, llamas weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now, but Belgium’s agrarian regions were just starting to embrace them for their wool. As it turned out, llamas were the jackpot. Easier to breed, nurture, and immunize than camels, they were also far more adaptable to Belgium’s chillier climate. By 1997, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s lab relied solely on llamas, and by the COVID-19 pandemic, llamas had become firmly ensconced in global scientific and biotech research.

The world of coronaviruses requires a bit of a primer to grasp the importance of the tiny llama antibodies. A whole community of coronaviruses is out there, with most associated with nonhuman mammals and birds. Of the abundant varieties, only seven affect humans. Four of these are rather mild, causing just the symptoms of a common cold. The other three, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19, can cause potentially life-threatening symptoms. A coronavirus is characterized by a crown of projections known as “spike proteins.” Far from being ornamental, these spikes are how the viruses jimmy open cells and make themselves at home. Block the spikes, and you essentially have a would-be intruder locked out. This is where our body’s defenses kick in—after detecting the virus, our immune system dispatches antibodies to latch onto these spike proteins, neutralizing the threat.12

Humans produce antibodies that are a mix of heavy and light proteins that, visually speaking, look a bit like the letter “Y.” Llamas, however, have a more diversified collection. While they do produce humanlike antibodies, they also make a variant that lacks the light-chain proteins, making them physically smaller. These petite defenders are aptly named nanobodies. These nanobodies are capable of navigating tight spaces and sneaking into tiny recesses of the spike protein where their larger counterparts might not fit. This dexterity makes them exceptional at neutralizing a coronavirus. Nevertheless, using llamas to fight COVID was more a result of a serendipitous stumble than a strategic hunt, emerging from a forgotten vial of camel blood, a band of passionate students, and that all-important ingredient in scientific discoveries—collaboration.

In January 2020, Jason McLellan, a structural virologist at the University of Texas at Austin, was on a snowboarding trip with his family when he received an urgent phone call. On the line was Barney Graham from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center, relaying a message from the CDC about a rapidly spreading new coronavirus. They knew that this was the moment their research had prepared them for. McLellan and Graham had previously worked together on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), alongside Xavier Saelens, a collaborator across the Atlantic Ocean in Ghent, Belgium. Saelens had used the RSV proteins from McLellan’s lab to immunize a llama from their thriving herd. Once the llama did its biological magic and produced a fleet of nanobodies, Saelens promptly sent them back to Austin. Those pint-sized llama nanobodies emerged as potent defenders, neutralizing RSV in human cells. The stage was set for llamas to play a pivotal role in the fight against COVID-19.

This is where Winter, the headlining llama, became an important part of the story. In 2016, when Winter was just nine months old, she had been randomly chosen to participate in a study for the viruses SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV, and in 2020, McLellan’s lab still had archived nanobodies from that study. A litmus test revealed that the SARS-CoV-1 nanobody had an affinity for SARS-CoV-2. The team was able to link this nanobody to a human antibody to create a structure that effectively blocked the virus from infecting human cells.

Of course, the pursuit of a COVID-19 vaccine didn’t end there. Ultimately, they didn’t come from the llama research at all. But the massive strides that llama-inspired investigations have made are undeniable. “Llama pharma” will surely be at the forefront of medical advancement thanks to this international team of scientists.13 Hopefully, with this research in hand, we’ll be able to use what we’ve learned from our scientific sidekicks to spit in the face of the next pandemic.

GENES GET A GLOW-UP

At first glance, Alba looks like any run-of-the-mill rabbit you’d see in a pet store window. A pristine white coat, eyes tinged with the allure of crimson, and luxe velvet ears. But switch off the lights and shine a UV flashlight her way, you’d think you’d stumbled into a sci-fi movie. Alba glows a radiant green. No, Alba didn’t eat a bunch of radioactive carrots—she is the brainchild of artist Eduardo Kac, a man who does, what he calls, biological art. Created in a French lab, the National Institute of Agronomic Research, Alba owes her glow to lead scientist Dr. Louis-Marie Houdebine. But Alba isn’t the lone luminary in the animal kingdom. There’s a number of critters lighting up labs: mice, fruit flies, zebrafish, and so many more. Their glow isn’t just for show—it’s a light for scientists probing the secrets of gene expression. And if you’re curious about how to make an ordinary animal glow, you need to ask a certain luminous jellyfish.

Aequorea victoria, at first sight, appears no different from any other jellyfish than Alba does from an ordinary rabbit. Boasting a delicate bluish hue, its ethereal, gelatinous form glides gracefully through the water, tentacles trailing like nature’s own chandelier. Yet, beyond its menacing facade, this jellyfish harbors a secret that’s nothing short of enlightening. When the lights go down, it doesn’t fade into the dark depths—it glows.

This unassuming creature became the poster child for a revolution in science and medicine. Its story begins at a pharmacy college in Nagasaki in 1948, not long after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Osamu Shimomura didn’t actually want to become a pharmacist, but of the four colleges to which he applied, the Nagasaki Pharmacy College was the only one that accepted him. This was a tough time to be going for an education—the college was temporarily set up at a vacated military barrack, and equipment was hard to come by. They often needed to make do with what was at hand and quickly learned how to put out the literal fires they created. Yet, within these challenging confines, Shimomura’s capacity for chemical exploration ignited, and he soon found himself immersed in the world of analytical chemistry.

A fateful encounter with Yoshimasa Hirata of Nagoya University in 1955 set the stage for Shimomura’s foray into a world filled with bioluminescence and wonder. After joining the Hirata lab, Shimomura found himself facing an enigma that had puzzled scientists for over twenty years: the mysterious glow of the Cypridina hilgendorfii, a tiny crustacean.14 Its luminescence was attributed to two agents: luciferin, an organic compound, and its partner-in-glow, the enzyme luciferase. Luciferin, however, had proven elusive and difficult to purify, making it difficult to study. Nobody seeking a degree wants a project with an uncertain end. Shimomura, however, wasn’t officially chasing a degree, so he was an ideal candidate for this unpredictable mission in the eyes of Hirata. Shimomura’s days became a mix of relentless dedication, trial and error, and moments of sheer alchemy. Finally, after ten months, Shimomura achieved what many had deemed impossible: he extracted, purified, and crystallized the elusive luciferin.

Recognizing the significance of his work and the potential avenues it opened, the university asked Shimomura to stay another year and dive deeper into the secrets of the Cypridina hilgendorfii. The year 1959 held a surprising twist for Shimomura. Frank Johnson, a figure of scientific renown from across the world, had written to invite Shimomura to join his lab at Princeton University. It was an opportunity not many would refuse, and Shimomura was no exception. When Professor Hirata heard of Shimomura’s upcoming transition to Princeton, he recognized the need for a formal acknowledgment of Shimomura’s incredible work on Cypridina hilgendorfii. And so, in a move that showcased not just appreciation but also profound respect, Hirata conferred upon Shimomura a doctorate. It wasn’t merely a symbolic gesture—there were also tangible benefits. For one, Shimomura’s prospective earnings at Princeton would double with this newfound title.

Shimomura made his journey westward to the US with a doctorate in hand and supported by a Fulbright travel grant. Johnson’s interest in Shimomura became clear on his arrival at the university. He presented a vial containing freeze-dried light organs from the jellyfish Aequorea aequorea to Shimomura.15 The powder should have been luminescent, but even when it was observed in a dark room, no light was emitted. This frustrated Johnson, and he sought Shimomura’s expertise to unravel the mystery of this jellyfish. Eager for another adventure into the world of glowing organisms, Shimomura agreed to the challenge. The following summer, amid the serene landscapes of San Juan Island, the duo found themselves at Friday Harbor, a hotspot for the elusive Aequorea aequorea. The jellyfish gracefully rode the currents past the dock of the Friday Harbor lab each morning and evening. Their predictable migrations eased the collection process for Shimomura and Johnson, ensuring the researchers always had a ready supply for their investigations.

Back at Princeton, amid the myriad of molecules in their Aequorea aequorea samples, they isolated a singular protein that, to their wonder, emitted light when exposed to calcium ions—even in the absence of oxygen, which defied conventional biochemical logic. They christened this groundbreaking protein aequorin. But there were more surprises to come: a protein of tiny proportion with an unmistakable green glow. And so the world met green fluorescent protein (GFP).16

Martin Chalfie first heard about GFP many years later. And it was almost a miracle he was at Harvard University to hear it at all. As a young undergrad in the labs of Harvard University, Chalfie had harbored dreams of deciphering nature’s secrets. But the weight of expectation and the legends of scientific prodigies bore heavily on his shoulders. Each failed experiment felt like a dead-end street. Convinced that a true scientist should never falter or seek assistance, he measured his self-worth against the tall tales of infallible scientific geniuses and found himself wanting. After graduation, Chalfie was a janitor, a salesman, and a high school teacher. Luckily for the biomedical community, life had more twists in store, and he eventually found himself working in a lab again. This time, things were different, and he was successful in his experiments thanks to the help of his collaborators. This bolstered his confidence enough to apply to graduate school, and he was accepted to a PhD program at Harvard University in physiology.17

Fresh off the graduation stage in 1977, Chalfie’s trajectory took another intriguing turn. He began a postdoctoral fellowship, plunging headfirst into the intricate world of mechanosensory systems. The mechanosensory system is responsible for the phenomena of touch, hearing, and balance, and while we’re familiar with these sensations, the molecular mechanics behind these experiences had been shrouded in mystery. For this venture, he worked with a tiny nematode called Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans. This popular model organism is transparent, allowing an unobstructed view of every internal process. Chalfie’s approach was one of genetic deduction. By studying mutant C. elegans that were unable to feel touch—essentially nematodes with a sensory “blind spot”—he aimed to pinpoint the exact genes involved. And considering there were only six cells responsible for their tactile response, these animals were the perfect subject for his experiments. Each mutant nematode held clues, and Chalfie meticulously pieced them together. A clearer picture of mechanosensation began to emerge.

Chalfie learned about the glowing jellyfish at a lunchtime seminar series. That day, the speaker was Paul Brehm, and his discussion of GFP sparked an idea in Chalfie’s mind: Transparent C. elegans paired with this fluorescent protein could revolutionize genetic studies. While Chalfie’s wheels were turning, Douglas Prasher from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole was working on cloning a synthetic GFP gene. He published a paper reporting his results, and when Chalfie saw it, he was instantly in touch. Together, they took the potential of GFP from paper to practice. Chalfie and his team’s triumph was the creation of a C. elegans specimen that glowed from within, its fluorescence bearing testimony to the wonders of GFP. This pioneering achievement soon graced the cover of the eminent journal Science, heralding the era of GFP in biomedical research.18

Every great idea, however, needs a few tweaks to realize its full potential. In this case, Roger Tsien from the University of California, San Diego, took a good thing and made it great. The original GFP needed specific light conditions to be visible. Tsien’s intervention was akin to fine-tuning a musical instrument. He expanded GFP’s color palette by altering a single amino acid, turning it from a single hue into a brilliant spectrum. No longer bound by blue or UV light constraints and with the ability to monitor multiple proteins simultaneously using a range of colors, researchers had a new versatile tool at their disposal. The applications were broad: For example, in 2010, Tsien collaborated with a head-and-neck surgeon at UC San Diego Health to use fluorescent probes to light up cancerous tumors. The following year, they published their findings about using GFP in surgery to make hard-to-see nerves more visible, hoping to decrease the chance of neurological injuries. And it didn’t stop there. From tracking the spread of cancer cells to visualizing neural circuits in the brain, GFP continues to illuminate the intricacies of human health and disease.19

When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008, it went to Shimomura, Chalfie, and Tsien. Their combined efforts in unveiling and refining GFP had revolutionized countless fields, from cellular biology to drug discovery. Yet, behind the limelight cast on these three researchers, there was another name that the scientific community appreciated: Douglas Prasher. The trio fully acknowledged the weight of his contributions. His foundational work on cloning the GFP gene had set the stage for the cascade of discoveries that followed. Expanding the view further, one recognizes that the journey of GFP wasn’t just the work of these four trailblazers. Labs hummed with discussions, chalkboards filled with equations, and late-night experiments were conducted by postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and even undergraduate researchers. The collective spirit of inquiry and collaboration were indispensable in this Nobel Prize–winning research.20

THE OCEAN’S OSTEOPATHS

In 1668, a Dutch doctor named Jacob van Meekeren had a daring plan. A patient had recently come into his care with a unique injury—a badly deformed skull. He was a soldier who had seen the brutalities of war, and while he lived to tell the tale, he was severely injured on the battlefield. Van Meekeren proposed a surgical fix: placing a fragment of another skull in the injured space to right its shape. You might wonder where one gets a piece of a skull without committing some color of crime, and so did van Meekeren. Using a human skull was going to be tricky, so he decided that the best solution here was to use a fragment of a dog’s skull (I’m guessing van Meekeren was a cat person). So, he cut open the soldier’s head and situated the dog skull fragment into the place of the injury. The surgery was a success, and the soldier went on to live an… unhappy life. An issue arose that van Meekeren hadn’t foreseen. The patient’s church decided that he was now partially dog and could no longer be a member of the parish. The church excommunicated him, and he was devastated to lose his community. In desperation, the soldier returned to van Meekeren and pleaded for him to remove the dog skull. He obliged, though was surely disappointed at ruining his successful surgery. But when van Meekeren opened up the soldier’s head for the second time, he saw something amazing. The fragment of the dog skull was completely fused into the soldier’s skull and irremovable.21 He had performed the first successful bone graft in recorded history.

Bone grafts have come a long way since the 1600s, and the materials used today don’t get people excommunicated from their churches. But bone graft surgeries have still had their share of issues. Bones are a unique kind of tissue because they are a mixture of crystallized minerals attached to proteins. The minerals are held together in an orderly fashion with the help of a matrix of collagen. Bones need to be strong enough to withstand the forces that we put on them with our bodies, but they also need to be light enough to allow mobility. This is a tricky balance, so to accomplish this feat, bones have several different layers. The outer shell, the hard white part you think of when you think of a skeleton, is strong and dense. The inside, however, is hollow and filled with spongey, porous tissue that contains blood vessels.22 Bones are living tissue that is constantly remodeling, so if a fracture is small, it will heal on its own. If there is a gaping space, however, the bone is going to struggle to repair itself. The best way to deal with this is to provide a scaffold in the way of a bone graft. By providing an appropriate structure, the bone can continue to remodel, fusing the graft with new bone growth.

As van Meekeren saw, finding the bone for a graft can be tricky. An organ donor can be used, but that requires a dead body and introduces a small possibility of disease transmission. Another method is to use a piece of bone from the patient’s own body. This requires two surgeries—one to remove a piece of bone from another part of the patient’s body and a second to place that bone into the area of concern. Two surgeries, of course, are more than one surgery, and this method increases the risk of complications.23 For years, doctors searched for an effective substitution but struggled to find a material that would work. Experiments were run with synthetic materials such as wood and marble without luck. The first foreign material that offered a glimmer of hope was plaster of Paris.24 The biggest issue was creating an artificial structure with a matrix to let blood vessels grow throughout the remodeled bone. This has proved to be a difficult task. Engineers tried to create scaffolding with porous ceramics, but it just didn’t have the uniform matrix of natural bone. So doctors were stuck with using cadavers or performing two surgeries.25

Bone grafts were nowhere near Jon Weber’s mind as he studied coral reefs. He was a marine geologist at Penn State University, and he was far more interested in learning about the chemical composition of corals than the shortcomings of the medical community. Although coral often gets mistaken for a rock, it is a living, breathing animal. Or animals. It’s complicated. Coral are colonial, and most share their stony exterior with thousands of individuals. They are beautifully simple animals with a shared mouth-butt opening that leads to the gastrovascular cavity surrounded by a ring of tentacles. They have a symbiotic relationship with algae that make their home in the cells that line the gastrovascular cavity: coral protects the algae, and in return, the algae produces oxygen and helps remove waste products.26 Most importantly, the algae supplies the coral with glucose, the energy that it needs to create its rough exterior. Each polyp is very small, ranging around 1 to 3 millimeters. But a colony can grow to be huge and weigh several tons.27 The largest known coral in the world lives in the waters of American Samoa. At 21 feet tall and 43 feet across, it has been aptly named “Big Momma.” Corals grow at an incredibly slow rate, and samples have estimated Big Momma to be 535 years old.28 Depending on the time of day, the polyps might be extended out of their skeleton to feed on plankton, but if they feel threatened, they will immediately pop back in.

Weber was particularly interested in learning how the chemicals found in the coral skeletons varied by species and environment, and he published many papers on his findings through the 1960s and 1970s. When Penn State got some fancy new technology, however, Weber’s research would completely change.29 Penn State became one of the first research institutions in the US to get a scanning electron microscope, which, unlike traditional microscopes, allows a three-dimensional view of a sample. Eugene White was a material scientist at Penn State University, and he had the honor and responsibility of running this highly coveted piece of technology. Weber was curious to look at a coral skeleton, so he asked White if he could use the scanning electron microscope. As a scuba diver himself, White was also intrigued. People from all over the country had brought materials for White to analyze, but this was the first time he had a personal interest in the material. They performed the scans, and what they saw completely blew them away. The skeletons had a network of interconnected holes throughout—like Swiss cheese, but with way too many holes. Even with White’s vast experience, the coral looked like nothing else he had ever seen. It certainly looked nothing like any man-made material he had seen.30

It took the fresh eyes of a medical student to recognize how much it resembled human bone. In 1971, White invited his nephew Rodney, who was a student at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, to spend the summer working in his lab. The three studied the structure of corals and took molds. It became clearer that nature had created the perfect matrix for a bone graft that engineers had failed to replicate. Since the pores of the coral skeleton were uniform in size and completely interconnected, it was the ideal scaffold for new blood vessels and tissues to grow onto the graft. Excited about their new idea, they published a paper in 1972 that suggested coral as a good source of graft material.31

This was all very exciting to the medical community, but there was one glaring problem. Coral skeletons are made of calcium carbonate, and calcium carbonate dissolves—it’s a common treatment for an overly acidic stomach! The material would break down in the body before bone could begin to grow. They needed a way to change the chemical composition of the coral without affecting how the coral skeleton grew. This is when chemist Della Roy became involved in the project. Like a magician, Roy placed the coral into a phosphate solution and then heated it under high pressure. This converted the calcium carbonate to calcium phosphate, the same mineral as human bone, without changing the structure. The new material was named coralline hydroxyapatite, and it was welcomed into the medical community. Not only did it make a fantastic scaffolding for bone growth, but there were very few negative reactions in animal and human studies. Today this material has been used in the bone grafts of tens of thousands of patients, for everything from dental implants to spinal fusion.

The quest for knowledge never ends in science. In the heart of Israel, a dedicated team of scientists led by Gil Goobes, a chemistry professor at Bar-Ilan University, is unraveling the ways corals construct their intricate skeletons in the first place—a process with promising implications for the future of bone graft technology. Coral larvae lack these skeletons, and they aren’t sedentary, either: They navigate the ocean currents for up to several months. This planktonic existence continues until they settle on the ocean floor and commence the extraordinary task of forming their skeletons. Goobes and his team have so far identified the precise moment when a coral begins this skeletal construction. The next challenge they face is pinpointing the specific proteins responsible for mineralization. By understanding the natural processes at play, the team hopes to eliminate compatibility issues and enhance the efficacy of coral-derived bone grafts.32

Corals are celebrated for the remarkable skeletons they produce, but they are far from the only animals that wield extraordinary skills in material science. Stroll along the beach and you’ll find evidence of many master sculptors in the wide variety of shells. Among these skilled artisans, the unassuming oyster is a standout. Mother-of-pearl, also known as nacre, an iridescent material lining the inside of its shell, is the toughest natural substance on Earth.33 This material plays a role in the formation of pearls, folding irritants within the shell in layers of nacre. Previous research has shown that nacre comprises microscopic plates of aragonite bound by organic mortar, but this didn’t explain its extraordinary durability. A breakthrough came when a research team at the University of Michigan embarked on an in-depth analysis of the structure of nacre.

Using electron microscopy, the researchers found that the aragonite forms microsized, multisided bricks layered with organic material. Under stress, the organic layer allows the aragonite bricks to interlock, dispersing the force and forming a virtually unbreakable surface. Once the pressure lets up, nacre can return to its original state without any loss of resilience—a feat that is very hard to recreate with synthetic materials.34 Even the most advanced human-designed materials, such as plastics, lose some of their strength each time they absorb an impact. This discovery has not gone unnoticed—the US Army has taken a particular interest in mother-of-pearl. By mimicking its unique structure, researchers created a new plastic—one that is fourteen times stronger than steel while also being eight times lighter. This material, they hope, can be used to improve body armor and helmets. Not only is the material stronger than steel, but it also has a high thermal energy that allows it to absorb the energy from a bullet.35 The resilience of nacre points toward groundbreaking applications and promising advancements that far surpass the creation of beautiful jewelry. In the hands of scientists and engineers, the lessons learned from nature’s own material scientists, like the oyster, pave the way for innovations that could transform industries and even save lives.

Another example of incredible natural materials comes from a sea sponge commonly called the Venus flower basket. These ancient organisms might hold the key to addressing a very modern challenge. This unusual-looking sponge belongs to a group of animals called glass sponges because they grow an intricate skeleton out of silica that resembles tubes of transparent netting. Tiny projections, called spicules, give them an almost hairy appearance and extend from the bottom of the sponges, anchoring them to the ocean floor.36 These spicules bear a striking resemblance to a cornerstone of modern communication: optical fiber wires. Like the sponge’s spicules, these wires are crafted from pure silica, enabling them to transmit light and allowing digital signals to travel around the globe. Turns out we’ve been working very hard to create a structure that this sponge creates naturally. In fact, not only do they build these structures with ease, but they also do it better than us. We create optical fiber wires by heating the silica to over 3,000°F, whereas the Venus flower basket gets the same job done at chilly ocean temperatures.37 The sponge’s spicules are also more resilient than manufactured cables, which are prone to breakage. The spicules can even be tied in a knot without breaking.38

We have so much to learn by studying the processes that nature has mastered. New findings are lighting the path to novel technologies through curiosity-driven research and the unlikely collaboration of marine biologists, medical doctors, chemists, and material scientists. Shared insights, joined efforts, and layered knowledge are the keys to innovation.

And I think you’ll agree—it can take a willingness to become curious about some pretty strange things. Duck penises? Glowing jellyfish? And we still have three more chapters to go! In the next one, we are going to explore the labs of scientists who have been inspired by unexpected corners of nature. We are talking about cockroach robots, windmill whale flippers, and flying snakes, so buckle up as we explore discoveries and innovations that have redefined the boundaries of technology.

¹

CHAPTER FOUR

INSPIRATION IN ODDITIES

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Nope… it’s just Otto Lilienthal cruising through the sky with his man-made wings. There was a time before jet engines and commercial planes when people could only dream of flying. Visionaries like Otto Lilienthal would watch birds soaring effortlessly through the sky with green eyes of jealousy. These early engineers truly believed that if the birds could pull off this seemingly impossible feat, with a little bit of ingenuity, they could do it too.

Mother Nature has been in the flying business for millions of years. There have been at least four different times in evolutionary history when creatures took to the sky. The first fliers, insects, appeared around 400 million years ago. Insects use delicate, almost transparent wings to zip through the air, moving so fast that they are practically invisible to the human eye. About 200 million years later, pterosaurs, the giant flying reptiles with wingspans as long as a school bus, became the largest animals ever to fly. Bats are the only flying mammals, and even they have been navigating the skies for 50 million years.

But let’s talk about the animal that has most inspired the dream of flight: birds. There are at least ten thousand bird species worldwide. They range from the petite, energetic hummingbird, whose wings blur together as they beat four thousand times a minute, to the majestic Andean condor, soaring for hours without even a single flap.1 With species flaunting wings that are a master class in aviation design, it’s no wonder that us mere ground dwellers have looked to birds for inspiration.

Lilienthal decided the best way to fly was to take a page right out of Mother Nature’s playbook. The seagulls effortlessly gliding over the ocean were his muse. For over two decades he buried himself in bird biomechanics, trying to unravel the science behind the flight of our feathered friends. He began with the intricate curves and rotation of their wings and the movement of air around their feathers. In 1889, he published Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation, a book that even today is considered a valuable resource on avian aerodynamics. Lilienthal didn’t just write about birds, though—he was determined to join them in the sky. He designed gliders of all different shapes and sizes, and by 1896, he’d completed an astonishing two thousand glides. His personal best clocked in at an impressive five hours in the sky.

Sadly, just like Icarus, Lilienthal flew a little too close to the sun. He died from a tragic gliding accident in 1896, but even in his final moments, he remained steadfastly dedicated to his pursuit of flight. His last reported words were “Sacrifices must be made.”2 Lilienthal’s legacy carried on, though. His work inspired the two young minds that created the first airplane—the Wright brothers.

The genius of the Wright brothers wasn’t just in building a plane but in truly understanding the biomechanics behind a bird’s ability to fly. Lilienthal was on the right track with his gliders, which harnessed the aerodynamic shapes of wings to gain some lift. But steering was another story. Turning his gliders required significant, awkward body adjustments. The Wright brothers noticed that soaring birds easily maneuver in the air just by adjusting the feathered tips of their wings. To mimic this technique, they integrated a system of cables onto the wings of their prototype. By tweaking the angle of the wings facing the breeze, they could raise one wing, creating a smooth, controlled turn. This game changer led to the first successful airplane flight in 1903.

More than a century later, we’re still learning lessons from birds. Take, for example, Airbus, a company focused on sustainable aerospace that’s constantly reimagining the future of flying. Their AlbatrossONE isn’t like any airplane you’ve seen on the runway. Inspired by the real albatross, this prototype flexes its wing tips, reacting to wind gusts. This could mean less drag and, happily for the planet, fewer CO2 emissions. Plus, it promises a smoother, safer ride by negating turbulence. Airbus, inspired by the stealthy long-eared owl, has also created a wing that allows for whisper-quiet flights. Nature’s blueprints are a never-ending goldmine for pioneering engineers.

Airplanes are hardly the only groundbreaking technology inspired by nature’s designs. This act of drawing inspiration from the natural world has been so prevalent and transformative that it has earned its own name in the science world: biomimicry. Emerging as an interdisciplinary field of science and engineering, biomimicry looks to nature’s vast array of evolutionary designs for insight. Nature, after all, has had millions of years to improve its designs. The field of biomimicry reminds us that often the solutions to our most complex problems have already been answered in the world around us. We just need to look closely.

A WHALE OF A BIOMECHANICAL TALE

Frank Fish, a professor of biology at West Chester University, has dedicated his life to meticulously studying animal anatomy. So, it was humbling when he mistakenly criticized a piece of art depicting a humpback whale’s flipper. While in Boston, Fish and his wife stumbled upon an art gallery displaying animal sculptures. Drawn to a particular piece, he observed the humpback whale sculpture, paying close attention to the detailed bumps along its flipper’s leading edge. Confidently, Fish remarked that the artist had made a mistake, believing the bumps should’ve been on the flipper’s back edge. The gallery manager overheard the critique and quickly approached him with a photograph of a real humpback whale. To Fish’s surprise, the artist was right, and he was wrong—the bumps were indeed on the flipper’s front side, just as the sculpture depicted.

Fish was genuinely stumped by the unique bumps, called tubercles, on the humpback whale’s flipper. His background was in animal locomotion, but this was an anatomical feature he hadn’t encountered in any other aquatic species. Eager to understand the purpose of this unique design, Fish reached out to the Smithsonian Institution, expressing his interest in studying a humpback flipper up close. It took patience, but, a few years later, the institution informed him of a dead whale that had washed ashore in New Jersey. But there was a catch. If he wanted the flipper, he’d have to come and get it himself. He was told that the whale was approximately 20 feet in length. Knowing that a humpback’s flipper constitutes about a third of its body size, he calculated that he could just about fit the specimen into his modest-sized Mercury Lynx hatchback. So off he went.

But the whale was not 20 feet long. It was 30 feet long, with flippers a whopping 10 feet in length. These flippers would absolutely not fit in his little car—at least not in one piece. After hours of work with his Black & Decker handsaw, a brand that would probably rather not be associated with carving whale carcasses, he had the flipper in three pieces. Still, the pieces were huge at over a hundred pounds each, and the rear of his poor hatchback was nearly dragging the ground. He drove back to the university, strictly obeying the speed limit for fear of needing to explain his cargo to a state trooper. Getting the large specimen to the lab wasn’t the only challenge Fish faced. To study the biomechanics of these ridges, Fish needed to create a model of the whale flipper, but because of the massive size, he couldn’t find anyone to make a cast. So, the flipper spent two years in what must have been an industrial-size freezer waiting to be studied.

A few years later, Fish received a grant from the National Science Foundation—not to study whale flippers but to study the energetics of why ducklings swim behind their mothers in single file. Part of this grant included money for supporting the training of young scientists, and he had two undergraduate students who wanted to develop their own projects. One made way for ducklings, and the other, Jan Battle, got to work on the forgotten whale flippers. The first thing they needed to do was get the flipper out of the freezer and reassemble it. Next, they needed to cut it into one-inch-thick pieces for analysis. They burned through saw after saw, eventually using a butcher-quality saw from the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary pathology lab, which Fish said cut through the flipper “like cutting salami at the deli.” As expected, the cross-section of the flipper looked similar to the morphology of a wing, but that didn’t answer the question of the tubercles.3

To understand why the bumps on the front of the whale’s flipper are important, we need to dip our toes into the swirling currents of fluid dynamics. My squid research was heavily dependent on fluid dynamics, so this topic gives me flashbacks to darker days. I can’t tell you how many fluid dynamics papers were watered with my tears of frustration. It was many. But to understand the next part of this story, we need to talk physics. Several forces must be considered when discussing an animal like a humpback whale moving through water. Thrust, produced by the whale’s massive tail, propels the animal forward. As it swims forward, the whale will encounter drag in the form of friction and pressure, which opposes thrust. The last force to consider is lift, which the whale can use to maneuver in the water.

Now let’s just focus on the whale’s flipper. If you were to look at an X-ray of the flipper, the bones look remarkably similar to our own anatomy. They have a humerus, radius, ulna, carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges, just like we do. The only major difference is that their equivalent of a hand is long and has more finger bones in each of the fused digits. The anatomy of the flipper allows for it to move up and down in a flapping motion, as well as rotating front to back. This rotating movement allows the whale to change the angle of the flipper as it is swimming through the water, which increases or decreases lift. Increasing the angle of the flipper provides proportionate lift, until a critical point. When the angle gets too big, there will be a massive drop in lift and an increase in drag. This unfortunate moment is called stall. A swimming animal will tend to keep the angle of the flipper relatively low to avoid stall.4 Stall is also something that engineers try to avoid in their designs. You might have felt what happens when an airplane stalls. It’s not pleasant—the plane shakes, and you get a weightless feeling like riding a roller coaster. The nose of the plane might dip as you experience a lurch that makes you white-knuckle your armrest. It’s a bummer for the pilot, who needs to regain control of the plane, and for the passengers, who might have lost their lunch.

Stall and drag were on Fish’s mind as he studied the bumpy flippers. With funding from the Office of Naval Research, Fish hired an engineer to run some computational fluid dynamics analyses, which involves using computers to analyze the behavior of fluids and physical systems. The results showed that perhaps the tubercles could lower drag and delay stall. Excited about these results, Fish wrote up a patent that, after one rejection, was accepted in 2002. Not long afterward, he was presenting his results at an autonomous underwater vehicle meeting at the University of New Hampshire. Here he met two scientists who wanted to contribute to this work—Laurens Howle, an engineer from Duke University, and Mark Murray from the US Naval Academy.

With the help of his new collaborators, Fish was able to finally run experiments to evaluate the benefit of the tubercles. Howle made much smaller models of the flipper with and without the tubercles. At the US Naval Academy, they used a wind tunnel to watch how fluids flow over the flipper at various angles of attack. What they found was not only unexpected, but it was also completely counterintuitive. They found that the bumpy flipper could be tilted at a higher angle than the smooth flipper before stall occurred. A smooth-edged flipper stalled at less than 12 degrees, but the version with bumps didn’t stall until it was tilted to 16 degrees, which was a 40 percent increase in the angle of attack.5 This means those bumps could increase the maximum lift while decreasing drag.6 It is still not entirely clear why the tubercles work, but it likely has something to do with how the fluid moves over the flipper. If there is a large degree of separation between the water as it flows over the flipper’s surface, turbulence will increase. The bumps, it seems, decrease the separation of the water and the flipper, allowing a higher angle, more lift, and less drag.

So why don’t we see these bumps on all whale flippers and wings? In the realm of biology, there is a golden rule: Form follows function. In other words, the shape of a structure is related to the purpose of that structure. In this case, it likely has to do with a stealthy hunting strategy. Humpback whales eat small fish and krill by taking big gulps and pushing the water through their baleen filter. Here’s where their long, bumpy flippers come into the picture. Humpback whales use bubble nets to trap fish before consuming them. They create these nets by blowing tiny bubbles while swimming in an upward spiral. The fish hesitate to cross the bubbly border, and before they know it, they’ve been swallowed whole. But to maneuver in a tight spiral, this very large whale needs some specialized adaptations, and it seems that the long, bumpy flippers are exactly that. Most whale species have flippers that are about one-seventh of their body length, but the humpbacks’ are unusually long at one-third of their body length. Between the extreme length and the specialized tubercles, they have used physics to their advantage.

Fish’s deep dive into the humpback whale’s unique flipper design didn’t just make for interesting chatter among biologists—it opened doors in the engineering world. Linking up with Stephen Dewar, a sharp Canadian entrepreneur, Fish launched WhalePower, a venture that aimed to turn whale wisdom into wind power. They called their fresh idea Tubercle Technology. Starting small, they dabbled with a miniature turbine but quickly became excited about larger projects. They did some experiments at the Wind Energy Institute of Canada on Prince Edward Island. Their Tubercle Technology worked wonders on full-size wind turbines and produced about 20 percent more energy than a typical windmill, which is encumbered by a tendency to stall. Gusts of winds from different directions are difficult to manage, and they sometimes stall the blades so badly that it could spell disaster for the windmill. But here’s where the whale flipper comes into play: Those bumps, when added to the blades, turned regular wind turbines into super-efficient energy gatherers. Engineers could now design them with a higher angle, which means they can harness more lift, spin at a faster rate, and capture more energy. All this without running the risk of the turbine self-destructing from stall. But wind turbines are hardly the only application for Tubercle Technology; mammoth fans for cooling arenas, efficient fans for diesel engines, and even tiny fans to keep our computer graphics cards from overheating have all been improved by tubercles. You can even see the insight from their work in the design of surfboards.

While the humpback’s flippers have inspired new engineering designs, Fish seems most proud of the inspiration his work has given to a new generation of budding young scientists. Several students from around the world have used his research as a jumping-off point for new ideas in biomimetics and engineering. One young scientist created airplanes with and without tubercles and graciously shared all her data on the internet with beautiful graphs. Another presented his research based on the humpback flipper to President Obama at a White House Science Fair. Fish also worked with a group of students at Sussex County Technical High School in Sparta, New Jersey, to manufacture a submarine featuring fins with tubercles to increase maneuverability. The students did such incredible work that they were able to test their machine at the David Taylor Model Basin, one of the largest facilities for ship design in the world. Only the future knows what, and whom, those strange-looking humpback whale flippers will inspire next.

ROACHES TO THE RESCUE

So, you are out for a pizza dinner with your friends, perusing the menu in a cozy booth, when you see something quickly skittering across the restaurant floor. You peer down, and a giant cockroach is heading right toward your table. You take aim and swiftly stomp on it with the full force of your boot. Phew. Got it. You pick up your foot to confirm the roach’s demise, but as soon as you lift it up, the roach scurries away and squeezes itself into the smallest crack in the wall. Damn—you were positive that you had crunched it into a roachy pancake. Guess you’ll need to find a new place to get your pizza now.

Cockroaches are everywhere, and it seems like they are truly impossible to kill. These creepy crawlers have been around since before the dinosaurs, and they’ve learned a thing or two about survival during their 300-million-year stint on Earth. People often associate cockroaches with dirty spaces, and they aren’t wrong—roaches can carry a substantial list of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites.7 But if you can get past the ick factor, these insects are actually marvels of evolution. For example, they can react to a threat in 1/50th of a second and run at about 50 body lengths per second—the equivalent of a car moving at 280 miles per hour.8 It is often said that these pests would be the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust, and while that claim is a bit exaggerated, they can survive fifteen times the lethal radiation dose of humans.9 And they really can get into just about any space—a roach is typically over a half inch tall but can squeeze into gaps just a tenth of an inch wide.10 Mother Nature created the tiny tanks of our nightmares.

While most people scream, squish, or skedaddle when confronted with a cockroach, Kaushik Jayaram took inspiration from these six-legged survivors while working on his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He always had an affinity for animals, but this wasn’t exactly the path he dreamed of following as a student. Jayaram wanted to be a doctor—at least until he saw blood for the first time. When he regained consciousness after fainting onto the laboratory floor, he decided he should probably reconsider his choice of career.

Like so many students today, Jayaram had thought that biology was only for those who wanted to become doctors, and, unaware of the huge diversity of the field, his interest waned. He moved to an engineering track. However, during his studies, Jayaram had the opportunity to join the Holk Cruse Biological Cybernetics Lab at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, which focused on the neuromuscular system of the stick insect. Stick insects, also known as walking twigs, or Phasmatodea to nerds, are masters of disguise. They blend so remarkably well into their environment that you might not even notice one of these six-legged leaf munchers on a branch. And they’re not just stick-like in appearance; their movements also mimic the gentle sway of a twig in the breeze with a slow, jerky motion. They are well-known for their laid-back approach to locomotion. Stick insects don’t walk as much as they saunter to their next destination. Some species have wings for flight, but even then, it’s more of a glide from branch to branch than a high-energy effort.

Before he knew it, Jayaram found himself immersed in the world of integrative biology with the stick insect as his guide. In the study of insect locomotion, one persistent challenge is the tiny scale at which insects operate. This minuteness makes it incredibly difficult to study their neuromuscular system and measure the forces on their bodies. That’s where Jayaram’s job came in. He was given the rather daunting task of programming a five-foot robot to mimic the movements of a stick insect. Why? Because when something is too small to measure, you make it bigger. Jayaram spent three months in the lab, wrestling with the coordination of eighteen motors, all designed to replicate the movements of a stick insect. It was a test of patience, to say the least. Despite the complexity, Jayaram was able to synchronize all the motors, and the robot began to move with an uncanny likeness to its inspiration. This success allowed the team to simulate the mechanisms used by stick insects for stabilization in ways that were previously impossible due to their small size.

The project wasn’t just a technical triumph; it was also an interdisciplinary junction. Working alongside biologists and neurobiologists, Jayaram gained invaluable insights into how engineering can intersect with and enhance biological study. This experience sparked a new academic curiosity in him. Motivated by his successful integration of robotics and biology, Jayaram decided to pursue this interdisciplinary path further. He applied for a PhD program in Integrative and Comparative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, with the aspiration to work under Professor Robert Full. This new chapter of his life was set to be a deep dive into the vast potential that lies at the crossroads of biology and engineering.

When he arrived at the lab in California, Jayaram got an unconventional welcome. In a sort of baptism by fire, he was presented with a box teeming with cockroaches and was prompted to choose one he liked best. Although he knew that his new research would involve working closely with insects, the reality of handling these creatures was a different story. Cockroaches, with their quick movements and clingy feet, also have a notorious reputation for leaving behind stinky tokens of their presence. The ick factor was a genuine barrier for Jayaram. It wasn’t just about getting used to handling them—it was fighting the urge to fling them across the room. It was nearly a year before Jayaram could confidently say he had mastered his skittering research subjects. But while he was learning, he confesses, it’s quite possible that Berkeley had a few extra roaches running around campus. As Jayaram gained experience, he began to accept his role of cockroach trainer. He even began to take pride in his roach handling skills.

So, why study the cockroach anyway? Despite the collective human shudder at their mention, these critters are nothing short of remarkable. More than 300 million years ago, when the world was a supercontinent called Pangea, roaches were scurrying about long before the dinosaurs first roared, and they survived several cataclysmic events that reshaped the planet.11 Cockroaches didn’t do this with canine teeth, menacing claws, or deadly poison. Instead, their evolutionary bet was placed on their athleticism, with speeds that would earn a gold in the insect Olympics. And when the going gets tough, the roach gets going—straight into the tiniest of gaps. Their ability to compress and contort into spaces that predators can’t reach is unmatched. It’s an “out of sight, out of mind” approach that has worked wonders for eons.

Jayaram’s objective was to quantify the astonishing capabilities of these survivalists. To test their athleticism, Jayaram created an obstacle course for cockroaches. The course comprised an open trackway that ended at the entrance to a tiny tunnel lined with glass. The tunnel was about one-fourth the height of the roach, about two pennies stacked together tall. Using a high-speed video camera, he filmed the cockroaches navigating the tunnel challenge. The first thing they did was explore the space with their long antennae, and after making sure there wasn’t a worse predator to be found inside, they popped their heads in to take a look around. Next comes the big squish. Each roach would ram its head as far into the crevice as possible while forcing the rest of its body into the space with its hind legs flailing in the air. The roach was tucked safely away from hungry eyes within a single second. From outside the glass, he could see the roach had squished itself down to the point where its legs, usually underneath its armored body, were splatted out like crab legs. You wouldn’t think that the roach would be able to move particularly well in this position, but surprise, surprise, when Jayaram antagonized them with a stick, they bolted away in their crabby posture at full speed, using their knees to push themselves forward. Now this Jayaram found fascinating.12

A roach has an exoskeleton that resembles a knight’s suit of armor—shiny, hard plates arranged meticulously across its back and underbelly. Not only do they have this seemingly impenetrable facade, but these little warriors are equipped with soft joints nestled between their armored plates that give them an impressive level of flexibility. The plates are like overlapping shingles—they can slide over each other, allowing for extraordinary body contortions. This clever design enables a cockroach to flatten and widen out under pressure, a nifty trick when you need to fit into the narrowest of escape routes or, as it turns out, withstand being squashed. Jayaram was captivated by this ability and excited to measure its limits. In an experiment that sounds like something from a bug’s worst nightmare, he placed a cockroach in a clear chamber and introduced a mechanical press. The press bore down with a force up to 900 times the roach’s body weight. That’s the kind of ratio you’d use to turn boulders into pebbles! Yet, rather than meeting their demise, the cockroach’s body splayed outward, its plates sliding over one another to distribute the pressure evenly. Once the immense weight was lifted, the cockroach bounced back to its original shape, ready to scuttle off. This display of biomechanical wonder did more than just confirm the roach’s reputation as nature’s tank; it sparked a eureka moment for Jayaram. He saw not just a resilient insect but a blueprint for a new kind of robot that could perhaps one day navigate the rubble of collapsed buildings or squeeze through tight underground passages, saving lives in scenarios where humans and most machines could not venture. In the end, it wasn’t just about the roach—it was about how the ingenious strategies honed by evolution could inform and inspire the next wave of technological advancement. And just like that, Jayaram set out to translate the cockroach’s survivalist secrets into the language of robotics.13

He was inspired to create CRAM, the first robot you’d ever consider adorable—in a roachy sort of way. CRAM’s name is as functional as its design—it’s an acronym that stands for Compressible Robot with Articulated Mechanisms, and it also hints at its ability to cram into spaces that would make a sardine feel claustrophobic. This palm-sized robotic roach has borrowed a trick or two from its natural counterpart. Just like a cockroach, CRAM can splay its legs outward when squashed. It wears a jointed plastic shield on its back that mimics the segmented armor of a roach, allowing for that signature resilience and flexibility. The real roach’s squishability stems from its ability to redistribute fluid within its body to avoid the squash of death. CRAM, however, uses air to achieve a similar effect. When it experiences pressure, the air inside it shifts around, permitting CRAM to compress without taking any permanent damage and then rebound to its original shape once the pressure is gone. Despite being heftier than your average household pest (and definitely bigger than any cockroach you’d hope to come across in your kitchen), CRAM can hustle through tight spots at remarkable speeds, even when those spots are no more than half its standing height. An additional stroke of genius in CRAM’s design is its cost-effectiveness. Its body is crafted from paperboard, and it’s powered by the simplest of motors—a resourceful approach that ensures CRAM is not just a technical triumph but an economical one as well. This makes CRAM a scientific novelty and a potential blueprint for future rescue robots that could navigate the treacherous terrain of disaster sites, all the while keeping budget considerations in check.

The CRAM robot is a testament to the innovation that can happen when the natural engineering of biology inspires technological design. Jayaram wasn’t just crafting a roachy robot for fun—he was pioneering a tool with the potential to save human lives. In the aftermath of a disaster, where finding survivors is of the essence, robots like CRAM could become invaluable. Their ability to infiltrate the crevices of collapsed structures could revolutionize search-and-rescue missions. CRAM can navigate through dangerously confined spaces to areas where it’s too risky or impossible for humans to reach. The practical applications extend beyond the realm of emergency response too. Rolls-Royce, the eminent engine maker, has recognized the potential of cockroach-inspired robots in the field of aircraft maintenance. Traditionally, engine inspections and repairs are laborious tasks that require removing the engines from the aircraft, leading to operational downtime that can inconvenience hundreds of passengers. By deploying a fleet of roach-like robots to scuttle through the engine’s innards, Rolls-Royce anticipates reducing the inspection process from hours to mere minutes, a significant leap in efficiency and cost reduction.

Now, as a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, Jayaram has come full circle. From his initial reluctance to work with cockroaches to now embracing them as a source of inspiration, he stands at the forefront of biomimetic robotics. His lab isn’t just a place for mechanical and technological innovation—it’s a hub of biological wonder, where even a pet spider is part of the team. Jayaram is instilling in his graduate students an invaluable lesson: No creature, regardless of its ick factor, is too repulsive to inspire the next generation of breakthroughs in science and engineering. Sometimes the most advanced innovations can be inspired by creatures that have been around much longer than our technology, and in the race to the future, taking a page from the past might be the best way forward.

BUZZ OF THE INTERNET

Everyone knows the honeybee waggle dance: You put your left wing in, you put your left wing out, you put your left wing in, and you waggle all about… OK, that’s not how a waggle dance goes. It’s actually a sophisticated communication system for honeybees, one of nature’s most eloquent examples of animal information sharing. The waggle dance is a precise, figure-eight movement that conveys critical information such as the direction and distance of the flowers from the hive, using the sun as a compass. It’s a language composed of vibrations and movements that dictate where the hive’s next big meal ticket is located.

Within a beehive, there stands a very strict social hierarchy. Apart from the egg-laying queen, there are two primary castes—the drones and the workers. The drones are all males and have the singular purpose of mating. They spend the vast majority of their brief lives gearing up for the flight where they’ll vie for the affection of a virgin queen. The genetic success of the hive is dependent on this flight, but it’s a short-lived victory. The drones will die shortly after mating. The worker bees, on the other hand, are the all-female, multitasking powerhouses of the hive. They’re the builders, the cleaners, the defenders, and the foragers combined into one seamless workforce. Among these productive females, you’ll find the scouts and the recruits, each group with its own foraging strategy. Zipping through the skies in search of the best feeding spots, the scouts are the hive’s explorers. Once they discover a worthwhile site, they return to the hive and perform their waggle dance to share the information with the recruits. These recruits take note and use the information to head straight toward the best resources.

The waggle dance was first decoded by Karl von Frisch, whose groundbreaking work in animal communication earned him a Nobel Prize in 1973. He found that the orientation of the bee during the dance communicates the direction of the food source, the duration of the dance indicates the distance to the food, and the enthusiasm with which they dance lets the others know the quality of the resource.14 This isn’t just a simple, instinctive act either. Experienced bees take on the role of mentors, passing on the secrets of the waggle to the novice dancers of the colony to keep the tradition alive.15 Frisch’s observation that this dance is “the most astounding example of non-primate communication” says it all about the extraordinary world of honeybee language.16

During the time when Karl von Frisch was untangling the mysteries of the waggle dance, another significant figure was beginning his journey into the world of entomology. Tom Seeley was a fresh-faced PhD student at Harvard University, diving deep into the study of social insects. He was working under the guidance of the legendary Edward O. Wilson, an authority on ants and sociobiology. It was during this time that Seeley became engrossed in von Frisch’s seminal work, The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees, affectionately dubbed the Beeble by those in the field. This book wasn’t just a fun read—it would completely shape the trajectory of Seeley’s research. Captivated by the elegance of honeybee communication and the sophisticated social structure of their hives, Seeley made it his mission to build upon von Frisch’s findings.

After his studies at Harvard, Seeley took his passion for bees to Cornell University, where he made his academic home within the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. Here, Seeley dedicated his career to exploring the inner workings of honeybee colonies. His research investigated the democratic decision-making processes and the efficient division of labor within the hive. Through his work, Seeley has not only advanced our understanding of honeybees but has also provided profound insights into the principles of collective behavior and decision-making that transcend the world of insects and offer broader implications for understanding the nature of work in complex systems.17

John Hagood Vande Vate’s world of systems engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology had nothing to do with the study of insect behavior. His focus was on the seamless allocation of resources. The hustle and bustle of honeybees, their social rituals, and their dance floor communications were well outside his professional purview—until a chance encounter on his morning commute. In 1988, Vande Vate’s routine drive was transformed by the voice of Thomas Seeley on his car radio. A segment on NPR captured his attention as Seeley detailed the remarkable self-organization of honeybee foragers. There was no iron-fisted ruler in these flowery fields; instead, these bees used the waggle dance to democratically decide where to harvest, ensuring the maximum honey yield for their collective effort. Intrigued by this snippet of entomology, Vande Vate carried the tale of bee brilliance into a lunch with his engineering colleagues. What began as a joke, musing about whether the bees might benefit from their expert consulting to boost their efficiency, turned into a genuine curiosity: perhaps these tiny creatures had something to teach them about optimization and resource allocation.

Vande Vate and his colleagues found themselves buzzing with enthusiasm as they explored the parallels between their work and the natural algorithms the bees had perfected over millions of years. The bees, it seemed, had been systems engineers all along, optimizing and adapting with no need for rules or spreadsheets. For Vande Vate, it was a glimpse into how nature’s solutions to logistics and efficiency could potentially inform and transform human engineering.18

Merging their expertise in resource allocation and optimization with the natural world’s efficiency exemplified by honeybee foraging, they formulated a theory to describe this phenomenon. It was a project that sought to decode not just the dance but the decision-making process behind it. Once their theoretical groundwork was laid, Vande Vate reached out to Tom Seeley. Together, they refined Vande Vate’s initial theory, building a robust model that could predict the distribution of forager bees among various resources.

To put their model to the test, they needed a real-world stage. Craig Tovey, another engineering professor from Georgia Tech, traveled during his sabbatical to work with Seeley at the Cranberry Lake Biological Station in New York. Their goal was to validate their model against the bustling activity of a live bee colony. Armed with four thousand forager bees, each uniquely marked with numbers and colors for precise identification, they began collecting data. They recorded the bees as they traveled to artificial nectar sources, logging the bees’ foraging behaviors. As the bees ventured to and from these sites, the team carefully tracked each of their movements.

The comprehensive study of the forager bees provided the researchers with ample evidence that their foraging strategies were perfectly adapted to their ever-changing environment. There are so many variables impacting a bee’s world, such as weather pattern shifts and when flowers bloom. In response, bees have developed a flexible approach to foraging that responds to constant change. The systems engineers, with their mathematical model in hand, were able to demonstrate that the bees’ foraging behavior wasn’t just effective—it was actually optimal under a wide array of environmental conditions.

Translating this bee-inspired model to human applications, however, was going to be a challenge. Craig Tovey tried to apply the principles they had uncovered to the patterns of highway traffic. While promising at first, the model did not quite fit the complexities of transportation systems. It took another fifteen years for the missing piece of the puzzle to click into place. The turning point arrived when a student, Sunil Nakrani, came knocking on Tovey’s office door.

Sunil Nakrani’s work as a doctoral student at Oxford University had led him to explore the complex challenge of resource allocation in web-hosting facilities. This task involved juggling variables to optimally distribute computing power among various clients, each with fluctuating demands—a problem not unlike the dynamic decision-making faced by foraging bees. Nakrani was aware that Tovey had built a reputation for crafting algorithmic solutions to tricky optimization problems and was anxious for his guidance. The nature of his inquiry was perfectly aligned with the kind of challenge that Tovey had been preparing for with his bee-inspired model. In web hosting, servers act like nectar sources, and the clients are like bees, each seeking the best possible outcome amid the competing demands of other clients. What unfolded from Nakrani’s initiative was a collaborative effort that combined Tovey’s insights into heuristics—a fancy term for problem-solving methods—with Nakrani’s in-depth understanding of computing systems. The potential for synergy was huge: the honeybee model offered a promising approach to managing the fluctuations of web-hosting demands, where the resource wasn’t nectar but the computational power to keep websites running smoothly. As they put their heads together, the dialogue between Nakrani and Tovey beautifully blended the elegance of biological systems with the precision of computational algorithms. This interdisciplinary collaboration was poised to produce a solution that could revolutionize the way web-hosting facilities operate.19

Trying to understand the intricacies of the internet can quickly lead down a rabbit hole, or perhaps more fittingly, through a labyrinth of underground cables. At its core, the internet is a vast and complex network connected by a seemingly endless array of cables that crisscross beneath our feet and across oceans. Within these cables are smaller fiber-optic cables that transmit incredibly fast pulses of light. These pulses are the essence of information, allowing you to send an email or stream a cute cat video.

When you engage with the internet, your digital request moves from your device to a router, through these cables, and ends up at a data center. These data centers are colossal libraries of servers. The tech giants of the world have vast server farms in these data centers. Smaller companies, on the other hand, often rely on third-party facilities to house and manage their digital presence. Security is paramount in this digital ecosystem, necessitating that each server handles one application at a time. And just as a weather website becomes the hive of activity as a hurricane looms, the data center must allocate resources to manage the shift in traffic.

Nakrani and Tovey were seeking a method of distributing server resources with the same adaptability as a honeybee colony. Tovey recognized that the complex problem Nakrani presented was a fluctuating demand for server resources, just like the ever-changing landscape of nectar sources for bees. It was an ideal match for the honeybee-inspired model he had helped to develop. The bees had shown that no central authority was needed to effectively allocate foraging resources. Instead, individual bees communicated important information about the quality and quantity of resources through their waggle dances. This distributed decision-making process ensured the colony adapted to their environment in real time, dynamically allocating their foragers to the best available resources.

Drawing from this biological blueprint, Nakrani and Tovey set out to create an algorithm that could replicate the decision-making process of honeybees in a web-hosting environment. In their model, servers would perform virtual waggle dances, evaluating the “nectar quality” of the tasks they could perform—assessing which web applications were most in need of resources at any given moment. These servers would then communicate that information to other servers, which would decide whether to continue with their current task or switch to a more demanding application that needed more computational power. Over the course of two years, Nakrani and Tovey not only developed this algorithm but also tested it with promising results in simulated web-hosting scenarios. They worked diligently in the following years on validating that the honeybee algorithm was not just theoretically sound but also practical in managing web-hosting servers. When pitted against the leading algorithms of the era, the honeybee algorithm proved to be greatly effective under the unpredictable conditions of web-traffic demands. Today, web-hosting services are taking advantage of biologically inspired models like the honeybee algorithm to operate server farms efficiently.

After Nakrani defended his dissertation on the topic, the first question that was asked surprised him: “Have you patented this?” The answer was no, they didn’t patent the honeybee algorithm. The team was driven by curiosity, not commercial gain, and even though they probably would have made a bloody fortune, they published their work in the public domain. The paper that Nakrani and Tovey published has been cited more than 230 times by researchers working on everything from energy usage and fuel utility to workload balancing. The honeybee algorithm, which sprang from a morning radio show, has found its way into the technological mainframe of web-hosting services. In a market that is growing, currently valued at around $50 billion, the efficiency and adaptability of server farms are paramount, and biologically inspired algorithms offer a competitive edge. The journey of Nakrani and Tovey’s research, from curiosity to widespread application, shows the incredible potential that lies in the study of the natural world. The success of the honeybee algorithm is a compelling example of biomimicry—where solutions to human challenges are found in the time-tested strategies evolved by nature. It’s just one more beautiful example of ingenuity that comes from looking beyond conventional paradigms and learning from the world around us—even from something as small as a honeybee.

THESE SNAKES DON’T NEED A MOTHERF*CKING PLANE

There are very few animals that freak me out. As a biologist, I pride myself on being able to hold critters that would make most people scream—but snakes are different. Snakes trigger a voice deep inside my brain that says, “Run, you fool!” If you’re like me, a slithering snake is terrifying. And if you’re like me, you won’t like this news one bit: Snakes can fly. That’s right—not only do you need to be wary of them slithering underfoot, climbing into your attic, or swimming in your toilet, but you also need to worry about them dive-bombing you from above. Well, probably not. Unless you live in Southeast Asia, the home of all five known species of flying snakes, in which case, I’m very sorry. Luckily, they have little concern for the people below, and spend much of their time in the trees, feasting on birds, frogs, and lizards.20 Biologists think the snakes probably avoid predators by flying, but exactly how they accomplished this acrobatic feat was a mystery—until Jake Socha, professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech University, decided he just had to go mess with some flying snakes.

Snakes are impressive beings, and for animals without arms, legs, or wings, they are incredibly versatile in their athleticism. Snakes have long, flexible spines with hundreds of curved rib bones. Strong, flexible muscles attach to their ribs and push and pull them in a coordinated dance. When snakes move, they aren’t truly flat against the ground. Instead, they redistribute their weight to increase thrust, like how we shift our weight as we walk.21 While the muscles do their magic, overlapping scales on their bellies provide friction on the ground, allowing them to propel themselves in any direction. There are a few major ways that snakes move, though this is probably a very conservative number, and their locomotive mode of choice has a lot to do with their species and habitat.22 When you think of a snake moving, you probably first think about the animal slithering from side to side, following the path of its own body. The snake laterally undulates forward in an “S” shape, pushing off the ground to propel itself forward. This form of locomotion works best when the snake is on an irregular substrate with rocks to push themselves forward, but not very well on a smooth surface or sand. In these situations, you’ll find snakes using a sidewinding locomotion. Sidewinding is like lateral undulation, but large segments of the body are lifted off the ground in sequence, creating a characteristic track in the sand. If the snake is moving through a narrow space or if it is climbing, it will use concertina locomotion: inching forward by pulling their body up into bends and then straightening to propel themselves ahead. If the snake is very large and heavy, such as a boa or a python, they will use rectilinear locomotion. In this mode, the snake moves forward in a straight line by alternately lifting from the ground, pulling forward, and then downward and back while the friction from the scales pushes the body forward.23 None of these equally frightening forms of locomotion, however, explain how snakes can fly.

It’s probably important at this point in the story to clarify that flying snakes don’t fly like birds—they glide. To truly fly upward, an animal needs some means to produce thrust and lift, such as wings. But, thank God, there are no snake species with wings.24 In fact, any reptile that could truly fly, such as the pterosaurs, went extinct around 65 million years ago.25 Gliding is more like parachuting than true flight. The highest point of their trip is the point where they jump into the air. After that, they are simply controlling their body to propel themselves forward using aerodynamic forces generated by their fall. Typically, gliding animals will have some flap of skin that generates lift and keeps them in the air longer after they’ve jumped from a high point, allowing them to travel further horizontally. Think about a flying squirrel. They jump from tree to tree by extending their arms to reveal large flaps of skin all along the body forming a superhero cape. Flying lizards, of the genus Draco, use a similar structure to glide through the air. Some species of frogs even use the webbing between their toes to slow their inevitable contact with the ground. But you know who doesn’t have any kind of skin flap parachute? Snakes. And yet, they glide.

Socha didn’t set out to have a career studying the mechanics of flying snakes. He hadn’t even heard of them until he began considering graduate schools. It was in a conversation with Robert Dudley, then a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, that he first heard about these biomechanical enigmas. Dudley’s lab focuses on the biomechanics and evolution of animal flight, and one of the animals he was studying was the dragon lizard—which Socha thought were “the coolest things he ever saw in his life.” His attention shifted when Dudley casually mentioned flying snakes. Socha was struck by the existence of a flying snake, and even though he didn’t pursue graduate work in Dudley’s lab, that moment changed the trajectory of his career. He ended up attending the University of Chicago because of its large faculty of biomechanists, which meant he could leave his options open as he decided what to study. But he couldn’t get the flying snakes off his mind. In a grant-writing class, he chose to write about the flying snakes, simply because it was so interesting to him. He thought he’d move onto a “more serious” topic after the course. Thankfully, he never did.

Although Socha was fascinated by the flying snakes, he had little previous experience handling snakes of any kind. This is, of course, a prerequisite for doing research with snakes. Mike Alfaro, who was at the University of Chicago at the time, was doing research on water snakes, so Socha naturally went to him for advice. He was about to head to Southeast Asia to catch snakes for the first time and didn’t want to go completely inexperienced. Alfaro was happy to help and gave him this profound advice: “Just grab them.” When Socha pressed Alfaro for a bit more detail, he was given two golden rules. First, grab the bitey end before it can strike. This one is pretty universal to all snake species. The second one, though, is especially important for water snakes—grab its tail too. Not only are water snakes biters, you see, but they also have the unique ability to spray a foul-smelling liquid out of their vent. Ready to dive in, Socha confidently grabbed the snake behind the head and lifted him up. But in the heat of the moment, he forgot the second rule. He spent the rest of the day smelling like an amateur snake handler and the rest of his career happy to be working with flying snakes and not water snakes.

With some more handling experience under his belt, Socha headed to Southeast Asia for the first time to begin his research on flying snakes. It is a curious thing for a snake, which is basically a tube of muscle, to create lift like animals with skin flaps. They need to be doing something interesting with their bodies to pull this off. To figure it out, Socha got to work recording how these snakes jump and glide forward. His first experiments involved launching the snakes from the balcony of the physics building at the National University of Singapore. He would bring a snake up a high tower and place it in a position to jump. Like any animal behavior research, this required patience. If a snake doesn’t want to jump, it’s not going to jump. When it did, though, Socha was ready with cameras and undergraduate snake catchers from the University of Singapore. When the snake was considering a jump, it would loop itself around a branch, with much of their body hanging in a “J” shape. From this position, the snake was able to scope out its surroundings and prepare for takeoff. When the snake finally launched from the tower, it undulated through the air, whipping its body back and forth, almost as if it were swimming. Socha found this to be very strange. Were they undulating because that’s just how they move on the ground? Or did these undulations help the snake glide?

In addition to this strange, slithering movement, there was something else that caught Socha’s eye. As the snakes launched themselves from the perch, the shape of their bodies changed. They morphed from a typical, rounded snake shape to a broader, flatter form. The snakes were flattening out their ribs, thereby creating a concave space under their belly. This change was notable, but the reason behind it wasn’t obvious. The snakes were still a very different shape than the typical flying or gliding body type. Socha decided that computer models could help evaluate the forces acting on the snake’s flatter body. He created a modeled cross-section of the snake’s shape and compared how much lift was generated against the shape of a traditional wing. To everyone’s surprise, the lift coefficients they calculated were very close to an actual wing. It turns out the snakes didn’t need any extra flaps of skin. By contorting their body into a concave shape, they were essentially turning their entire body into a wing.26

The team now understood the benefit of changing shape, but the undulating movement was still a mystery. All other gliders are symmetrical as they soar through the air, so why was this snake wiggling back and forth? To further test the biomechanics of the snake, Socha took advantage of a unique spot on the campus of Virginia Tech University called the Cube. It was a four-story black box used for everything from art shows to, well, flying snake experiments. The space was equipped with a high-speed motion capture camera system, making it the perfect place to fully analyze the flying snake’s movements. Working with mechanical engineer Isaac Yeaton, Socha’s team designed the perfect space for their experiments. They lined the floor with foam padding to protect the snakes, which has always been a priority in Socha’s research (not only did this provide a nice cushion for the snakes’ landing, but it also made a nice napping spot for exhausted graduate students). Socha placed infrared reflective tape onto multiple points along the snake’s body to be tracked later. From a high tower they fashioned, they let the snakes do their thing, with cameras rolling.

The footage from these experiments allowed Socha and his lab to create three-dimensional computer models, providing a view into every angle of the snake in flight for the first time. Here, they saw that as the snakes were undulating, they weren’t just moving side to side, but also up and down. In fact, they undulate in vertical waves twice as much as horizontal waves.27 While other animals that undulate do so for propulsion, in this situation, the computer model showed that the snakes are undulating for stability. The three-dimensional model also allowed them to put the snakes in hypothetical situations, without the risk of hurting a snake. They found that if they removed the undulation during a glide, the snakes would simply nosedive.28 Not only were the snakes performing a behavior that seemed impossible, but they were also doing it in a completely different way than had been documented in any other flier or glider.29

Socha’s work has captured the hearts of the public, and his research has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, National Geographic, Scientific American, and other popular media sites. The highlight for Socha, though, was when Bud Foster, longtime coach of the Virginia Tech football team, shared a post of his research that had been highlighted on CNN. This was a pinnacle accomplishment for a Hokie.

Not only did the idea of a flying snake catch the attention of the football coach, it also sparked the imagination of engineers. Imagine creating a robot that could maneuver in tight spaces, climb walls, swim, and fly: it would be unstoppable. The idea of a snake robot isn’t new. Professor Shigeo Hirose at the Tokyo Institute of Technology developed the first one in 1972. Since then, many other labs have tackled the challenge of a snake robot.30 Socha hopes his research will help engineers think out of the box when it comes to robotics designs, and he hopes that new technology based on flying snakes could one day help with search and rescue missions. Who knows where our knowledge about flying snakes could lead us in the future? In the meantime, even if we are afraid of snakes (it’s me), let’s be amazed too.

Nature’s playbook has long inspired human innovation. The merging of nature’s ingenuity and human curiosity is beautifully captured in the world of biomimetics. Cockroaches and snakes could save your life in a search-and-rescue mission one day. The lumpy flippers of the humpback whale could help protect our world, while the dancing honeybees unite it. I hope this chapter will remind you that even the most overlooked creatures are worthy of understanding—they might just hold the solutions to humanity’s most pressing issues. Inspiration, however, only goes so far. You can marvel at the resilience of a cockroach, but it takes an extra oomph to turn that inspiration into a roachy robot. It takes curiosity, and it takes collaboration. But there is one more “C” word that is vital to successful science: creativity. Scientists don’t tend to be appreciated for their creativity, but there is no progress without this magical ingredient.

¹

CHAPTER FIVE

ECCENTRIC EXPERIMENTS

Sir Andre Konstantin Geim is a serious physicist, and of international renown in the scientific community. While he now resides at the University of Manchester, his expertise and influence extend well beyond the UK—he holds honorary professorships at Tsinghua University in China, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Russia, and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. With more than four hundred published articles, his work has earned him a plethora of honors, including knighthoods in both the UK and the Netherlands. He has won basically every accolade possible for a physicist, including, of course, a Nobel Prize. So, when I say that Geim is a serious scientist, I mean he is a serious scientist.

Geim’s Friday evenings, however, are devoted to being exceptionally unserious. At the end of the week, he and his colleagues gather together, throw back a few beers, discuss off-the-wall ideas, and play in the lab. You might cringe to read the word “play” in relation to scientific methodology, but playfulness in research is incredibly powerful. It allows people to indulge in their imagination and move beyond what should and shouldn’t happen in a laboratory. These gatherings became known as “Friday Night Experiments,” where participants engaged in only the kind of ideas that were really unconventional. Often, these projects took the scientists involved well beyond the confines of their respective fields of expertise. But they figured that embracing the perspective of an amateur allowed them to ask questions that might slip past an expert deeply entrenched in their specialty. The success rate of these Friday Night Experiments isn’t exactly a knockout—it’s only about 12.5 percent. But this 12.5 percent led to some discoveries in physics that would have never happened without the permission to be creative.

To give you an idea of just how “out there” these projects were, the first discovery that originated from Friday Night Experiments was mistaken for an April Fool’s joke. An image from the experiment that depicted a levitating frog was published in the April 1997 edition of Physics World, and it was definitely not a joke.1 Geim’s foray into levitating amphibians wasn’t a mere flight of fancy. Well, it might have started that way, but it demonstrated how powerful magnetic fields can produce effects straight out of a superhero movie.2

To truly appreciate the levitating frog, we need to go back to some basic physics. At its core, all matter—be it solid, liquid, or gas—is composed of atoms. These atoms, in turn, have a nucleus at their center, orbited by electrons. When an atom is placed in a magnetic field, these electrons alter their motion, usually in a direction opposite to the external magnetic force.3 This reaction is known as diamagnetism. Most common materials, including living organisms, have a weak diamagnetism. Michael Faraday first uncovered this pattern back in 1846, but he probably never imagined it would be used to levitate a frog. In fact, for a long time, the concept of levitation was thought to be an unattainable fantasy. There were two problems that made it seem like an impossible feat: creating a magnet sufficiently powerful and finding a diamagnetic material light enough for levitation. Neither of which was easy to come by.4

It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that magnetic fields strong enough to lift diamagnetic materials became available. In 1939, the German physicist Werner Braunbeck took a significant step forward by levitating small beads of graphite.5 Nevertheless, the potential of diamagnetic levitation remained largely untapped for about half a century. This hiatus in exploration set the stage for what would become the levitating frog experiment. The moment leading up to Geim’s iconic experiment was marked by the exact type of thinking that was typically frowned upon in the lab but was encouraged on Friday nights. While working in the High Field Magnet Laboratory at Radboud University Nijmegen, Geim found himself wondering if the diamagnetism of water was strong enough to counteract gravity. In a move that he would later describe as “somewhat unprofessional,” he cranked up the electromagnet to its maximum power and poured a bottle of water into the core of the very expensive apparatus. That’s when it happened—droplets of water began to levitate inside the machine. This observation was as groundbreaking as it was unexpected. Geim had demonstrated for the first time that water could act against a powerful magnetic force. While this was pretty neat in and of itself, what it suggested was even greater—the tantalizing possibility of levitating other objects.

Encouraged by this discovery, Geim and his team began experimenting with various objects around the lab to see what else might defy gravity under the influence of the magnetic field. Among the assortment of items tested was a piece of pizza—because what would a Friday night in the lab be without pizza? Next, the team decided to experiment with a living being. They quietly borrowed a small frog from the biology department, cranked up the magnets, and placed the frog inside the machine. And there it was: the first-ever levitating frog. Not only was the experiment a success, but the frog appeared quite comfortable floating in midair.

This levitating frog experiment was a powerful demonstration of how a creative and even playful approach to science can turn the seemingly impossible into reality.6 Geim’s experiment captured the imagination of the scientific community and beyond; he was even offered £1 million by the leader of a religious sect in England to create a machine that would levitate him in front of his congregation.7 Because the magnets were only capable of levitating objects that were about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, Geim declined the offer and suggested a more traditional mode of levitation—a helicopter.

If the levitating frog discovery hasn’t convinced you of the brilliance of “Friday Night Experiments,” another one might. This time, no one mistook Geim’s research for an April Fool’s joke. Quite the opposite—it won Geim the Nobel Prize. Geim discovered a new and incredibly versatile material called graphene by using Scotch tape to peel carbon layers off of graphite. Graphene is, it turns out, a remarkably strong material. Columbia University vividly demonstrated its impressive properties by showing that a graphene sheet scaled to the thickness of plastic wrap could theoretically support the weight of a truck concentrated on the tip of a pencil. This strength, coupled with its thinness, makes graphene a material with immense potential in a number of fields8 such as electronics, materials science, and energy technology.9

When you hear the word “creativity,” visions of artists with paint brushes and musicians composing melodies probably pop into your mind. Not science, though. Science is white, stark, cold, and calculated—at least, that is what most people seem to think. But this image couldn’t be further from the truth. Science is a dynamic and inventive process that requires a whole lot of ingenuity. The whole point of science is to question existing paradigms and explore uncharted territories—neither of which you can do without thinking outside of the proverbial box. I think this misunderstanding is where much of the criticism about curiosity-driven research stems. Artists and musicians are allowed—no, expected—to play with new techniques that might or might not lead to advances in their field. Scientists, too, need the space for play and creativity to test the waters of those uncharted territories.

Creativity, by definition, is the creation of original ideas. But here’s the thing about new ideas: People tend to find them suspicious. New ideas often buck well-accepted traditions and test the boundaries of possibility. Sometimes this can look pretty silly to someone who isn’t ready to break through those paradigms. Recognizing and appreciating the creative heart of science is so important, though. It not only broadens our understanding of what it means to be creative, but it also sheds light on the essential role that imagination and innovation play in driving scientific advancement.

FELICIA AND FRIENDS

There are two things in science that always bring out the most creative ideas—a budget and a timeline. In 1971, as the ambitious project at the National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, approached its fourth year, it encountered a difficult challenge. Bob Wilson, who spearheaded the program, had made a bold promise to the US Department of Energy: with their support of $250 million, he would bring to life a 200-billion-electron-volt particle accelerator, set to be the largest machine of its kind in the world. Such machines use magnets to accelerate particles at incredibly high speeds and then smash them into a target. Aside from sounding like excellent fun, this process allows scientists to explore the intricacies of nuclear reactions. But Wilson had a problem: his electromagnets were failing.

The size of the particle accelerator at the National Accelerator Laboratory was absolutely monumental, with its main ring spanning four miles. The electromagnets were not little refrigerator magnets either—each was a behemoth, measuring twenty feet in length and weighing approximately thirteen tons. Two of the massive magnets failed as the accelerator began its initial testing, a result of the glass fiber insulation around the coils shattering. This problem rapidly escalated, with magnets failing at a rate of about two per day. Over the next few months, an astounding 350 magnets failed. Ryuji Yamada, the physicist behind the magnet design, eventually figured out what was going on. The culprit was tiny slivers of metal left behind in the vacuum tubes during their construction. It didn’t seem to be a big deal at the time, but it turns out they were at the root of the electromagnet failures. These metal fragments, being magnetic, interfered with the beam. But how exactly does one clean miles of narrow tubing in a machine of such staggering size and complexity? They couldn’t simply take the particle accelerator apart, clean it, and then snap it back together. They needed a way to clean the machine without removing any of the parts. This problem was going to require a solution as creative as the accelerator itself.

In the midst of this problem, Robert Sheldon, a British engineer, joined the team to tackle budget constraints. Sheldon had one job—find ways to save money and keep the massive project from going over budget. When faced with the problem of cleaning the particle accelerator, Sheldon came up with an idea that was… unorthodox. Growing up in Yorkshire, he was familiar with a local pastime that could help with the particle accelerator’s predicament—rabbit hunting. The hunters used ferrets to chase the rabbits out of their burrows. These nimble animals were trained to scurry into the narrowest of holes, driving the rabbits out into the open. Sheldon thought, if a ferret could be trained to navigate the narrow tubing of the particle accelerator, it might be able to clean it. It was an unconventional idea, but it held potential. Given the ticking timeline, anything was worth a shot.

They reached out to the Wild Game and Fur Farm in Minnesota and requested the smallest ferret they had. For the modest sum of thirty-five dollars, Felicia, a petite, black-and-brown ferret adorned with white facial rings, became an integral part of the team. The plan was straightforward, at least in theory—outfit Felicia with a harness attached to a long string, which she would then pull through the machine’s tubing. Once the string was in place, they would remove it from the harness, attach a cleaning swab, and draw it back through the tubing to remove the debris. They even made a tiny diaper for Felicia to protect the machine from any presents she might leave behind. Felicia, however, like all animals, had her own ideas about the task at hand. She was not about to dive into a long dark tube just because some scientists told her to. The team approached this challenge with patience and understanding, starting her training with shorter tubes and gradually increasing the length as she became more comfortable. They discovered her favorite treats—chicken livers, hamburger meat, fish heads—and she was heavily rewarded for her efforts. When Felicia finally completed her first 300-foot journey through the tubing, she emerged a bit tired but had successfully pulled the string all the way through the machine. The swab emerged from the other end, covered in dust and steel specks. Little Felicia the ferret had saved the $250 million project.

Her achievements soon garnered attention beyond the laboratory. Time magazine featured the story of this extraordinary ferret and her contribution to science. Felicia became a beloved member of the team, with people even taking turns to care for her at home. Some suggested that it would be great for her to have a mate, but concerns about a pregnant belly potentially hindering her ability to navigate the tubes led the team to decide against it. After about a dozen successful runs, she retired, replaced by a robotic mechanical spear, which, while perfectly efficient, is way less fun than a ferret. Felicia’s legacy, however, remained—a testament to the creativity and resourcefulness of the team and a reminder of how even the smallest contributors can make a significant impact in the world of scientific discovery.10

This was hardly the last time a ferret helped with a technological challenge. The US Air Force required the assistance of Misty the ferret during the Cold War. Her job was to thread wires for the early warning and missile systems at the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. Apparently, Misty had a sweet tooth and was rewarded with Pop-Tarts after a job well done. Even the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was facilitated by a ferret, who threaded cables under the floors of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The turn of the millennium also required help from our furry friends. A concert was to be held in Greenwich, England, and broadcast all over the world. Ferrets Beckham, Posh, and Baby were called in to run the electrical cables around the site. And then there is Freddie—the ferret that threaded wiring and cable around Auckland, New Zealand. He was very good at his job. In fact, he was so good that the Electrical Workers’ Union insisted he stop work unless he became a member of the union. Freddie is now the only known ferret to have the honor of holding a valid union membership.11

Ferrets aren’t the only animals that have been used to solve a scientific problem creatively. While it’s widely known that dogs have world-class sniffers, researchers have started using a lesser-appreciated creature for assistance—the African giant pouched rat. No, these are not the “Rodents of Unusual Size” from the classic film The Princess Bride, but they are pretty big rats. As adults, they can reach up to three feet in length, half of which is their hairless, white-tipped tail.12 They don’t have a pouch like a marsupial—their pouches are in their cheeks and are used to carry food to their burrows. But it isn’t their size or their pouches that have impressed researchers—it’s their remarkable sense of smell.

Africa has the highest rates of tuberculosis in the world, with 75 percent of the approximately one million tuberculosis/HIV infections that arise each year globally.13 Despite its prevalence, the techniques used for detection in developing countries aren’t always up to snuff. They require trained technicians and appropriate equipment for diagnosis, and even then, there is a large margin for error. In Mozambique, for example, more than half the positive cases of tuberculosis go undetected.14 It is particularly difficult to detect tuberculosis in children because they have a hard time producing enough sputum, a combination of mucus and saliva, for an accurate test. But these rats have the uncanny ability to sniff out tuberculosis even in the smallest sample.15 A rat’s olfactory system, how they detect odors, is connected to several different parts of their brains, including areas that are responsible for high-order behaviors and memory. These neural connections allow the rats to “think with their noses,” as one researcher put it.16 A tuberculosis-positive sample of sputum has volatile organic compounds that the rats can detect with incredible accuracy. And that is why these specially trained critters have earned the name of the HeroRAT.

In 2023, National Geographic published an article that detailed a day in the life of a HeroRAT named Tariq.17 Tariq works at the Eduardo Mondlane University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Mozambique, where he and his furry coworkers spend the day sniffing out samples. They are placed into a glass cage, and underneath the cage is a removable tray that can hold up to ten samples of sputum. Tariq walks the length of the cage, sniffing each sample, and when he finds one that is positive for tuberculosis, he lets a lab technician know by scratching at the location of the sample. Tariq is an incredibly fast worker—it only takes him eight minutes to go through fifty samples. That is more samples than a lab technician could test in a whole day.18 Not only are they superfast, but they are also incredibly accurate. In a 2010 study, researchers found that the rats’ evaluations increased the case detection rate by a whopping 44 percent compared to traditional methods,19 and several other studies have found a similar rate of accuracy.20 Beyond their speed and accuracy, using rats for disease detection is also cost-effective. Training a HeroRAT costs approximately $6,700 to $8,000, and they are relatively inexpensive to maintain throughout their eight-year lifespan. When compared to the costs associated with newer rapid diagnostic tests like GeneXpert, which run up to $17,000 per device, excluding upkeep, the use of HeroRATs offers a significant financial advantage.21

The role of the African giant pouched rats in scientific and humanitarian efforts is championed by APOPO, a Belgian nonprofit organization whose acronym stands for Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Productontwikkeling in Dutch, translating to “Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development.” APOPO’s pioneering work in harnessing these rats’ remarkable olfactory abilities has garnered significant achievements. According to their 2022 annual report, 534,230 patients were screened for TB, and an additional 27,059 TB cases were detected after failing to be found in a lab test. Another 272,888 other potential infections were prevented by this detection. But before they began developing techniques for testing for tuberculosis in 2003, APOPO was using these rats for a different lifesaving mission—detecting landmines. Not only were the rats great at sniffing out danger, but they were also light enough that they wouldn’t trigger the explosives. The same APOPO report claims the rats have been instrumental in detecting 155,744 landmines and other explosives, liberating an estimated 2,193,278 people from the constant threat posed by these hidden dangers.22

If you’re thinking that these amazing creatures deserve a medal, you’re not alone. In 2020, a HeroRAT named Magawa received an adorable, tiny gold medal from the UK charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals for his lifesaving work. The award is the animal equivalent of the George Cross, the highest award for a human who shows acts of heroism and bravery. During Magawa’s four-year career, he helped to clear more than 2.4 million square feet of land, where he found 71 land mines and 38 unexploded ammunitions.23 This was the first time in the seventy-seven-year history of the award that it was presented to a rat, but it’s clear that Magawa deserved the recognition. When he died in 2022, after a few years in retirement, his legacy was fondly remembered by the New York Times, NPR, and other major media outlets—just like heroes should be.

The HeroRATs have truly captured my heart. I think I watched every available video of these critters hard at work, each one more touching than the last. While exploring APOPO’s website, a particular feature caught my eye—the opportunity to “adopt” a HeroRAT. I don’t think I’ve ever whipped out my credit card so fast. And so, I became the proud sponsor of a young HeroRAT named Baraka. Not to sound like a salesman, but for the cost of a single trip to Starbucks, you too can help support the training and care of these incredible animals every month. Baraka is just starting his journey into the world of mine detection, and he’s showing great promise. In fact, the last update I received said that Baraka has been hitting 100 percent of his targets in every exercise. Good job, Baraka! My little buddy is going to be saving lives in no time.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF FLYING FISH

In 2014, John Oliver featured a contraption on his show, Last Week Tonight, that looked like it was made exclusively for late-night entertainment: the salmon cannon. Salmon, or as Oliver humorously calls them, “that stupid fish that doesn’t know how rivers work,” were shown being sucked into a tube, zipped away, and sent flying out the other end. The clip was put in slow motion with dramatic classical music playing in the background for comedic effect, and it worked. The video is hilarious. Oliver even went a step further by revealing his own homemade fish cannon and used it to launch a fake fish at an array of unsuspecting famous targets, from Tom Hanks to Homer Simpson.24

Oliver wasn’t the only person impressed by the contraption. A video of the “fish tube” spread far and wide across the internet as soon as it was posted. And it’s easy to see why—it really is a marvel of innovation. It is a prime example of how a critical environmental problem can be addressed with creativity. The company behind this novel device, named Whooshh Innovations (no, really), certainly had an unconventional vision when they set out to solve the problem that dams impose on migrating fish. As it turns out, “that stupid fish that doesn’t know how rivers work” actually knows how rivers work very well. At least they did until humans blocked the rivers with dams. Salmon are a species that depend on freshwater rivers for breeding migrations, and their life cycle is actually quite impressive. It all begins with their humble origins in a freshwater river, where they hatch from eggs and spend their early years, usually one to three, before undergoing physiological changes that enable them to adapt to saltwater life. Once ready, they make their way out of the river and toward the ocean. What truly sets salmon apart is their remarkable homing instinct. They have an uncanny ability to navigate their way back to the very place they were born by using a combination of chemical smells and the Earth’s magnetic field. But modern technology poses a major problem to this breeding cycle. Hydroelectric dams create impossible barriers.

The issue of dams obstructing fish migration isn’t a new one, and scientists have been grappling with it for years. Various solutions have been attempted over time, but they often fell short of providing an effective solution. One of the earlier attempts involved the implementation of fish ladders. Belying their name, these structures resemble more of a cascading staircase with water flowing down it than a ladder. The concept behind fish ladders is sound in theory—that fish, guided by their natural instincts to swim upstream, would leap from step to step, eventually crossing the dam. Unfortunately, this approach proved to be less effective than hoped. Some fish species couldn’t navigate the entire ladder, and others simply refused to use it. Another method explored was “trap and haul.” As the name suggests, this approach involved trapping the fish and then physically moving them to another location, typically using large tankers or helicopters. While it may sound like a feasible solution, it came with a few significant drawbacks. Not only did it require a substantial workforce and financial resources, but as you might imagine, it was quite stressful for the salmon being dropped from the sky.

The invention that became the fish cannon wasn’t actually created for fish at all. Whooshh CEO Vincent Bryan III was initially involved in the fruit-harvesting industry, where he saw that redirecting water for fish ladders devastated orchards that had thrived for half a century. What Bryan observed was that existing salmon ladders were not only inefficient but also wasted a substantial amount of river water—up to 14 percent—in their efforts to attract fish,25 on top of the fact that they didn’t even work very well. Driven by a belief that there had to be a more efficient way to manage water resources and aid salmon migration, Bryan wondered if a technology that had been used for fruit harvesting could be adapted to help fish. That’s when the idea of the fish cannon was born.26

The fish cannon is a marvel of engineering that can transport approximately five fish at a time, using compressed air to propel them over obstacles. This is known as a pneumatic tube and has been used for purposes as varied as transporting materials through hospitals to sucking up checks at bank drive-throughs. Pneumatic technology results from a long history of harnessing the power of air pressure for various purposes. One of the earliest milestones in this journey was the work of German scientist Otto von Guericke in 1650. He pioneered the creation of the first artificial vacuum by designing a contraption with two large copper hemispheres that were hermetically sealed together. As von Guericke evacuated the air from the spheres using a hand-cranked pump, he created an incredibly tight vacuum inside. Legend has it that to demonstrate the power of this vacuum, he harnessed sixteen horses, eight on each hemisphere, in an attempt to pull them apart—a feat that proved impossible because of the strength of the vacuum seal.

Around the same time, Scottish engineer William Murdoch proposed the use of pneumatic tubes to transport objects. This idea quickly gained traction. People began to envision a world where pneumatic tubes could power carriages and even trains, sparking a revolution in transportation. Robert H. Goddard introduced the first concept of a “vactrain” through a short story titled “The High-Speed Bet” published in Scientific American in 1906. Robert M. Salter explored advances of pneumatic tube transportation systems more recently with the idea of “tube shuttles.” Their ideas have continued to shape discussions on futuristic transportation solutions, such as Elon Musk’s Hyperloop concept, which draws inspiration from these fundamental principles of air pressure and vacuum technology.27

While I can’t say that the fish enjoy the ride, their well-being during the journey is a concern. There is some water inside the tube for lubrication, ensuring the fish can smoothly navigate their way through, though it is the air that is moving the fish, not the water. Additionally, misters are strategically placed every five feet or so, providing a gentle spray of water to maintain a suitable environment and ensure the fish’s safety.28 While it’s not quite at the level of a “vactrain,” one of the most exciting aspects of the fish cannon is its potential to move entire schools of salmon through the tube in just a matter of hours. The aim is to create conditions in and around the tube that mimic the natural habitat of the fish, encouraging them to enter the tube voluntarily without the need for individual placement by humans.

Not only is the fish cannon helping salmon to their destination, but it is now also being used to keep invasive species from entering spaces where they don’t belong. The common carp, for example, has become a huge problem in American waterways. Carp have been farmed throughout Europe for centuries, and in 1880, the US government imported about three hundred fish from Germany. The fish were bred in Washington, and they were put onto rail cars to be dispersed throughout the country and placed in lakes and rivers. It didn’t take long before folks knew they had made a mistake. Carp are a tough species, very tolerant of poor water quality that would kill other species. Without the threat of their native predators and pathogens, they can live for a whopping fifty years. This resilient species also has some ecological habits that degrade their environment. When they forage, they tend to root around in the bottom sediment, stirring up organic matter and turning the water into a brown, muddy mess. This behavior promotes algal blooms, which lead to massive fish die-offs and leave little food for other inhabitants. Other fish species begin to disappear, along with plants and waterfowl.29 So far, the efforts to control carp populations have been admirable but are still not effective. Here’s where the fish tube can help.

Adult carp migrate through lakes and streams during the spring spawning season, back to the site where they were born, just like the salmon. Once a carp reaches its destination, it can produce around two thousand eggs. Efforts have been made to introduce species that will eat their eggs, but these came with their own challenges and concerns. Underwater electric fences have also been deployed to corral the carp into traps. Researchers have tried what they have coined the “Judas Technique,” where a few fish are tagged in the fall, and then come winter, when they are trapped under ice, scientists can track the signal and find the whole group. The use of the koi herpesvirus has even been considered. It only affects carp, and their koi relatives, and it can kill up to 90 percent of a population. But one of the least imposing ways to control the carp population is through the use of the fish cannon.30 In just the past few years, Whooshh Innovations has added new AI-enabled technology to their system to help with this very issue. Called the FishL Recognition system, this device has six cameras to take eighteen high-definition images of every fish that passes through for identification.31 AI uses these images to document the fish size, species, general health status, and if it’s a native species. The fish are then routed to a particular passage based on this information. A native salmon, for example, will continue over the dam and onward to its spawning site. If it is an invasive species, however, the fish could either be bypassed back below the dam or removed from the waterway entirely.32 This system has been in use for the past few years, and it has aided fish migrations in the US, Canada, and Sweden. By 2020, the system had imaged more than 300,000 fish from at least 12 different species, and then shot them to an appropriate location. It’s a testament to human creativity and our ability to leverage science for the betterment of our environment and society.33 As John Oliver said at the end of his show, “In your darkest moments of despair, when you see a world torn apart by war, I want you to remember [the salmon cannon] and think: ‘we can do great things.’”34

MAYBE HE’S BORN WITH IT,
MAYBE IT’S MAYBELLINE

Animal behavior research is a field filled with curiosity and creativity. We all secretly wish we could just strike up a conversation with our animal companions and ask them all the questions that boggle our minds. But alas, a real-life Dr. Doolittle has yet to reveal themselves. And until they do, we’re left to decipher animal behaviors from our limited human perspective.

The challenge becomes particularly difficult when we attempt to dive into the minds of creatures vastly different from ourselves, such as a tiny jumping spider. These acrobats are a world away from the human experience in terms of physiology and behavior. They’re masters of camouflage and skilled hunters, and possess an array of complex behaviors we’ve only begun to understand. Lisa Taylor, an arachnologist hailing from the University of Florida, has taken on the task of unlocking the secrets of these minuscule marvels, and her approach is as creative as it is captivating. She uses makeup.

Now, I get it, spiders aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some folks are quick to shudder at the mere mention of these eight-legged critters, and I totally respect that. But hold on: Tiny jumping spiders are downright adorable. They are about the size of a ladybug, boasting vibrant colors and a fluffy exterior that would make even the most arachnophobic heart melt. Jumping spiders have endearing puppy-dog eyes that make them look like they just want to be friends. They don’t even weave webs for you to accidently walk into!

Jumping spiders belong to the Salticidae family, a massive group with over six thousand different species, each flaunting its unique brand of cuteness. Although the females are plenty cute in their brown coats, the males often steal the spotlight with their flashy displays. Take, for instance, the peacock jumping spider, Maratus volans. These guys are the true fashionistas of the spider world. The males sport brightly colored flaps that they can raise up, just like a peacock flaunting its majestic tail feathers. Then there’s the zebra spider, Salticus scenicus, living up to its name with bold black and white stripes. There is also the paradise spider, Habronattus pyrrithrix. This little guy earned his name because of the vivid red color of the mask across his eyes, similar to the color of the magnificent bird-of-paradise flower.

When you begin to study how animals perceive their world, you realize there is a whole other dimension to our shared environment that we will never know. We often assume that other creatures see things the way we do and vice versa, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Humans have the privilege of experiencing the full spectrum of colors in the rainbow thanks to our three different color-detecting cells called cones. This trichromatic vision is pretty special, and it’s not the norm across the animal kingdom. An animal that exists in the very same environment as us is probably seeing it very differently.

Take your canine best friend for example. Dogs have only two kinds of cones, which allow them to tell blues from yellows but not reds from greens. However, when it comes to night vision, dogs have us beat. They have more light-detecting cells called rods, which come in handy for navigating those low-light conditions. Plus, they have a special layer in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum, which, in addition to giving them those eerie glowing eyes in the dark, makes their night vision even better.

But some animals see the world in ways we can’t even fathom. For instance, there are birds and bees that can see ultraviolet light, unveiling patterns in the world that are entirely invisible to us. So, when it comes to studying how animals understand and perceive color, it’s vital to put it all into perspective. We need to consider each animal’s unique physiology and not get stuck in the trap of assuming they see things just like we do.

Colors can give us valuable information about our environment and the organisms around us. In the natural world, for example, red often plays the role of a powerful warning signal. It’s like Mother Nature’s way of saying, “I’m toxic, stay away!” But here’s the twist—not all species sporting those bright hues are necessarily packing a toxic punch. Some are simply taking advantage of the fact that other animals associate red with danger. In the case of jumping spiders, scientists used to think that they couldn’t see red. But in 2015, Taylor and her team found that certain spider species have a filter in their retinas that shifts some of their green receptors to red. In other species, they have evolved to perceive red in ways we’re still trying to figure out. Interestingly, it appears that healthier male paradise spiders tend to have redder faces, but what that redness means to them is still a puzzle waiting to be solved. How on earth do you ask a spider how they feel about the color red? Well, that’s where creativity comes in.

Now, even though the females might not sport the flashy red masks that the males do, they can definitely see those bold displays. Believe it or not, female paradise spiders are no different from any other woman when it comes to having an opinion on appearances. They’re a rather judgmental bunch, and when it comes to the mating game, it’s a perilous affair for the males. It’s a high-stakes dinner date—the male has to impress to avoid becoming the main course. They do this with the most important dance of their lives. If the female isn’t pleased with their performance, she won’t hesitate to make a meal out of them. It might sound harsh, but this kind of behavior isn’t all that uncommon in the spider world. Many female spiders, from various species, would rather have a male as a snack than a mate. It’s a tough world out there for male spiders. In fact, male spiders tend to have just two primary life goals: to mate successfully and to avoid ending up as someone else’s dinner. The irony is that the very spider they’re trying to woo often turns out to be their ultimate predator. It’s a spider-eat-spider world, and the males are doing their best to survive while also trying to find love.

A male jumping spider does have a few tricks up his sleeves to make the best impression. Approaching the female slowly, he starts to lay on the moves. He’s literally dancing to his own beat, vibrating his body to create an arachnid rhythm. As he draws near, he raises his first set of legs up in the air, as if to assure her that he comes in peace. Next, he takes it up a notch and starts waving at her with the very tips of those outstretched legs, as if he’s hypnotizing her into giving him a chance. This little guy does a full-on jig, all the while with his legs in the air, and he keeps that body vibration going as the female carefully evaluates her options. She’s in no rush to make up her mind about whether he’s going to be her lover or her next meal. It’s clear she’s holding him to the highest standards. This is where the red mask comes into play for the paradise spider.

Taylor’s lab is a rather unique blend of art and science. She has always had a keen interest in art, and at one point in her life, she even contemplated pursuing it as a career. Colors, in particular, held a special fascination for her. When she realized that research could work within the world of color in the animal kingdom, she knew she’d found her sweet spot. Initially, Taylor began her research journey with a focus on the coloration of birds. But it was a college class on spider biology that set her on the path of studying these smaller creatures. Her lab has been dedicated to unraveling the mystery of the visual cues that jumping spiders rely on when selecting their mates.

Sometimes, as we’ve seen, the greatest ideas start as silly thoughts, and that’s exactly how this research began. The first piece of the puzzle involved figuring out how these spiders felt about eating red things. They began by thinking about prey choice without the added complication of sex. Jumping spiders have a taste for termites, but termites aren’t naturally red—at least not until you dress them. So, the team fashioned tiny capes in different colors for the termites and presented them to the female jumping spiders. Turns out they weren’t too keen on dining on the red-caped termites. But that was just the first step. To truly understand how the females felt about the red faces of the males, the team had to find a way to block the red on some of the spiders for comparison. What do you use to paint over the red markings on a spider that’s both nontoxic and spider-friendly? An ingenious suggestion from one of Taylor’s students was a bull’s-eye—liquid eyeliner.35 So, off they went to the beauty wonderland of Sephora, armed with a picture of the spider in question. Surprisingly, the image of the spider didn’t send the sales associate running (I told you they were cute), and she kindly assisted them at her makeover station, putting the spider snapshot up on the board. And there, in the glamorous world of eyeliner testing, they found their champion: Urban Decay.

With Urban Decay eyeliner in hand, the next challenge was to adorn the faces of these tiny spiders. To accomplish this, a delicate touch was required, not to mention a little help from carbon dioxide to ensure the spiders were calm and cooperative.36 Once the costumed males were ready, they were placed into an arena with a female jumping spider. It turns out that females were more inclined to engage in mating rather than making a meal out of the male if he had a red face compared to a blacked-out one. It seems that the red coloration on the male spiders’ faces serves a dual purpose—it conveys to the female that he’s healthy and, at the same time, reduces the likelihood that she’ll see him as a tasty snack. It’s a fine balance of chemistry and color that keeps these tiny arachnid dancers alive and in the game of love.37

Taylor and her team have used this technique to study another intriguing species, Maevia inclemens, where the males sport a charming crown of tufted hairs on their heads. To decipher how females felt about this unique hairstyle, one of her students used fake eyelashes to enhance the tufts. But that wasn’t the end of it. Some males in this species are covered in striking black and white stripes on their bodies. To gauge the female’s reaction to this coloration, the lab employed their trusty termites-in-capes strategy. Interestingly, while the female noticed the striped capes more quickly, it didn’t make her more likely to attack.38 The lab has even taken it a step further by crafting tiny 3D-printed spiders, meticulously painting them, and maneuvering them with a magnet to observe the role of colors and patterns for females choosing a mate.

Taylor is also on a mission to utilize creativity to foster interest in science. She offers a free downloadable spider coloring book on her website to raise appreciation for the little spiders to which she has dedicated her research. I’m pretty sure she meant it for the younger crowd, but I can confirm that coloring the pictures is a great stress reliever. And, Bob, before you ask: This research provides valuable insights into the way various animals perceive their world and offers a deeper understanding of sexual selection. Who knows, one day, the eyes of jumping spiders might inspire the development of tiny, sophisticated sensors that lead to groundbreaking technology. But for now, this curiosity-driven research simply adds to our knowledge of the natural world in the most colorful way possible.

These stories are just a drop in the bucket of the amazing research that has come from creative minds. It’s evident that creatively pursuing the trivial holds untapped potential, and that the intersection of silliness and the unknown is a fertile ground for discovery. As Geim frankly put it, “In my experience, if people don’t have a sense of humor, they are usually not very good scientists either.”39

Without observation, curiosity, collaboration, and creativity, people also won’t make very good scientists. But there is one more factor to consider. In my opinion, it gets way more credit than it deserves, but it exists nonetheless. I am talking about Lady Luck—the serendipitous findings that seem like they were begging to be discovered at that particular moment in time.

¹

CHAPTER SIX

RULES OF SERENDIPITY

In 1981, Frederik Bang, an esteemed professor in the department of pathology at Johns Hopkins University, took the stage during a conference at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to give a talk: “The Three Rules of Serendipity.” Rule number one: “Take a fresh look at old phenomena.” Number two: “Remain naive, but carry knowledge of past experiences.” Number three: “Ask new questions and seek new answers.” In imparting these rules, Bang wasn’t just sharing a hypothetical formula for scientific success. He was sharing his personal path to a world-changing discovery.1

In the early 1950s, working at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Bang’s curiosity led him to a surprising inspiration—the horseshoe crab. These enigmatic creatures, more akin to scorpions than crabs, have been witnesses to Earth’s unfolding story for more than 450 million years. Their ancient lineage alone makes them objects of fascination, but why a human pathologist would want to study them isn’t exactly clear.

Bang, however, had interests that extended to a rather eclectic array of creatures. For example, transparent animals captivated him, providing a literal clear view of their circulatory systems in motion. In this transparency, Bang saw a unique opportunity to gain insights into the human circulatory system.2 Bang’s expansive interests led him to spend a summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. As luck would have it, the horseshoe crab was a research focus there. And he became fascinated by it.

The physiological parallels between humans and these invertebrates are few, at best. Horseshoe crabs possess an open circulatory system where blood and lymph fluid freely slosh through the body’s sinuses. Their blood, tinged blue by copper, contrasts starkly with the iron-rich red that courses through our closed circulatory systems, complete with a heart and vessels. Despite these differences, Bang saw something intriguing: Horseshoe crabs thrive in bacteria-rich environments, somehow warding off bacterial infections. Remarkably, he found that if infected by bacteria, the crab’s blood would clot around the infection site, creating a natural barrier against the bacterial invasion. Some bacteria even triggered such an intense immune reaction that it led to a total blood clot, which was sadly fatal for the horseshoe crab. Bang published his findings on this extraordinary immune response in 1956, but soon after his focus shifted, leaving the horseshoe crabs and their secrets behind. The samples of their blood that he drew were relegated to the back of a freezer, where they sat untouched for nearly a decade.

Why Bang’s interest in the blood samples returned is a mystery. Perhaps it was the nagging feeling of an unfinished chapter, but regardless, we should be grateful. Looking for some assistance in researching the horseshoe crab’s blood, Bang reached out to the hematology department at Hopkins, where a young researcher named Jack Levin answered the call. Levin, attracted to Bang’s infectious enthusiasm, dove headfirst with him into the world of horseshoe crab blood. Levin’s research, however, hit an immediate snag. The samples clotted too quickly for detailed analysis, defying every anticoagulant Levin tried. It was in this moment of frustration that Bang’s second rule of serendipity—“Remain naïve, but carry knowledge of past experiences”—became important.3

Levin’s previous research with rabbit blood provided a crucial backdrop to his new challenge at Cape Cod. Rabbits played a pivotal role in the study of blood and the immune system, particularly in the 1920s when Florence Seibert made significant strides in understanding a group of microbes known as gram-negative bacteria. Seibert discovered endotoxins, molecules found in the cell walls of these bacteria, that she suspected were responsible for the sometimes fatal condition, called injection fever, that early vaccinations could provoke. Developing a test using rabbits, Seibert found that if a substance contained endotoxins, it would induce a temperature rise in the injected rabbits. This rabbit test became a crucial tool in preventing injection fever. But this strategy was not without its drawbacks. It was costly and time-consuming, and the results took almost a full day—a significant delay in the rapidly advancing medical field. In rabbits, exposure to endotoxins triggered coagulation in addition to a fever. Levin, drawing upon this knowledge, wondered if endotoxins might have a similar effect on horseshoe crabs. This line of inquiry was about to unveil a profound connection, revolutionizing our understanding of immune responses across different species.

In the year that followed, Levin’s work with horseshoe crab blood led to a series of groundbreaking discoveries. He found that this ancient blood was exquisitely sensitive to endotoxins, capable of detecting even minuscule traces of harmful bacteria. The secret to the horseshoe crab’s remarkable coagulation response lay in a type of mobile blood cell known as an amebocyte. When these cells encounter harmful bacteria, they release proteins that trigger a clotting reaction. This sensitivity hinted at a significant potential application in the medical field, where detecting contamination in pharmaceuticals is critical. Levin developed the Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) test. This new test was a medical game changer. It could rapidly indicate the presence of contaminants in medical solutions by forming distinctive clots within just a few hours. The LAL test was not only more efficient but also more practical than the rabbit test. It had the potential to revolutionize safety protocols in the medical industry, particularly in ensuring the sterility of injections and IV fluids.4

The horseshoe crabs were now the unwitting guardians of human health, their blue blood a crucial component in safeguarding medical treatments. This advancement brought with it a new challenge—the need for a lot of horseshoe crab blood. The horseshoe crab is not a delicate species. They have survived five mass extinctions and were doing great before humans found them useful. In the late 1800s, their use as agricultural fertilizers and livestock feed marked the beginning of a significant impact on their populations. They also gained popularity as bait for fishing conch and eels. The era of LAL testing created an enormous new demand for them. Scientists have worked hard to ensure that the demand is met in a way that is sensitive to conserving their population. Trained fishing crews use nocturnal expeditions to collect these crabs for blood harvesting. Happily, this is a catch-and-release operation. The crabs, once captured, are taken to facilities where their blue blood is drawn, typically in less than ten minutes. They are then returned to their natural habitat, usually within a day.

About 450,000 horseshoe crabs are harvested for this purpose each year. While many horseshoe crabs survive and continue their lives in the ocean, there’s a notable mortality rate of 15 to 35 percent associated with the process. This rate, albeit significant, is lower compared to the losses in other industries. Nevertheless, the use of horseshoe crabs in LAL testing presents a complex ethical and environmental dilemma. Thankfully, scientists have been hard at work to find an animal-friendly alternative to horseshoe crab blood, and the research looks very promising.5

The adage “luck favors the prepared” rings particularly true in the world of science. Throughout this book, you’ve probably noticed the role of serendipity in these stories, right alongside curiosity, inspiration, creativity, and collaboration. However, in some tales of discovery, serendipity takes center stage.

HAPPY AS A CLAM

It was a late night alone in the lab for Peter Fong of Gettysburg College when he accidentally knocked a bottle of Prozac into an aquarium of clams. As the pills sunk to the bottom of the tank, along with his heart, he noticed something strange: the clams started spawning, releasing eggs and sperm into the water at startling rates. Fong looked on with shock—he had never seen them behave this way before.6

That Prozac could affect clams probably seems surprising. We are quite different from clams, after all. But even without many comparable body parts, at the cellular level, regardless of species, our nervous systems still work the same way. Studying the nervous systems of these simple creatures can reveal new insights about our own nervous system. Plus, clams are easier to manage than humans, making them an ideal model organism. But even though our physiology is similar in many ways, there are also important differences in response to neurotransmitters.

Fluoxetine, the drug commonly known as Prozac, isn’t known to increase sexual prowess in humans. In fact, it often does the very opposite. But when these clams were exposed to the same drug, they instantly jumped to sexual activity. Now, this wasn’t a complete surprise. Research conducted in the 1980s found that if serotonin is injected into the muscles of clams, they will begin to spawn after just fifteen minutes.7 Fluoxetine, which was introduced to the market in 1987 as a treatment for depression, belongs to a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These drugs work by increasing the levels of serotonin in the brain. As a neurotransmitter, serotonin sends messages between nerve cells in the brain and body. In humans, it is an important biological molecule, playing a role in happiness, sleep, memory, sexual behavior, and hunger.8 A lack of serotonin in the body, on the other hand, can present depression, anxiety, and other health conditions. Fluoxetine and other SSRIs work by preventing the reuptake of serotonin into nerve cells by blocking receptors, and thereby increasing the amount of available serotonin.9 When Fong dropped his prescription into the tank of clams, he essentially gave the clams a big shot of serotonin.10

He also gave clam husbandry a major new tool. In 2022, the global oyster and clam market was valued at around $108 billion and growing.11 Even though the industry was aware that serotonin would induce spawning, it was way too expensive to put into practical use, costing in 2024 about $40 per gram.12 But fluoxetine is far cheaper and accomplishes the same task at very low concentrations. In fact, clams spawn with 100,000 times less fluoxetine added to the water compared to serotonin.13 In traditional clam farming, it is tough to get a synchronous spawning event, but with the help of fluoxetine, farmers can increase their yield and raise a uniform crop.

Maintaining clam populations can have other major effects on our environment. It can be tough to put a monetary value on the service that an organism provides, but a study published in 2020 reports that oyster and clam aquaculture provides up to $5.8 million in nitrogen removal from coastal waters.14 That is, if we didn’t have a healthy population of clams and oysters, we would be spending millions of dollars more on wastewater treatment, septic systems, and stormwater management to keep nitrogen levels manageable. Between our wastewater, fertilizers, and animal waste, we have put way too much of this nutrient into our water. When there is excess nitrogen, algae grow at a rapid rate, causing harmful algal blooms. A blanket of the blue-green plankton will coat the surface of the water, blocking light from reaching below. Even worse is what happens when the algae die. As an algal bloom decomposes, bacteria will munch on the decay and rapidly reproduce, depleting oxygen from the water and creating hypoxic zones where nothing can survive.

Clams can stop this doom loop. Like little Brita filters, one adult oyster can filter an incredible 50 gallons of water a day, removing nitrogen along with other nutrients and incorporating them into their tissues and shells.15 Understanding their ecological value, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ran a little experiment back in 2013. They placed a raft with tendrils of mussels at the mouth of one of the grossest bodies of water they could think of, New York City’s Bronx River. The study lasted for two years, and then the health of the mussels was assessed. Not only were they healthy, but they had also survived the ravages of Hurricane Irene unscathed.16

Bivalve water filters have applications on many scales. In Warsaw, Poland, there is a landmark water pump, affectionately known as Fat Kathy, that you’ll find by traveling through a tunnel under the Vistula River. The only reason I can imagine you’d want to do this is to see the eight clams they have hooked to a computer to monitor the city’s drinking water. The system relies on the natural instinct of the clams to close their shells when they encounter pollutants, heavy metals, and pesticides. The clams are outfitted with a magnet and a coil, which helps the computer monitor whether their shells are open or closed by detecting changes in the magnetic field. The clams are essentially acting as an early warning system, and in the case of contamination, the water supply can be turned off. There are now fifty other Polish waterworks that use this system.17

Knowing how to trigger a spawning event in bivalves could certainly help us with farming industries and with attempts to monitor and protect our water. There is one other place where this knowledge could be useful—conserving endangered species. Freshwater bivalves are one of the most vulnerable groups of animals today. At least 40 percent of species around the world are listed as near threatened, threatened, or extinct.18 We could potentially use Fong’s serendipitous discovery for a captive breeding program to save endangered species. Perhaps.

In the meantime, please don’t dump your extra fluoxetine (or any other medication) into bodies of water. We’ve only just begun to understand the effect of pharmaceuticals on the environment, and the data isn’t looking so hot. There have been several documented studies that show negative effects on the behavior and metabolic regulation of aquatic organisms such as fish, shrimp, and hydra.19 But thanks to Fong’s good (mis)fortune, we learned something new about the physiology of these ever-important animals, the bivalves, and perhaps he even gave us the key to preventing their extinction.

FROM PARTY TRICK TO PAINKILLER PICK

Ah, a visit to the dentist—not quite the appointment you look forward to. There are needles, grinding, and blood, but one thing you don’t need to worry about is pain. OK, maybe a little pain, but it could be much worse. One popular way we’ve managed pain throughout the twentieth century was with nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas. But this isn’t how nitrous oxide was always used. The gas made its debut as a party trick that had Victorian partygoers laughing their hats off. Who knew medical history could be such a gas?20

Humphry Davy was a bit of a maverick in the world of early chemistry, known for his unorthodox methods and a keen sense of adventure. Working at the Pneumatic Institute in Bristol around 1798, he was fascinated by gases, particularly nitrous oxide, a compound first bottled up by Joseph Priestley in 1772. Davy’s approach to science was, let’s say, hands-on. He didn’t just study nitrous oxide: he inhaled it. His journals from the time read like a mix of a scientist’s log and an adventurer’s diary, describing his experience with nitrous oxide as thrilling and pleasurable. Of course, these self-experiments often ended with him passing out.

But Davy didn’t keep all the fun to himself. He shared this special gas with others. It was during these unofficial trials that the term “laughing gas” was born, thanks to the uncontrollable giggles it induced in its users. Davy noted something else in his observations, though—the gas seemed to dull pain.21 But, for some reason, he didn’t follow up on that observation, so the nineteenth century was an era when laughing gas wasn’t a tool for medicine but a star attraction for entertainment. Nitrous oxide soon became the drug of choice for parties of the social elite. One of the most prominent nitrous oxide peddlers was Samuel Colt—the same Samuel Colt who patented the revolver pistol. Colt was a master entertainer, touring towns with his horse-drawn laboratory. His shows were a blend of science and spectacle, with Colt himself often becoming the subject of his experiments, much to the amusement of the crowds. And, of course, he invited the crowd to join in—for a pretty fee.

Colt, however, wasn’t the only one capitalizing on the craze for nitrous oxide. “Professor” Gardner Quincy Colton, partly trained physician and wholly formed showman, was a traveling sensation. He moved from city to city, renting out large halls for his grand exhibitions. Colton would be on stage as the charismatic ringmaster, selecting volunteers from an eager audience. These volunteers would inhale the gas and become the center of attention, their antics under the influence providing plenty of entertainment. Then, in 1844, during a show in Hartford, a local dentist decided to volunteer.22

Horace Wells didn’t attend this event with the intention of finding a medical innovation, but that is exactly what happened. When he volunteered to take the stage, he was joined by another young man who partook before him. After inhaling the nitrous oxide, the young man stumbled, falling into some furniture and badly bruising his legs. Wells was concerned, but when he asked the man if he was all right, he remarked that he didn’t feel any pain at all. A lightbulb immediately went off. As seems to be the trend with this particular discovery, Wells thought he should first try it on himself. He had a painful molar that needed extraction, and if this could make that experience a little less awful, he was down to try. The next day he received a bag of nitrous oxide from Colton and had his colleague John Riggs pull his tooth. Lucky for him, it worked. He devised a way to expose the patient to nitrous oxide by inserting a tube into the patient’s mouth, and over the next few weeks, Wells and Riggs successfully administered the gas to fifteen patients.

Excited about his success, Wells wanted to bring his breakthrough to the medical community. In 1845, he traveled to Boston, where a demonstration was arranged by William Thomas Green Morton at the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital. Excited by the possibilities, physicians and medical students crowded into the amphitheater to watch Wells at work. He was going to demonstrate the effects of nitrous oxide on a volunteer who needed a tooth extracted. But when the volunteer arrived and realized he was about to get gassed by a strange dentist, he was out the door in a heartbeat. It took a few more days before they were able to find another volunteer. Wells connected the volunteer to his apparatus, and the room watched with bated breath. The volunteer promptly fell asleep, and Wells got right to work with his dentistry. Unfortunately, as soon as he got to the tooth-pulling part, the volunteer suddenly woke up and screamed out in pain. Grumbles and rolling eyes filled the crowd, and Wells rushed away from the amphitheater with his tail between his legs. After his failure in Boston, Wells was so depressed that he sold his house, sold his practice, and abandoned his wife and children. But Wells’s failure didn’t kill the field of pain management. William Thomas Green Morton, the same one who had arranged Wells’s sad demonstration, started successfully experimenting with sulfuric ether. In the same amphitheater where Wells had failed, Morton removed tumors from a patient’s neck without so much as a wince. Morton made sure that Wells heard the news. Vying for a spot in history, both Morton and Wells sent their work to the Académie des Sciences claiming that they were the first discoverers of anesthesia.

Chloroform was another gas that was being tested at the time. Used since the 1840s during childbirth in the United Kingdom, it was relatively new in the United States. Apparently, Wells enjoyed a sniff or two rather frequently and became a chloroform addict. Things got weird, and he eventually landed himself in jail for throwing acid at prostitutes. While he was in jail, he wrote a farewell letter to his wife and committed suicide by slashing his femoral artery. Just a few days later a letter came from the Société de médecine de Paris crowning him as the discoverer of anesthesia. There is even a monument in Paris honoring his discovery.

Boy, this story about serendipitous science took a dark turn, but it’s a good reminder not to go around sniffing gas. Despite the sad fate of Wells, we owe the progress of pain management to this dentist taking a fresh perspective on an old party trick.

OF MOLD AND MEDICINE

In the bustling world of London in 1928, Alexander Fleming, affectionately known as Flem, was immersed in the meticulous work of a bacteriologist at St. Mary’s Hospital. His daily grind involved hours searching for the bacteria afflicting the patients who filled the hospital wards. Fleming would gather samples of fluid from patients—a dab of pus here, a throat swab there—and then carefully transfer them onto petri dishes filled with a nutrient broth. Speed was of the essence in this process—every moment’s delay invited unwanted particles, like airborne bacteria or mold, to ruin the diagnostic test. Once in their gelatinous homes, these samples were then placed in a warm incubator. In this cozy environment, the bacteria would flourish. After a day of growth, Fleming would peer through the lens of his microscope, identifying the specific family of microbes responsible for the patient’s illness. His observations were vital in helping the hospital’s doctors piece together a diagnosis. In an age where antibiotics were just a dream of the future, Fleming’s work was still invaluable, guiding doctors in their treatment plans.

In August, before stepping away for a five-week vacation, Fleming set up an experiment to run in his absence. His inspiration came from a recent paper that introduced a novel method for cultivating bacteria. This method involved letting the bacterial cultures grow at room temperature on a table rather than in the warmer confines of an incubator. Fleming, eager to test this approach, prepared plates with strains of staphylococci bacteria and left them on a lab counter to grow while he was away. When he returned in September, Fleming began the meticulous process of examining the results of his experiment. After he inspected each dish, he would place it into a Lysol bath for decontamination. It was at that time that an old colleague, Merlin Pryce, dropped by the lab. As they were catching up, Pryce noticed something unusual on one of the plates that had been set aside for cleaning. A clear zone where bacteria had been destroyed was visible, surrounded by a white, fluffy mold. Mold contamination in petri dishes was not uncommon, but this looked different than anything he had seen before. This mold wasn’t just a contaminant—it was clearly killing the bacteria on the plate.

Fleming was intrigued, so he isolated the mold and cultivated more of it for further testing. His experiments revealed that this mold had a remarkable ability to kill not just staphylococci but a variety of other bacteria as well. Fortune smiled on Fleming again, as there happened to be a lab specializing in mold just one floor below his own. This lab identified the mold as Penicillium notatum, a rare variant of the common bread mold that this lab had been studying. Apparently, the unique mold had drifted up the staircase and into Fleming’s lab, where it fortuitously landed on one of his plates. Fleming, now deeply excited, began experimenting with the mold in more creative ways, even using it to create designs on his bacterial plates. His fun with Penicillium culminated in a paper published in the 1929 issue of the British Journal of Experimental Pathology.

At the time, this paper didn’t cause much of a stir in the scientific community. Indeed, despite his training as a medical doctor, Fleming didn’t quite grasp the potential of Penicillium for treating infections. Fleming’s boss, a specialist in vaccine development, also failed to see the groundbreaking implications of this mold. So, Penicillium remained just a scientific curiosity. It wasn’t until 1939 that two scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford University, stumbled upon Fleming’s overlooked discovery.

The rediscovery of Penicillium was almost as serendipitous as the discovery itself. One day, Chain encountered a colleague with a test tube of yellow fluid. This fluid, as it turned out, was the very mold that Fleming had studied. Although it hadn’t been of much use, the mold had been carefully maintained. Florey and Chain were exploring substances that could inhibit bacterial growth, and Fleming’s work on Penicillium suddenly seemed like a missing piece of their puzzle. As Chain pored over the details of the mold’s bacteria-killing properties, he knew he had found something special. Excitedly, he shared his discovery with Florey. The team worked diligently to separate penicillin, the component that was killing the bacteria, from the other parts of the yellow fluid.

Florey decided to test the effectiveness of penicillin in a set of experiments involving eight rats and a deadly dose of streptococci bacteria. The experiment was simple in its design: eight rats, all injected with a lethal amount of streptococci. Four of these rats were then treated with penicillin, while the remaining four were left untreated. The results were nothing short of miraculous. The penicillin-treated rats survived, while their untreated counterparts succumbed to the infection. The team repeated the experiment with various types of bacteria, each time confirming penicillin’s remarkable efficacy as a wonder drug.

With these promising results, Florey was eager to scale up penicillin production for human trials. However, cultivating enough penicillin was a challenging task. The mold required vast quantities of nutrient broth, and the lab’s supply of conventional vessels was woefully inadequate for the task. Undeterred, Florey turned to whatever containers he could find. Pie pans, cookie tins, even a dog’s bathtub and numerous hospital bedpans became makeshift cultivation vessels in this urgent endeavor. Adding a layer of drama to the situation, England was gripped by the fear of a German invasion during World War II. In a move straight out of a spy novel, each member of Florey’s team concealed penicillin mold spores in their clothing. This was their contingency plan: if their lab was bombed, whichever scientist survived would be able to continue the crucial work with the spores they carried. This, my friends, is the resilience of the scientific spirit.

Finally, with enough penicillin on hand, Florey was able to attempt to treat a patient. His first subject was a local policeman who had developed a severe infection from a scratch inflicted by a rose thorn. It’s wild to think how, in the pre-antibiotic era, such a simple injury could lead to life-threatening conditions, but so it was. With their hard-earned supply of penicillin, Florey and his team began treating the policeman. The initial results were promising; the patient showed marked improvement over the first three days. However, the triumph was short-lived. The supply of penicillin began to run low, and the situation turned desperate. In a stroke of ingenuity, Florey discovered that some of the penicillin could be reclaimed from the patient’s urine. This led to the formation of what was humorously termed the “P-patrol,” spearheaded by Florey’s wife, Ethel Florey. This group was tasked with the crucial job of collecting every possible drop of the patient’s urine to recycle the precious penicillin. Despite these extraordinary efforts, the supply of penicillin eventually ran out, and the policeman tragically succumbed to his infection.

Determined to overcome the production issues, Florey sought assistance from pharmaceutical companies in England to ramp up penicillin production. But the war had stretched these companies to their limits, and his appeals were turned down. Undeterred, Florey looked across the Atlantic for help. His persistence paid off when a laboratory at the US Agricultural Department in Peoria, Illinois, agreed to work on developing techniques for mass-producing penicillin.

Despite the possibilities for medical innovation, the full recognition of penicillin’s monumental impact didn’t come until 1942. It was then that Alexander Fleming, the original discoverer of penicillin, reached out to Howard Florey with an urgent request. Fleming’s close friend, Harvey Lambert, had been struck by streptococcal meningitis, a disease that was, at the time, a death sentence. Despite the limited supply of penicillin, Florey couldn’t turn down Fleming’s request. He promptly took a train to St. Mary’s Hospital, personally ensuring the fastest possible delivery of the drug. At the hospital, Lambert was treated with intramuscular injections of penicillin, but his condition showed little improvement. Fleming, ever the scientist, hypothesized that direct injection into the spine might bypass the blood-brain barrier and deliver the drug more effectively to the infection site. After consulting with Florey, who, upon testing the method on a rabbit with fatal results, tried to dissuade him, Fleming proceeded with the spinal injection. Luckily for Lambert, his response to the treatment was drastically different from the rabbit’s. Not only did he survive the initial treatment, but he also made a miraculous recovery. The London Times ran a feature story on penicillin, catapulting Fleming to the status of a hero and a household name. The once-overlooked drug was now in the limelight, and its potential was finally recognized by the world.

The impact of penicillin continued to grow, culminating in the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine being awarded in 1945 to Fleming, Chain, and Florey for their contributions. In the span of a century, antibiotics like penicillin have revolutionized medicine, extending average lifespans by an estimated twenty-three years and altering the course of many diseases. The story of penicillin, from Fleming’s initial “that’s funny” moment to its lifesaving use, is a remarkable reminder of the power of serendipity.23

LEAP OF DETECTION

The “Piss Prophets” sound like they could be the headliners of a punk rock show, but they were actually the medical maestros of seventeenth-century Europe. These physicians believed that urine held the key to diagnosing a wide array of health issues. Armed with an illustrated medieval urine wheel—something of a precursor to modern diagnostic charts—these Piss Prophets would embark on a sensory journey with each sample. They’d examine the urine’s color, give it a sniff, and sometimes even a taste. It’s a practice that would certainly raise eyebrows and maybe turn some stomachs in today’s medical world, but these urine aficionados were actually on a good track: from diabetes to pregnancy detection, urine can tell us a lot.

For as long as humans have been around, the question of “Am I pregnant?” has loomed large. Across centuries and cultures, a variety of strategies have been employed to find the answer, ranging from the mystical to the scientific, often veering into the realm of the peculiar. However, it would be quite a while—several hundred years, in fact—before the advent of reliable and accessible pregnancy tests. This leap forward in women’s health care would eventually come, thanks to a combination of scientific advancement, a little bit of serendipity, and a slippery amphibian.24

The first reliable pregnancy test was the Aschheim-Zondek, or “A-Z” test. It was a far cry from the pee-on-a-stick simplicity we know today. It involved injecting a woman’s urine into several female mice, rats, or rabbits. After a waiting period, these animals were euthanized and dissected to determine the presence of a pregnancy. If the A-Z test was positive, the animal’s ovaries would be two to three times larger than normal. The use of this test led to the phrase “the rabbit died” becoming a common euphemism for pregnancy, even though the rabbit always died. This process wasn’t just time-consuming; it was also exclusive. Given its complexity and cost, the A-Z test was usually reserved for cases where a woman’s health was at stake or for those who could afford it. This left the majority of women in a familiar state of uncertainty, wondering and waiting to see what the next nine months might bring.

The journey from the exclusivity of “the rabbit died” to the ubiquity of “two pink lines” is a fascinating example of how scientific progress can sometimes leap forward in unexpected ways. This particular leap came from the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. The African clawed frog is a fascinating creature with some eccentric characteristics. True to its name, this frog species is native to sub-Saharan Africa and is easily recognizable by its distinct little black claws. Unlike many of their amphibious cousins, these frogs are fully aquatic. One of the most charmingly peculiar things about the African clawed frog is their eating habits. They lack the long, sticky tongues that most frogs use for snagging prey. Instead, they have a more hands-on approach to dining. Picture them in their underwater world, using their hands to clumsily push food into their mouths with the precision of a toddler eating spaghetti. For our purposes, however, their greenish-mottled skin is most relevant. These frogs have the ability to adjust their coloration, although within a limited palette of greens and browns. This talent for subtle camouflage allows them to blend more effectively into their surroundings, a handy trick for evading predators and sneaking up on prey.

It was this ability to change color that caught the attention of British biologist Lancelot Hogben. Hogben wasn’t a typical scientist. He was, for one thing, also a mathematician. But his society extended far beyond those roles. He was a revolutionary at heart, and his work was deeply intertwined with his political activism and humanist values. Raised in a disciplined Methodist family and later adopting the Quaker ways, Hogben’s moral compass was as steadfast as it was influential. His life took a defiant turn during World War I, when he chose the path of a conscientious objector, embracing imprisonment over participation in war. He envisioned a future called the “Age of Plenty,” where poverty no longer existed. Hogben felt this reality was completely within reach through the education of the masses. In his eyes, science and mathematics were not just academic disciplines but powerful tools for societal transformation. Hogben’s belief that science would change the world was the heart of his mission. He was a master of not only scientific concepts but also communication. His drive to make science accessible was not just about education—it was about empowerment. For Hogben, science was a universal language, one that should be spoken by everyone. Hogben also understood the value and the necessity of curiosity-based research for societal growth. He was instrumental in launching the Journal of Experimental Biology, an esteemed peer-reviewed journal, one that to this day takes silly science very seriously.25

Hogben found his scientific niche in the world of comparative endocrinology, where his particular fascination was the chameleon-like color changes of amphibians. Hogben embarked on a series of experiments, uncovering that these remarkable color shifts were orchestrated by a substance from the pituitary gland, a tiny yet influential structure in the amphibian’s brain. In 1924, Hogben wrote The Pigmentary Effector System, a book that continues to be a resource for those navigating the colorful critters of this field. In 1927, he traveled to the vibrant shores of Cape Town, South Africa, where he found a treasure trove of zoological wonders, including the African clawed frog. Back in his lab, Hogben kept a bustling colony of these frogs. His experiments involved injecting them with pituitary extracts and observing the subsequent color changes. What he saw instead completely surprised him: when injected with the pituitary extract, the female frogs began laying eggs. Hogben’s discovery sparked a cascade of possibilities in his and his colleagues’ minds. The scientists had read that a hormone produced in the pituitary gland was also present in the urine of pregnant people—is it possible that the African clawed frogs could be living, breathing pregnancy tests?

Despite his love for South Africa’s rich biodiversity, Hogben found himself at odds with the politics of the country, particularly the racism. This dissonance led him back to Britain, but he didn’t go alone; he brought with him a colony of African clawed frogs. The following years were filled with notes on husbandry alongside physiological studies. This was the first time a colony of African clawed frogs was kept in captivity for their entire lives, and his team navigated the nuances of maintaining the frogs in a laboratory setting. Charles Bellerby, Hogben’s colleague, played a pivotal role in this saga. He became the caretaker of the frogs, ensuring their health and vitality.

The breakthrough came in 1947. After years of study, their research showed that these frogs were astonishingly accurate in detecting pregnancy, boasting a whopping 99.84 percent accuracy rate. This was a significant leap from the then-used A-Z test, which lagged at 96 percent, not to mention the high expense and killing a rabbit. Hogben’s discovery was about to make waves in the world of medical science.

The Hogben test, as it came to be known, sparked its share of controversy in the scientific community. A research team in South Africa, investigating similar research questions, felt overshadowed as Hogben was catapulted into the limelight. This academic tussle, rumbling with claims and counterclaims, remained unresolved. But, fairly or not, history tilted in Hogben’s favor, immortalizing his name in association with the test. The test itself was a marvel of simplicity and efficiency. It began with collecting a woman’s urine, which was then injected under the skin of a female African clawed frog. The wait was short—if the woman was pregnant, within about twelve hours, the frog would lay a clutch of tiny black-and-white eggs. This method wasn’t just straightforward; it was economical too. The longevity of these frogs, living up to thirty years in captivity, meant that each one could be used for years of testing. Catching and importing these frogs from South Africa also turned out to be relatively easy, and animal dealers soon found them in plentiful supply. As a result, in the following two decades, laboratories around the world housed tens of thousands of these frogs, turning them into the pioneers of the first accurate and widely accessible pregnancy test.

Hogben’s journey in science, originally charting a course through the enigma of color-changing frogs, veered serendipitously into the realm of human health care. His initial fascination, far removed from any thoughts of medical application, led to a revolutionary advance in pregnancy testing. It’s a classic tale of scientific pursuits, driven by pure curiosity, leading to transformative discoveries, profoundly influencing human health and well-being. Hogben’s work is a perfect encapsulation of how curiosity-driven research can journey down unforeseen paths, emerging not just with new knowledge, but with practical applications that resonate far beyond the confines of a laboratory.

Truly, luck favors the prepared. All of these researchers had open minds about the possibilities of the unknown, and when they were called to walk down an uncharted path, they jumped at the opportunity. When Bang concluded his keynote address in 1981, he finished with a sentiment that, at this point in the book, you are intimately familiar with. “In this day of cost benefits,” he says, “perhaps the administrator may recognize that although the cost of serendipity is moderately high and failure is not infrequent,” the advances made to society can be “many times greater.”26

¹

CONCLUSION

Every story in this book sounds a little bit silly. But under the apparent silliness, there is so much more: Some hold the promise to deepen our understanding of nature’s most intimate processes, like duck sex, while others have the makings of a medical revolution, like the glowing jellyfish or the discovery of antibiotics. A few of these projects are inching toward novel applications, while others hold the possibility to answer questions yet to be asked. None of this research came from a straightforward plan that was followed to fruition. Ideas sprang from observations, curious minds, inspiration from nature, collaboration across disciplines, and sometimes just from a lucky break.

Despite a rich legacy, this kind of science is often tarnished by skeptics who don’t understand the research process. Indeed, several of the researchers I’ve written about have been thrust into the harsh glare of criticism, feeling its sting firsthand. Three of them—Patty Brennan, David Hu, and Sheila Patek—found themselves unwittingly at the center of controversy when they were spotlighted in “wastebooks” and mocked across various media platforms. I had the privilege of talking with these three scientists, diving into their experiences of navigating controversy over their “silly science.” Here are their stories.

DUCK DICKS AND POLITICS

Patty Brennan’s research on duck genitalia unfolded during a particularly turbulent period in US history. In 2013, federal budget cuts loomed for almost everyone. A $42.7 billion cut was made to defense, a $26.1 billion cut in domestic discretionary funds, $11.1 billion in Medicare cuts, and another $5.4 billion of other mandatory cuts for a total reduction of $85.3 billion in government spending. Brennan had received $384,989 from the National Science Foundation for her research, a mere drop in the bucket of federal funding. Yet, as Richard Prum, Yale University professor and coauthor of the NSF grant, stated in the New Yorker, “Clearly, the combination of money, sex, and power—your money, ducks’ sex, and Ivy League power—was irresistible to the graying male demographic for conservative news.”1

Brennan’s journey into the public eye began unexpectedly when a CNS News reporter, championing a mission to counter “liberal bias” in media, spotlighted her duck genitalia study as a prime example of government waste. Dubbed “Duckpenisgate,” the story quickly found its way onto Fox News, where journalist Shannon Bream linked it to President Obama’s stimulus plan, glossing over the fact that Brennan’s research was actually funded under the Bush administration. Brennan, largely disconnected from the TV news cycle, was blindsided by her sudden fame. She had set up a Google Alert for her name, more out of interest than caution, as her work had already been making waves in pop culture from cartoons to radio shows. She found this attention satisfying, remarking with a hint of delight, “I loved it.”

However, the media narrative soon took a sharp turn. The initial CNS piece, which Brennan had dismissed as a straightforward report on her grant, snowballed into an overwhelming barrage of emails and media scrutiny. The tone shifted from neutral reporting to pointed criticism over the use of funds for her research. Before she knew it, Brennan’s work was thrust into the heart of a national conversation about fiscal priorities amid a budget crisis and questioning the intrinsic value of curiosity-driven research. It was a severe reminder of how quickly public perception can shift, transforming a scientist’s quiet pursuit of knowledge into a widely scrutinized controversy.

The debate over Brennan’s research escalated when Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma spotlighted her NSF grant in his 2013 edition of The Wastebook. It became a focal point in the ongoing conversation on government spending. Fox News added fuel to the fire by launching an online poll, probing the public’s stance on the use of taxpayer funds for research into duck genitalia. The design of polls like these is critical, as their framing can obviously sway public opinion. The questions and the results looked like this:

The National Science Foundation has been criticized for spending $384,949 on a Yale University study that examined, among other things, the particulars of male duck penises. Do you believe the study was a proper use of taxpayer funding?2

Yes. Sure, it sounds silly, but these studies produce real and useful scientific information.

Votes: 2.63%

No–what a quack! A government looking to cut back shouldn’t be wasting money on anything like this.

Votes: 89.14%

Maybe. We need to fund scientific research, but perhaps now’s not the best time for bird-brained studies like this.

Votes: 8.23%

Brennan’s research found itself further entangled in controversy with its connection to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. CNS News drew a bold but tenuous line between the funding allocated to her research and the government spending cuts of 2013. This framing was misleading, suggesting that Brennan’s grant was a factor in, or even a catalyst for, the fiscal tightening that followed. This leap in logic was a glaring and ridiculous example of oversimplification; the reality was that the Stimulus Package was a widespread economic measure with the goal of revitalizing various sectors during a financial downturn. Grants like Brennan’s were an intentional strategy designed to spur innovation and scientific progress. The grant was not a frivolous expenditure but a calculated move to improve long-term economic resilience and growth. The media narrative that tried to connect Brennan’s duck genitalia study to bigger economic challenges not only misunderstood the situation but also minimized the role that scientific research plays in national economic strategies. As an example, on March 20, 2013, CNS News tweeted the following:

Please RT-> Gov spends $384k to study duck genitalia, cancels White House tours # sequester @cnsnews, March 20

Twitter jumped at the opportunity to degrade this research:

Can’t cut spending b/c need $ to fund more studies of duck penis length @keithcrc, March 20

$384,949 Federal stimulus funds to study “Duck Penis Length”. WH still closed to tours @cincinchili, March 21

“His name is Long Duck Dong,” When you’re enjoying your furlough, remember that duck penis length matters. @doctrine_man, March 21

Yet, perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the controversy surrounding Brennan’s research was the deeply personal nature of the criticism she endured. Beyond the scrutiny of her study, Brennan faced a barrage of character attacks. Critics labeled her as sick and deviant for her focus on animal genitalia. Brennan’s own reflections on this time tell of the profound psychological toll these criticisms can take. Mortified, she feared being perceived as a fraud even by her professional community. In her words, she wanted to crawl under her desk and never come out again. Her experience is evidence of how vulnerable one becomes when publicly pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Faced with this wave of criticism, Brennan initially followed the path suggested by her colleagues—remain silent and hope the controversy would fade away. After all, today’s news becomes tomorrow’s cat litter. However, silence while others debated the value of her research didn’t resonate with Brennan. She felt a compelling urge to be part of the conversation unfolding.

Then, in a twist, journalists who had previously reported on her research stepped forward to defend her. Emboldened by this show of support, she felt it was time for her to speak up too. Breaking her recommended silence, Brennan chose to actively defend both her research and her professional integrity. This pivotal decision to engage in the discourse allowed her to regain control of her own narrative. It also stressed the importance of the scientific community standing together when navigating the challenging terrain of public perception and media scrutiny. Brennan reached out to Carl Zimmer, a previous advocate of her work and well-respected science writer for the New York Times, for advice. At Zimmer’s suggestion, she wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. It set Brennan on a new assertive path of self-representation. But she knew that a persuasive argument would require more than just defending her duck genitalia study. She needed to address the larger issue—the critical role of curiosity-driven science in our world. Ignoring her colleagues’ warnings about the potential fallout, Brennan recognized the necessity of standing up not only for her own work but for the broader principle of supporting fundamental scientific research. After intensive research and several restless nights, Brennan submitted her article to the New York Times, only to face rejection. Undaunted, she promptly sent it to Slate, which published it on the same day. This move, though anxiety inducing, was fueled by her firm belief in the importance of her work. In her own words, she thought, “I’m done. I think it’s important that people know about the work I am doing, and now I can sleep at night.”3

The next morning, Brennan awoke to find her story was rapidly spreading across the internet. Her op-ed had not just defended her study but had also illuminated the vital importance of basic science, starting a much-needed conversation about the value of scientific exploration. To her surprise and delight, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Her inbox overflowed with messages of support with a common underlying theme—the scientific community must speak out and defend its work in the face of baseless criticism. This rush of encouragement stood completely opposite the warnings of hate mail she had received. In fact, negative reactions were few and far between. Brennan even found humor in one of the more critical emails, which simply read, “You’re a very stupid person.” She was thrilled that this was the worst of it. Brennan narrowly avoided unfavorable media exposure when approached by the ultraconservative Sean Hannity Show, but her request for details about the interview’s format led the show’s team to back off. Unaware of Hannity’s reputation, Brennan told me she almost had a heart attack upon learning more about her near-miss.

Brennan’s story not only changed the public dialogue but also transformed her own image from the target of jokes to something of a folk hero in the realm of science. This shift was further propelled by Chris Hayes of MSNBC, who dedicated a news segment to the significance of basic science, highlighting Brennan’s research as a prime example. Hayes’s coverage, complete with a visual of a duck penis, emphasized that support for basic science cuts across political lines, highlighting that research was a pursuit of knowledge rather than a partisan issue. Brennan’s decision to step into the public arena was not easy, but she found the public’s positive response to her work to be deeply satisfying.

Brennan’s journey through the crucible of public scrutiny not only reshaped her approach to scientific communication but also ignited a desire to empower her peers. Recognizing the susceptibility of curiosity-driven research to misinterpretation in political arenas, Brennan became a proactive force in the scientific community. She turned her focus from the public to her fellow scientists. In BioScience, her paper “Oddball Science: Why Studies of Unusual Evolutionary Phenomena Are Crucial,” went beyond her op-ed narrative. Here, Brennan not only shared her reflections but also sounded an alarm on the politicization of science funding. She offered more than just cautionary tales; her article was a toolkit, providing fellow researchers with language and examples to effectively communicate the value of their work, particularly in fields prone to being labeled as frivolous.4 A second article, published in Animal Behaviour, presented a practical step-by-step guide for scientists facing political backlash. It spanned a variety of essential skills, from articulating the significance of one’s research to the public to navigating media interactions and managing public scrutiny.5 Her efforts in these publications were not just about sharing her story; they were a call for scientists to be prepared, to be vocal, and to be resilient.

Brennan’s actions highlight the importance of communication and advocacy in science, serving as an inspiring example for researchers grappling with the complexities of public and political engagement. Her dedication to supporting her peers stands as a testament to her unwavering commitment to the scientific community and curiosity-driven research. Brennan’s efforts stretch far beyond her own research, contributing significantly to the ongoing conversation about the interplay between science, politics, and public perception. Her story, with as many twists and turns as a duck penis itself, is a powerful reminder of the adaptability required of scientists in the face of scrutiny.

STRIKE LIKE A STOMATOPOD

It was a Friday afternoon in December 2015, a day Sheila Patek had planned to wind down and gear up for her birthday weekend, when an email stopped her in her tracks. From the producers of Good Morning America, it informed her that her research had been included in Senator Jeff Flake’s recently released “wastebook.” The Republican from Arizona had picked up the torch carried by William Proxmire and Tom Coburn before him to call out what he deemed unnecessary government spending. The realization of what was happening hit her hard. “When I read that email,” she recalled, “my stomach sort of fell through the floor.” Patek was familiar with Patty Brennan’s story and the tumultuous media frenzy that ensued from the criticism of her federally funded research. Now, she found herself in similar waters. Senator Flake’s Wastebook: The Farce Awakens, a cheeky nod to Star Wars, singled out Patek’s study on the ultrafast movements of mantis shrimp. Senator Flake’s portrayal of the study as a $700,000 “fight club for shrimp” cast it in a trivial light, suggesting it was a frivolous use of government funding. The senator’s report not only questioned the validity of her research but also thrust it into the national spotlight. Patek, like Brennan before her, was now at the center of a debate that extended far beyond the confines of her laboratory—a debate about the value of science in the public sphere.

Patek knew she had to take a note from her study organism and strike quickly. She drafted a statement that explained the broader implications and applications of her work, including its relevance in fields like military defense and material manufacturing. Duke University, where Patek was based, published her statement on their website with the hope of extinguishing the flames of criticism. Senator Flake responded to the statement when speaking with 550 KFYI’s Mike Broomhead:

Jeff Flake: And they tried to make some connection between this and helping our troops, [laughs] and I just fail to see it.

Mike Broomhead: I don’t—I don’t know if you’re supposed to be talking about this because we all know the first rule of shrimp fight club is you don’t talk about shrimp fight club!

Senator Flake clearly remained unimpressed with federal investment into the mantis shrimp’s punch.

Three months after the whirlwind of media attention, Patek received a unique and unexpected invitation. It was from the Coalition to Promote Research and the Coalition for National Science Funding, two influential science advocacy groups based in Washington, DC. They planned to host a reception specifically for researchers who found themselves spotlighted by waste reports. The goal of the event was simple—to create a direct line of communication between these scientists and the politicians who questioned the value of their work.

On the day of the event, the Senate office building became a center for vibrant conversations. Typically filled with policy debates, the halls now resonated with the enthusiastic chatter of scientists and policymakers. Researchers stood next to their posters, each one a peek into their unique world of exploration and discovery. Patek stood by her poster, a visual tribute to the impressive physiology of the mantis shrimp. As she spoke with policymakers, her enthusiasm and expertise clearly transformed abstract scientific concepts into potential innovation. For Patek, this event was more than just a chance to defend her work; it was an opportunity to discuss the enormous relevance of scientific research in shaping our world.

When Senator Jeff Flake approached Patek’s booth, there was a noticeable shift in the air. This was the moment of truth: science and politics going head-to-head. As Patek began to explain her research, she not only responded to his critiques but also shared a story of the broader importance of curiosity-driven research. Flake listened intently, genuinely engaged. When Patek finished her explanation, she posed the critical question: Is this research worth funding? Senator Flake’s affirmative response, acknowledging the value of her work, especially in defense development, was not just a personal victory for Patek but also a triumph for science advocacy. The event captured the magic that can happen when scientists step out of their labs and into the halls of policy, armed not just with data and findings but with the persuasiveness needed to bring their work to life.

Following her engaging discussion with the senator, Patek turned her attention to his assistant, the person who actually wrote the wastebook. In this exchange, Patek gave them “an earful.” She candidly conveyed a crucial message: Scientists are people too. She emphasized the need for a more respectful approach toward the scientific community. Patek spoke not only in defense of her own work but also for broader recognition of the dedication, curiosity, and effort that underpin all scientific research. The impact of this day was significant. Senator Flake, in a commendable act of reflection, later published an edited version of his wastebook. In this revised edition, he incorporated the valuable insights from Patek’s presentation. This gesture of acknowledgment and the willingness to amend previous disparaging remarks was a meaningful step toward bridging the gap between scientific research and political perspectives. Patek was impressed by this response, appreciating the efforts to rectify the earlier misrepresentation of her work. Patek also reached out to ABC News, the organization that had initially reported on her research being labeled as wasteful. She pointed out errors in their reporting and requested a correction. Unfortunately, ABC News declined.

Reflecting on the entire experience, Patek expressed a sense of gratitude for the opportunities that the situation had provided, including her interaction with Senator Flake. Despite the initial negative portrayal, she recognized the value in having had the platform to defend the importance of her work. Her journey through this controversy highlighted not only the resilience and advocacy required in scientific research but also the complex dynamics between science, media, and politics. Her experience serves as an inspiring example for researchers everywhere, demonstrating the impact one person can make in advocating for the intrinsic value of scientific inquiry.

A PISSING MATCH

David Hu was at a science conference in 2016 when he received a call from his university’s press office. “Stop what you are doing,” they said, “and turn on the TV right now.” Hu tuned into Fox & Friends, only to find himself plunged into a bizarre television spectacle. There, on the screen, was a newswoman standing beside a giant Wheel of Fortune–style wheel, ominously named the “Wheel of Waste.” Each colorful segment of the wheel represented a different federally funded scientific study from recent years. The broadcast switched to a side-by-side format to include the face of Senator Jeff Flake, who had just released his Wastebook, 2016, another roundup of what he deemed frivolous government spending.

As Hu’s gaze fell upon the wheel, a jolt of surprise hit him. Not one, not two, but three sections of this wheel were about his research. Each colorful wedge was a description of his scientific inquiries: a $331,000 study on “How Long Does It Take to Pee Like a Race Horse,” a $390,000 investigation into “How Many Shakes Does It Take for a Wet Dog to Dry Off,” and a $753,000 research project answering the pressing question of “Which Has More Hairs, a Squirrel or a Bumble Bee?” While there were seventeen other studies on the wheel, Hu had the distinct honor of occupying multiple sections. And so, he became the “Most Wasteful Scientist of the Year.”

Hu felt a mix of bewilderment and concern about his unexpected brush with fame. The spectacle of the “Wheel of Waste” seemed laughable, but as a young researcher, he couldn’t help but feel the sting of public criticism. However, he didn’t have the luxury of time to process these feelings—the university mandated a swift response, giving him just seventy-two hours to address the whirlwind of media attention. Seizing the moment, Hu wrote a guest blog for Scientific American. His article, aptly titled “Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist,” was more than just a response to the accusation of wasting funding. He opened the doors to his world of research, shedding light on the work that had landed him in the scrutiny of the public. In a candid piece, Hu confronted the situation head-on, fully owning his new, albeit unwelcome, title. He acknowledged a crucial point: If the public was not convinced of the importance of his research, then that was a shortcoming on his part and, more broadly, on the part of the scientific community. Hu not only justified the rationale behind his studies but also sparked a broader dialogue about the importance of scientific exploration. He detailed the value of his work, emphasizing not only its scientific merits but also the genuine joy it brought him. His passion for his research shone through, dispelling any notions of shame in finding delight in the seemingly silly aspects of the natural world. In a graceful conclusion, Hu extended his sincere thanks to Senator Flake for initiating this dialogue. He recognized that if this controversy led to improved communication with the public about scientific research, then it served a valuable purpose.6 Senator Flake’s response came via Facebook, where he acknowledged Hu’s explanation. However, when Flake suggested Hu help “better identify those projects that he believes are indeed wasteful,” Hu chose not to respond.

Hu continued his mission to communicate his research to the public with a TEDx talk in 2018. Again embracing his title, he introduced himself as the “Most Wasteful Scientist” and shared the intriguing discovery of the Law of Urination. This talk was a celebration of curiosity and the joy of scientific discovery. Through his actions and words, Hu transformed what began as a potentially negative experience into an opportunity to advocate for the value of all scientific inquiry, no matter how silly it may seem.

Being at the receiving end of political slander is no small ordeal. Remember how winning the Golden Fleece Award ruined Ronald Hutchinson’s career? But what unfolded truly surprised me. All three of these scientists’ stories resonated with a unified and surprisingly positive theme—they saw their experiences not as setbacks but as golden opportunities to engage with the public. Brennan may have sought refuge under her desk momentarily, and Patek’s birthday weekend might not have been the celebration she anticipated, but beyond these initial reactions lay a deeper takeaway. Each of these scientists emerged from their ordeal not with bitterness but with a renewed sense of purpose and an appreciation for the unexpected avenues of public engagement that their situations had opened. Their stories raised an intriguing question: What if there was a pathway for scientists to share their “silly science” with the world, one that didn’t necessitate a prior round of public mockery? As it turns out, such avenues do exist.

CELEBRATION OF SILLY SCIENCE

When David Hu dreamed of receiving the award of his career, he probably didn’t think it would be for the Law of Urination, and he certainly didn’t imagine he’d have a toilet seat around his neck. But that’s exactly how it goes at the Ig Nobel Prize award ceremony. Academia has a reputation for being a stuffy, traditional group, especially when you think of institutions like Harvard University. This is, after all, the academic home of eight presidents of the United States and over 150 Nobel Prize winners. But this is not the Nobel Prize awards ceremony, and I can confidently say that this is an academic award unlike any other. Picture a scene, if you will: A mostly naked man covered in silver paint is holding up a flashlight to illuminate the stage as award winners step over the paper airplanes that had recently been thrown onto the stage. If the award winners take too much time at the podium, a little girl with pigtails named Miss Sweetie Poo begins yelling, “Please stop, I’m bored!” repeatedly until they wrap up their speech.

In 1991, Marc Abrahams, a.k.a. the “Master of Ceremonies,” created the Ig Nobel Prize for achievements that “make people laugh and then think.” Named after Ignatius (Ig) Nobel, a fictional character who claims the title of “inventor of soda pop” and a “distant cousin” of the esteemed Alfred Nobel, the Ig Nobel Prize adds good-natured humor to the serious business of scientific research. Produced by the Annals of Improbable Research and cosponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students, these awards are certainly unique in the academic landscape. During his time as an editor at an obscure science magazine, Abrahams encountered numerous researchers whose groundbreaking work, despite its significance, often flew under the radar, unlikely to receive the accolades it deserved. Abrahams was on a mission to create an award that not only acknowledged these unique contributions but also engaged the public in curiosity and humor.7

It might seem unwise to add more silliness to a topic that already suffers from the label of trivial. But laughter, according to Abrahams, means that people are paying attention. If you can make someone laugh, he believes, it will spark a chain reaction—you’re going to remember what made you giggle, and you’re more likely to tell other people what you learned. This philosophy underpins the Ig Nobels, making them more than just an award ceremony; they are a celebration of science that resonates with people’s sense of curiosity and amusement.

While humor was always a crucial part of the Ig Nobel awards, Abrahams wanted to be crystal clear about the intention beneath the comedy. He wanted to ensure that the laughter evoked was not misconstrued as ridicule of the science or the scientists. Far from mocking bad science, the Ig Nobels was conceived as a celebration of the unusual, the imaginative, and the thought-provoking in scientific research. To strike the perfect balance between humor and honor and to underscore the seriousness underpinning the awards, Abrahams came up with an ingenious idea: inviting real Nobel laureates to participate in the ceremonies. These distinguished guests lend a prestigious touch to the event, and their presence is a nod to the deep respect for scientific inquiry that the Ig Nobels aims to highlight. These Nobel participants included Sir Andre Geim, the only individual to have received both an Ig Nobel and a Nobel Prize. But there’s another, perhaps even more charming, aspect to their involvement: It humanizes these notorious figures who are often placed on pedestals in the world of science, and it transcends the usual seriousness of academic accolades. It becomes a celebration not just of silly science but of the humanity within the scientific community.

The Ig Nobel awards have a selection process as unique as the awards themselves. Every year, out of over nine thousand nominations, only ten are chosen to receive this distinctive accolade. The task of selecting these winners falls to the Ig Nobel Board of Governors. This eclectic group includes scientists, writers, athletes, and public officials, along with others known for their varied accomplishments. On the day of final deliberations, in the true spirit of the Ig Nobels, a random passerby is invited to join the group in making the final decisions. The winners, once chosen, are quietly notified and given the choice to accept or decline the honor. The committee is well aware that not everyone might relish being an Ig Nobel laureate, especially if they’re under the watchful eye of less humor-appreciative authorities. Happily, it’s a rare occurrence for someone to turn down this unique honor.8 Aside from the title of an Ig Nobel Prize winner, the awards, Abrahams promises, will be handmade with very cheap materials. No American money is given; however, recipients will receive a ten trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill, which can be purchased on eBay for about ten dollars.

The impact of the Ig Nobel Prizes on both the general public and the scientific community is unmistakable. For three decades, Abrahams has succeeded in creating an event that resonates far beyond the walls of academia. The widespread media coverage and articles from around the globe that it generates are a testament to the awards’ ability to capture the imagination of people everywhere. It’s fair to say that the Ig Nobels have become one of the most effective and entertaining ways to engage the public in the lighter side of scientific research. But the impact of the Ig Nobels isn’t limited to public entertainment; it has also been profound for many of the scientists who have received the award. Take the case of Kees Moeliker, a curator at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam. His 2003 Ig Nobel win for documenting the first case of homosexual necrophilia in a duck was a career-defining moment. The recognition boosted the readership of his paper to seven times the usual rate for such reports. He went on to write a best-selling book aptly titled The Duck Guy, and traveled the world with a stuffed duck as his constant companion.

In a delightful turn of events, the Ig Nobel awards themselves were recipients of recognition in 2022. They were honored with the Heinz Oberhummer Award for “outstanding science communication.” The award came with a prize of €20,000 and, in a humorous nod, a glass of alpaca poop.9 This recognition not only celebrates the Ig Nobels’ contribution to science communication but also mirrors their unique blend of humor and scientific curiosity, highlighting the role they play in bringing a different perspective to the world of science.

FATHER GOOSE AND HIS GOLDEN EGG

Between the legacies of Senator William Proxmire, Senator Tom Coburn, and Senator Jeff Flake, the bipartisan blast against silly science has been felt for decades. I can happily report, though, that not all politicians were swayed by their influence. US Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN) hated watching Senator Proxmire make headlines ridiculing curiosity-based science with his Golden Fleece Awards. He wasn’t a scientist himself; in fact, he was a lawyer, but he truly admired scientific disciplines. Cooper desperately hoped that universities would strike back against such ridicule but found that the politics in academia often got in the way.

In 2012, with the support of the Association of American Universities and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Cooper launched a new prize. “We’ve all seen reports that ridicule odd-sounding research projects as examples of government waste,” said Cooper. “The Golden Goose Award does the opposite. It recognizes that a valuable federally funded research project may sound funny, but its purpose is no laughing matter.”10 His idea did something nearly impossible—it created a bipartisan alliance. Representatives Brian Bilbray of California, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, and Robert Dold of Illinois, all three Republicans, joined Cooper as he announced the award.

The purpose of the Golden Goose Awards was to “demonstrate the human economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure or unusual studies that have led to major breakthroughs and have had a significant impact on society.”11 Eight scientists, including four Nobel Prize winners, were honored at the first annual award ceremony held on Capitol Hill. Joining Cooper again from across parties was US Representative Charlie Dent, who said in a presentation to the scientists, “Obviously science is something that is near and dear to all of our hearts. The advances that so many of you have been making are of great significance to our country and to our way of life—and in many cases to better health.”12

Many of the Golden Goose laureates are the very heroes of curiosity-driven discovery we’ve met in the previous chapters. The inaugural awards in 2012 celebrated the minds behind the medical marvels of glowing jellyfish genes. It also recognized the therapeutic revelations that were born from studying coral skeletons. Then there’s the pioneering team that unraveled the secrets of Thermus aquaticus, critical for PCR technology, and the innovative use of Gila monster venom. Their moment with the Golden Goose came in 2013. In 2014, the researchers who showed that massages do wonders not just for baby rats but also for human infants were honored. The following year was a dual celebration: the innovative minds behind the sterile insect technique for screwworms shared the stage with the creators of the honeybee algorithm. The team that unlocked the medical potential of horseshoe crab blood basked in their golden moment in 2019, followed by the discoverers of llama nanobodies in 2020. Most recently, in 2022, the explorers of cone snail venom’s medicinal values were honored.

The Golden Goose Award, in its decade-long history, has become so much more than a celebratory accolade. This award has masterfully narrated a saga of discovery and innovation, eloquently demonstrating how research that may initially appear trivial can lead to monumental advancements. It stands as a beautiful testament to the idea that within the fertile grounds of science, even the most unassuming seed of thought has the potential to bloom into something golden. In the legacy of the Golden Goose Awards, one figure stands out as particularly instrumental—Jim Cooper, affectionately dubbed “Father Goose.” Cooper, who retired in 2022, has been more than just a champion for the awards. He has been a steadfast advocate for the value of curiosity-based science. In a fitting tribute to his tireless efforts, he was honored with a Golden Goose Award himself as a parting gift, a symbolic nod to his profound impact. Cooper’s legacy is a reminder that while some may reduce science to mere punchlines, there are people out there who elevate it to a priority. The continuation of the Golden Goose Awards, even after his retirement, is a testament to the enduring relevance of his mission. It’s a celebration of the unexpected and the unconventional in scientific inquiry. It is an inspiration that the pursuit of knowledge is not just about immediate applications but about the enduring mission to understand the world in all its extraordinary complexity.

Despite the celebration of silly science in certain corners, and its obvious impact on the innovations of today, curiosity-driven research is losing public support. The evidence is undeniable that basic research is a valuable investment, but there has been a palpable shift in recent decades toward applied research. In the US, both the public and private sectors of basic research funding have declined as a percentage of GDP. The US federal research and development budget, measured as a fraction of GDP, has dropped from a high of 1.92 percent during the Cold War in 1964, to less than 0.8 percent in 2017.13 Between 2000 and 2017, federal funding of basic research in the US declined from 58 to 42 percent, despite an increase in the levels of funding toward research and development. During this same time, the budget for applied research increased.14 Between 2017 and 2018, many government agencies put more funding toward applied research than basic, with the largest discrepancy being in the Department of Energy with a 9.7 percent increase in the budget for basic research, but a whopping 32.7 percent increase in applied research.15 In 2017, federal funding for basic research in the US dropped below 50 percent for the first time in the post–World War II era, despite the fact that one-third of US patents rely on government-funded research.16

The National Science Foundation has been a huge support system for basic research; however, funding for their research grants has become increasingly competitive. In the early days of the NSF, grants were much easier to obtain than today, but this rate has declined each decade since its initiation. In the 1960s, grants were funded at a rate of about 60 percent. This dropped to 40 percent in the 1970s, and then to 30 percent in the 1990s. Since the 2000s, the rates of funding have gotten even lower. We don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know what the past has shown—that basic research is the foundation for all the innovations we take for granted today. If the support for even the most trivial-sounding science diminishes, we will find that we have only a shallow pool of knowledge to solve the unseen problems of the future.

I’ll probably never know if Bob was satisfied with my untimely response to his question. But there is one thing I know for sure. After writing this book, I feel justified in a way that I never have before for my own silly science. I am incredibly thankful for the federal funding that allowed me to follow my curiosity without any expectation of an immediate application. I am also endlessly appreciative of the scientists who paved the path of advocacy for basic research. I hope that after reading this book you will be as well. So, let’s raise a glass to the researchers who dare to dabble in ridiculous questions, and who dedicate their lives to the obscure. They hold our future in their curious hands.

¹

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When my husband, Tripp, first suggested I write a book, I laughed at the idea. As a theologian, writing books was familiar territory for him, but for me, as a scientist—not so much. However, Tripp has always seen potential in me that I couldn’t see in myself. He convinced me to embark on this project when I thought it was beyond my grasp. Thanks to his support, it wasn’t. This project would never have come to fruition without his encouragement. Tripp also reminded me of that terribly embarrassing conversation in the restaurant with Bob, so thanks for that (I think).

I owe immense gratitude to the remarkable scientists who pursued their curiosity fearlessly. Special thanks go to David Hu, Sheila Patek, Patty Brennan, Saad Bhamla, Frank Fish, Kaushik Jarayam, Jake Socha, and Lisa Taylor for generously sharing their time and insights with me. I am deeply thankful to Marc Abrahams, the visionary behind the Ig Nobel Prize, for his perspectives on the humorous side of science. Rachel Fields deserves heartfelt acknowledgment for her invaluable feedback on early drafts, which was pivotal in shaping this book.

Michael Stiff reviewed the proposal and several chapters of this book, but more importantly, he was the first person to hear all the stories I uncovered throughout my research. Thank you for sharing in my excitement for this project.

Many thanks to all the folks at Basic Books for their work on this project. Janice Audet was instrumental in developing the framework for the book. I am incredibly thankful to T. J. Kelleher for adding my book to his long list of projects and providing very helpful edits and suggestions. There were many people behind the scenes at Basic Books who turned my words into an actual book, and I am grateful for their generous work. I am forever thankful to Scott Solomon for introducing me to my agent Don Fehr. Don helped build an idea into a fully fledged proposal and was a fantastic guide along the way. Thank you for taking a chance on me.

I am appreciative to the Appalachian College Association, whose fellowship support enabled me to pursue this book, and to Lenoir-Rhyne University for encouraging me to push beyond the boundaries of traditional scientific scholarship.

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Carly Anne York, PhD, is currently an associate professor at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She received her PhD in ecological studies from Old Dominion University. She is also the author of two nonfiction science books for children, A Day in the Life: Horses and Queens of the Jungle. She lives in North Carolina.

Praise for
THE SALMON CANNON AND THE LEVITATING FROG

“Carly Anne York is a witty, whip-smart, lithely engaging science storyteller, truly one of our best. This book is a celebration of curiosity and a spirited defense of the quirky endeavors it inspires. With clear but never dumbed-down explanations and an infectious taste for the surreal, York makes the case for pure inquiry—showcasing the value and world-changing discoveries that come of asking why. Fascinating, entertaining, and a welcome antidote to the small minds of certain politicians.”

—Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Fuzz

“Bravo! Carly Anne York leaps to the defense of basic scientific research with wit, passion, and unabashed wonder. Filled with insights and eureka moments, The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog is a timely, thought-provoking, and thoroughly terrific read.”

—Thor Hanson, author of Close to Home

“York offers a countermeasure to the cynicism of our times: the pure joy of curiosity and wonder. With humor and a scientist’s keen eye, she dissects silly sounding science to reveal its surprising benefits. Along the way, she digs up my favorite kinds of stories: the ones that make you say ‘Wow,’ ‘What?!,’ or ‘Ew’—and then make you think.”

—Erika Engelhaupt, author of Gory Details

“A joyful read with a lot of depth, Carly Anne York’s book will make you the hit of the dinner party (or online conversation) with her pithy and fun stories of how ‘silly science’ is anything but. York shows—through examples from Archimedes’ tub to how Gila monsters led to the discovery of Ozempic—that what some see as pointless inquiry so often leads to a great discovery or key scientific insight. From the eccentric to the inspiring, York proves that human curiosity is an imperative part of the scientific process, and that there are rarely wasted experiments.”

—Starre Vartan, author of The Stronger Sex

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Williams, H. J., E. L. C. Shepard, Mark D. Holton, et al. “Physical Limits of Flight Performance in the Heaviest Soaring Bird.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 30 (July 28, 2020): 17884–17890. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1907360117.

Winkler, Rolfe, and Ben Cohen. “Monster Diet Drugs like Ozempic Started with Actual Monsters—WSJ.” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2023. Accessed January 22, 2024. www.wsj.com/articles/ozempic-mounjaro-gila-monster-anglerfish-8c9c1ff2.

Winters, Robert. Accidental Medical Discoveries: How Tenacity and Pure Dumb Luck Changed the World. 1st ed. New York: Skyhorse, 2016.

Yamindago, Ade, Nayun Lee, Nayoung Lee, et al. “Fluoxetine in the Environment May Interfere with the Neurotransmission or Endocrine Systems of Aquatic Animals.” Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 227 (December 20, 2021): 112931. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.112931.

Yeaton, Isaac J., Shane D. Ross, Grant A. Baumgardner, et al. “Undulation Enables Gliding in Flying Snakes.” Nature Physics 16, no. 9 (September 2020): 974–982. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0935-4.

Yong, Ed. “Why You Can’t Keep Cockroaches Out of Your Home.” The Atlantic (blog), February 8, 2016. Accessed October 20, 2023. www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/cockroaches-compress-to-half-their-size-and-still-run-really-fast/460416/.

Zyga, Lisa. “Ninjabot Strikes with Force of a Mantis Shrimp.” Phys.org, February 28, 2014. Accessed October 1, 2023. https://phys.org/news/2014-02-ninjabot-mantis-shrimp.html.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. Flexner and Dijkgraaf, Usefulness of Useless Knowledge, 5.

2. Cohen, “Faraday and Franklin’s ‘Newborn,’” 177–182.

3. Flexner and Dijkgraaf, 18, 26.

4. Bergman, “Most Transformative Medicines.”

5. Andrzejewski, “Golden Fleece Award.”

6. Goldberg, Culture Clash, 54.

7. Hutchinson, “Scientists Provide a Civics Lesson.”

8. Severo, “William Proxmire.”

9. Baum, “Rachel Carson.”

10. “Report Blasts Billions of Dollars of Gov’t Waste.”

11. Enserink, “French Fruit Fly Fracas”; Rutherford, “Palin and the Fruit Fly.”

12. Mohr, First in Fly.

13. Mohr.

14. Kempner, “Chilling Effect,” e222.

15. Scholnick, “$47 Shrimp Treadmill”; Scholnick, “Rise and Fall of a Shrimp Biologist.”

16. Scholnick, “$47 Shrimp Treadmill.”

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CHAPTER 1: EUREKA!

1. Bynum, A Little History of Science.

2. Doucleff, “Screwworm’s Sex Life Saved Your Steaks.”

3. Kean, “Screwiest… Idea of the 20th Century.”

4. Kean.

5. Golden Goose Awards, “The Sex Life of the Screwworm Fly.”

6. Bryda, “The Mighty Mouse.”

7. Kuhn and Schanberg, “Responses to Maternal Separation”; Golden Goose Awards, “Rat and Infant Massage”; Schanberg, Evoniuk, and Kuhn, “Tactile and Nutritional Aspects of Maternal Care.”

8. Field et al., “Stimulation Effects on Preterm Neonates.”

9. Stein, “Billion-Dollar Infant-Care Breakthrough.”

10. Golden Goose Awards, “Rat and Infant Massage.”

11. Hu, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls.

12. Schmidt-Nielsen, Scaling.

13. Hu, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls.

14. Schmidt-Nielsen, Scaling.

15. Hu, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls.

16. Georgia Tech, “Study of Animal Urination.”

17. Shannon, “Case Reports of Two Gila Monster Bites.”

18. Shannon.

19. Utkin, “Animal Venom Studies.”

20. Herzig, “Animal Venoms—Curse or Cure?”

21. Herzig.

22. Utkin, “Animal Venom Studies.”

23. Powell, “Snakes.”

24. dos Santos, “Spider and Wasp Neurotoxins.”

25. Warrell, “Venomous and Poisonous Animals”; Postma, “Neurotoxic Animal Poisons and Venoms.”

26. Dobson et al., “The Dragon’s Paralysing Spell.”

27. Herzig, “Animal Venoms—Curse or Cure?”

28. Bordon et al., “Perspectives in Drug Discovery.”

29. Marsh, “Diagnostic Uses of Snake Venom.”

30. Saez and Herzig, “Versatile Spider Venom Peptides.”

31. Schwarcz, “The Right Chemistry.”

32. Winkler and Cohen, “Monster Diet Drugs.”

33. Schwarcz, “The Right Chemistry.”

34. CDC, “About Obesity.”

35. Kolata, “Where New Weight Loss Drugs Came From.”

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CHAPTER 2: CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT?

1. Bynum, A Little History of Science.

2. Golden Goose Awards, “2013: Thermus Aquaticus.”

3. Porterfield, “The Taq Behind PCR.”

4. Bynum, A Little History of Science.

5. Bynum.

6. Carlson, “Nobel Chemist… Mind Surfer.”

7. Mullis, “The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993.”

8. Sandomir, “Thomas Brock… Dies at 94.”

9. Langley, “World’s Biggest Birds.”

10. Hunt, “A Peacock’s Tail.”

11. Brennan et al., “Genital Morphology in Waterfowl.”

12. Brennan, “Genital Evolution”; Langley, “World’s Biggest Birds.”

13. Brennan and Prum, “The Limits of Sexual Conflict.”

14. Cooke, Bitch.

15. Cooke.

16. Patek, “Ultrafast Impacts in Biology.”

17. Patek, “Measuring the Fastest Animal on Earth.”

18. Patek.

19. Patek, “Ultrafast Impacts in Biology.”

20. Patek, “Measuring the Fastest Animal on Earth.”

21. Patek, Korff, and Caldwell, “Deadly Strike Mechanism of a Mantis Shrimp”; Patek, “Measuring the Fastest Animal on Earth.”

22. Patek.

23. Patek and Caldwell, “Extreme Impact and Cavitation Forces.”

24. Zyga, “Ninjabot Strikes with Force of a Mantis Shrimp.”

25. PennMuseum, “The Gordian Knot.”

26. Imbler, “Behold, the Worm Blob.”

27. Imbler.

28. Ozkan-Aydin, Goldman, and Bhamla, “Collective Dynamics in Entangled Worm and Robot Blobs.”

29. Niiler, “Researchers Are Studying These Worm Blobs to Build Robots.”

30. Imbler, “Behold, the Worm Blob”; Ozkan-Aydin, Goldman, and Bhamla, “Collective Dynamics in Entangled Worm and Robot Blobs.”

31. McLendon, “Math Behind ‘Ultrafast’ Worm Blobs.”

32. “Mathematics Behind Wiggly Worm Knots”; Patil et al., “Living Tangled Matter.”

33. Patil et al.

34. McLendon, “Math Behind ‘Ultrafast’ Worm Blobs.”

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CHAPTER 3: WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

1. Janssen and Renn, “Einstein Was No Lone Genius.”

2. Bubela et al., “Science Communication Reconsidered.”

3. Golden Goose Awards, “Tiny Snail, Big Impact.”

4. Simoni, “From DNA Enzymes to Cone Snail Venom.”

5. Golden Goose Awards, “Tiny Snail, Big Impact.”

6. Golden Goose Awards.

7. Kramer, “Hoping Llamas Will Become Coronavirus Heroes.”

8. Pinkstone, “Meet Fifi”; Salles, “How Llamas… Are Helping Scientists Study COVID-19”; Cantor, “‘Llamas Are the Real Unicorns.’”

9. Amado and Rodríguez, “The Serendipity of Llama Biocapital.”

10. Amado and Rodríguez.

11. Amado and Rodríguez.

12. Golden Goose Awards, “A Llama Named Winter.”

13. Golden Goose Awards.

14. Shimomura, “Discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP).”

15. Shimomura.

16. Chalfie, “Martin Chalfie Biographical.”

17. Golden Goose Awards, “Green Fluorescent Protein”; Krämer, “In Situ with Martin Chalfie.”

18. Chalfie, “GFP: Lighting Up Life.”

19. Lippard, “Roger Y. Tsien (1952–2016)”; LaFee, “Roger Tsien… Inventors Hall of Fame.”

20. Bhattacharjee, “Bad Luck & Bad Networking”; Shimomura, “Osamu Shimomura Biographical.”

21. Kummoona, “Bone Grafting and Its Application.”

22. Office of the Surgeon General (US), “The Basics of Bone.”

23. Altman, “Surgeons Test Sea Coral.”

24. Gillman and Jayasuriya, “FDA-Approved Bone Grafts.”

25. Demers et al., “Natural Coral Exoskeleton.”

26. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “What Are Coral Reefs.”

27. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

28. Hendry, “Join a Dive to See the Largest Corals on Earth.”

29. Anthes, “From the Bottom of the Sea.”

30. Anthes.

31. Golden Goose Awards, “Coralline Ceramics.”

32. Cimons, “Scientists Learn to Repair Human Bones.”

33. Cherry, “Nature’s Toughest Material.”

34. Gim et al., “Nanoscale Deformation Mechanics”; Cherry, “Nature’s Toughest Material”; Raut et al., “Tough and Strong”; “New Material Mimics… Mother of Pearl.”

35. US Army Research Laboratory, “Lightweight Armor for Soldiers.”

36. Kulchin et al., “Properties of Sea Glass Sponge Spicules.”

37. Bedolfe, “Sea Sponge Fiber Optics.”

38. Graham, “Sea Sponge Inspires Better Fiber-Optic Cables.”

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CHAPTER 4: INSPIRATION IN ODDITIES

1. Williams et al., “Physical Limits of Flight.”

2. Lemelson-MIT, “Otto Lilienthal.”

3. McClatchy, “A Whale of a Turbine.”

4. Vogel, Comparative Biomechanics.

5. McClatchy, “A Whale of a Turbine.”

6. Fish et al., “The Tubercles on Humpback Whales’ Flippers.”

7. Ray, “Do Cockroaches Carry Diseases?”

8. Hu, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls.

9. Villazon, “Is It True That Cockroaches Could Survive a Nuclear Holocaust?”

10. Yong, “Why You Can’t Keep Cockroaches Out of Your Home.”

11. Bourguignon et al., “Global Cockroach Distributions.”

12. Hu, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls.

13. Hu; Jayaram and Full, “Cockroaches… Inspire a Soft, Legged Robot.”

14. I’Anson Price and Grüter, “Why, When and Where?”

15. Chatterjee et al., “Behavior of Individual Foragers.”

16. Seeley, “Remembrances of a Honey Bee Biologist.”

17. Seeley, Camazine, and Sneyd, “Collective Decision-Making in Honey Bees”; Seeley, “Remembrances of a Honey Bee Biologist.”

18. Golden Goose Awards, “The Honey Bee Algorithm.”

19. Tovey, “Honey Bee Algorithm.”

20. National Geographic, “Flying Snakes.”

21. “The Secret of a Snake’s Slither.”

22. Jayne, “What Defines Different Modes of Snake Locomotion?”

23. Jayne.

24. Hutchinson, “Vertebrate Flight: Introduction.”

25. National Geographic, “Pterosaurs—Lords of the Ancient Skies.”

26. Socha, “Of Snakes and Robots”; Miklasz et al., “Flying Snake Aerodynamics”; Socha, “Gliding Flight in Chrysopelea”; Jafari et al., “A Theoretical Analysis of Pitch Stability.”

27. Yeaton et al., “Undulation Enables Gliding in Flying Snakes”; Waldstein, “How Do Flying Snakes Glide Through the Air?”

28. Irby, “Researchers Use 3D Modeling.”

29. Yeaton et al., “Undulation Enables Gliding in Flying Snakes.”

30. Pettersen, “Snake Robots.”

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CHAPTER 5: ECCENTRIC EXPERIMENTS

1. Schneider, “Some Levity in Physics.”

2. Pinnock, “Levitating Frogs and the Power of Play.”

3. Brandt, “Levitation in Physics.”

4. Pelrine, “Diamagnetic Levitation.”

5. Pelrine.

6. Geim, “Everyone’s Magnetism.”

7. Geim.

8. Overbye, “Physics Nobel Honors Work on Ultra-Thin Carbon.”

9. Overbye.

10. Searcy, “A Fuzzy Concept”; TIME magazine, “Science: Batavia’s Ferret”; Pinkowski, “Ferret in a Particle Accelerator.”

11. The National Ferret School, “Cable Laying.”

12. National Pouched Rat Society, “African Giant Pouched Rats.”

13. Kanaan et al., “Rats Sniff Out Pulmonary Tuberculosis.”

14. Cengel, “Giant Rats Trained to Sniff Out Tuberculosis in Africa.”

15. Mgode et al., “Pediatric Tuberculosis Detection.”

16. Kanaan et al., “Rats Sniff Out Pulmonary Tuberculosis from Sputum.”

17. Cengel, “Giant Rats Trained to Sniff Out Tuberculosis in Africa.”

18. Cengel.

19. Poling et al., “Using Giant African Pouched Rats.”

20. Poling et al., “Tuberculosis Detection.”

21. Cengel, “Giant Rats Trained to Sniff Out Tuberculosis in Africa.”

22. APOPO Annual Report 2022.

23. Kennedy and Wamsley, “Magawa, a Heroic Bomb-Sniffing Rat.”

24. de Moraes, “John Oliver Shoots Salmon.”

25. “Whooshh Innovations Home.”

26. “Whooshh Innovations Home.”

27. Garber, “Pneumatic Tubes.”

28. Matei, “What Is the ‘Salmon Cannon’?”

29. Klein, “Fish Cannons, Koi Herpes.”

30. Klein.

31. “Whooshh Innovations Home.”

32. Dormehl, “Fully Automated Salmon Cannon.”

33. Newcomb, “Salmon Cannon Is Hot.”

34. de Moraes, “John Oliver Shoots Salmon.”

35. Ihle and Taylor, “Manipulation of Color Patterns.”

36. Ihle and Taylor; Clark, “What Does It Take?”

37. Ihle and Taylor; Ramos, “Inside the Lab.”

38. Ihle and Taylor; Shiedlower, “Scientists Give Spiders Makeup.”

39. Lewis, “The Deliberate Amateur.”

1 

CHAPTER 6: RULES OF SERENDIPITY

1. Duffy, “Blue Bloods.”

2. Duffy; Golden Goose Awards, “Blood of the Horseshoe Crab.”

3. Duffy, “Blue Bloods.”

4. Duffy.

5. Kreier, “Using Imperiled Horseshoe Crabs?”

6. Abrahams, The Ig Nobel Prizes.

7. Gibbons and Castagna, “Serotonin… in Six Bivalve Species.”

8. Cleveland Clinic, “Serotonin.”

9. Cleveland Clinic; Sohel, Shutter, and Molla, “Fluoxetine.”

10. Fong, “Zebra Mussel Spawning”; Fong, Philbert, and Roberts, “Putative Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor-Induced Spawning.”

11. Polaris Market Research. “Oyster and Clam Market… Analysis Report.”

12. Beard, “All Together Now.”

13. Freeman, “SCIENCE WATCH; New Prozac Lift.”

14. NOAA Fisheries, “How Much Is a Clam Worth?”; Dvarskas et al., “Nitrogen Removal… at the Subwatershed Scale.”

15. Paerl, “Coastal Eutrophication and Harmful Algal Blooms.”

16. Greenberg, “How Mussel Farming Could Help to Clean Fouled Waters.”

17. The Economist, “How Clams Help Keep Polish Water Clean.”

18. Lopes-Lima et al., “Conservation of Freshwater Bivalves at the Global Scale.”

19. Yamindago et al., “Fluoxetine in the Environment”; “Ingredient in Prozac.”

20. Winters, Accidental Medical Discoveries.

21. Winters.

22. Winters.

23. Winters.

24. Sommer, “Divination and Medicine.”

25. Wells, “Lancelot Thomas Hogben.”

26. Duffy, “Blue Bloods.”

1 

CONCLUSION

1. Prum, “Duck Sex and the Patriarchy.”

2. Suebsaeng, “Conservative Outrage.”

3. Brennan, “Why I Study Duck Genitalia.”

4. Brennan et al., “Oddball Science.”

5. Brennan, Clark, and Mock, “Time to Step Up.”

6. Hu, “Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist.”

7. Abrahams, “Laugh First, Think Later.”

8. “Ig Nobel Nominations.”

9. “Oberhummer Award.”

10. Bryner, “Golden Goose Awards.”

11. The Science Coalition, “Our Initiatives.”

12. Suzy, “Sex Life of the Screwworm.”

13. Dijkgraaf, “Curiosity-Driven Knowledge.”

14. “The State of U.S. Science and Engineering.”

15. “Federal Funds for R&D.”

16. Flaherty, “Federally Funded Research.”

1 