Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe Read Free Page A

about 35,800 feet, they were amazed to discover around them a new type of bottom-dwelling shrimp that did not seem to be bothered by the ambient pressure of some 17,000 pounds per square inch. On March 26, 2012, film director James Cameron reached the deepest point in the Mariana Trench in a specially designed submersible. He described it as a gelatinous landscape as desolate as the Moon. But he also reported seeing tiny shrimp-like critters no bigger than an inch in length.
    Nobody knows for sure how many species are currently living on Earth.A recent catalogue, published in September 2009, formally describes and gives official names to about 1.9 million species. However, since most living species are microorganisms or very tiny invertebrates, many of which are very difficult to access, most estimates of the total number of species are little more than educated guesses. Generally, estimates range from 5 million to about 100 million different species, although a figure of 5 to 10 million is considered probable. (The most recent study predicts about 8.7 million.) This large uncertainty is not at all surprising once we realize that justone tablespoon of dirt beneath our feet could harbor many thousands of bacterial species.
    The second amazing thing characterizing life on Earth, besides its diversity, is the incredible degree of adaptation that both plants and animals exhibit. From the anteater’s tubelike snout, or the chameleon’s long and fast-moving tongue (capable of hitting its prey in about 30 thousandths of a second!), to the woodpecker’s powerful, characteristically shaped beak, and the lens of the eye of a fish, living organisms appear to be perfectly fashioned for the requirements that life imposes on them. Not only are bees constructed so that they can comfortably fit into the flowering plants from which they extract nectar, but the plants themselves exploit the visits of these bees fortheir own propagation by polluting the bees’ bodies and legs with pollen, which is then transported to other flowers.
    There are many different biological species that live in an astonishing “scratch my back and I will scratch yours” interaction, or symbiosis. The ocellaris clown fish, for instance, dwells among the stinging tentacles of the Ritteri sea anemone. The tentacles protect the clown fish from its predators, and the fish returns the favor by shielding the anemone from other fish that feed on anemones. The special mucus on the clown fish’s body safeguards it from the poisonous tentacles of its host, further perfecting this harmonious adaptation. Partnerships have even developed between bacteria and animals. For example, at seafloor hydrothermal vents, mussels bathed in hydrogen-rich fluids were found to thrive by both supporting and harvesting an internal population of hydrogen-consuming bacteria. Similarly, a bacterium from the genus Rickettsia was found to ensure survival advantages for the sweet potato whiteflies—and thereby for itself.
    Parenthetically, one quite popular example of an astonishing symbiotic relationship is probably no more than a myth. Many texts describe the reciprocation between the Nile crocodile and a small bird known as the Egyptian plover.According to Greek philosopher Aristotle, when the crocodile yawns, the little bird “flies into its mouth and cleans his teeth”—with the plover thereby getting its food—while the crocodile “gets ease and comfort.”A similar description appears also in the influential Natural History by the first-century natural philosopher Pliny the Elder. However, there are absolutely no accounts of this symbiosis in the modern scientific literature, nor is there any photographic record that documents such a behavior. Maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised, given the rather questionable record of Pliny the Elder: Many of his scientific claims turned out to be false!
    The prolific diversity, coupled with the intricate fitting together and adaptation of a