Mother Nature's Surprises

Detritus: Mother Natures Rice Cake

While today’s popular opinion appears to simply discount the importance of detritus as “just plain mud,” scientific evidence indicates that the ancient cultures may have been correct concerning the importance of detritus. Detritus is important on a global scale as well as locally; from its role in the world carbon cycle to supplying part of the nutritional requirements of a marsh periwinkle (St...

Mother Nature's Surprises

In this modern age of genomics, it is easy to forget that Mother Nature keeps many surprises for us up her sleeve; hubris is only human, after all. A paper in this issue, describing “The peculiar epidemiology of dracunculiasis in Chad,” provides an example. For more than 20 years now, a dedicated battalion of public health workers has been engaged in the international struggle to eradicate Guin...

The Natures of Nonconfigurationality

Population, development, and human natures

At the dawn of this new millennium, the human enterprise is quickly becoming a globally unified one. Yet numerous obstacles and pitfalls remain in the path of a full and fair unification. A substantial fraction of the world’s population is well-off and increasingly connected through trade and communications systems. But an even larger fraction is struggling to make ends meet and is only sketchi...

Natures and Perspectives

“Nature” and “Perspective” have similar meaning for Eclipse developers and for personnel in a software product line organization. The nature of product line work differs from one part of the organization to another. A developer using Eclipse switches among perspectives to have ready access to the specific tools needed for the nature of the current work such as testing, modeling, or plug-in deve...