The Scientist November 2019

11.2019 | THE SCIENTIST 5

PAMELA CARZON, MARINE MAMMAL STUDY GROUP OF FRENCH POLYNESIA; ©

ROB PERRYMAN; ©

CHRISTOPHER BEAUCHAMP PHOTOGRAPHY

Department Contents

NOVEMBER 2019

13 FROM THE EDITOR

Ocean, Muse

The sea has inspired painters and

poets for centuries. It has also

spurred generations of scientists to

plumb Earth’s living mysteries.

BY BOB GRANT

12 NOTEBOOK

Crossing Species Lines; Notes from

Underground; Murderous Minds;

Snow Blanket

20 CRITIC AT LARGE

The Dawn of Universal Ecology

Can science chart out laws that

govern the interactions among living

things even outside our solar system?

BY MARK COLYVAN, JOHN DAMUTH,

AND LEV R. GINZBURG

25 MODUS OPERANDI

Streamlined Artificial

Chromosome Creation

Recruiting an epigenetic instigator

of centromere formation into large

segments of cloned DNA facilitates

their transformation into artificial

chromosomes.

BY RUTH WILLIAMS

48 THE LITERATURE

Electric marine bacteria make use of

worm tubes; manta ray social structure;

neural pathways of sensing language

50 PROFILE

Watcher of Whales

Roger Payne used his discovery that

whales sing songs to convince the

world that the animals are worth

saving.

BY DIANA KWON

53 SCIENTIST TO WATC H

Martha Muñoz: Exploring Evolution

BY NICOLETTA LANESE

54 BIO BUSINESS

Pharma’s Orphans

Changes in the way Big Pharma

operates are leaving dozens of

research and manufacturing facilities

empty. What happens to them?

BY KATARINA ZIMMER

60 READING FRAMES

The Underwater Paparazzi

Marine photographers are helping

scientists document the diversity

of coral reefs before the imperiled

ecosystems disappear.

BY RICHARD SMITH

64 FOUNDATIONS

Poet of the Sea, 1940s–1950s

BY ASHLEY YEAGER

IN EVERY ISSUE

9 CONTRIBUTORS

11 SPEAKING OF SCIENCE

62 THE GUIDE

48

12

53

PUZZLE ON PAGE 11

ANSWER

F L Q M L C

EPI CURUSBACH

R M A T N A

RABI D ANTI GEN

I R N R U C

CHEM ISTRY APE

M V P G

ORB I MPA TI ENS

Z E U A O E

ABDOMEN PETRA

R D D H R C

KNEE JALAPENO

S D S N X W