The Best Australian Science Writing 2014 Read online

  There’s the tenacious attention with which Ludwig Leichhardt walked through the landscape of Sydney in 1842, cataloguing what he saw and marking out – with such certainty – specific species that had not yet been scooped into taxonomy. There’s the narrative slide from his walk to those made in the same landscape by the scientists Nicky Phillips follows in ‘Survival in the city’, watching species adapt and evolve in a newly urban space. There’s the moment of coincidence in Leah Kaminsky’s ‘Massimo’s genes’ when a random conversation makes an almost providential connection to unravel a rare genetic disorder in a three-year-old boy in Melbourne. There’s the careful way Frank Bowden unpacks the usefulness – and risks – of screening for prostate cancer, and the growing and fruitful intersections James Mitchell Crow finds between the advocates of organic farming techniques and the operations of conventional agriculture.

  There are water-cooler hooks: how women have influenced the evolution of penis size (and Rob Brooks’s insistence that this story represents ‘a study in how science should proceed in sober and restrained steps’) and the discovery of a giant carnivorous platypus that sounds like it belongs in a B-grade Hollywood film (albeit 5–15 million years ago). There are researchers separating exquisitely thin layers of graphene using sticky tape (you’d need three million sheets to make a stack 1 millimetre high) and the UQ physics professor who took care of the world’s longest-running experiment, the pitch drop, for decades, only to die a few months before its latest drop fell. There’s the image of researchers literally walking through their subjects’ brains in the virtual environments – or ‘CAVEs’ – that Dyani Lewis describes, and the minutiae of zebrafish embryos that grew in Michael Lardelli’s lab and changed the questions he might ask about Alzheimer’s. There’s Rebecca Giggs plumbing everything from marine biology and colour theory to the cyanophilic accumulations of bowerbirds to investigate her reaction to reports of a lone eyeball, washed up on a far shore.

  But there are words here that nod, too, not only to the scientific endeavour that underpins or inspires them, but also to the importance of the stories that those endeavours generate. Our capacity for enquiry, for hypothesis, for imagination and the trial and error of different approaches, and for narrative: these define and connect us – to each other, to our world and to our universe, in myriad powerful ways. As Thomas Suddendorf writes in ‘Uniquely human’:

  We can connect diverse scenarios into larger plots. Narratives provide us with explanations for why things are the way they are and with opportunities for predicting how they will be. We can compare alternative routes to the future and deliberately select one plan over another – giving us a sense of free will and an edge over creatures with less foresight. We can prepare for whatever may lie ahead and actively shape the future to our design.

  We survive and thrive partly through the stories we generate and tell.

  The last pages sport a possibly unlikely duo: the winner of one of last year’s Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science (Andrea Morello), and a seven-year-old girl (Sophie Lester) who wondered if the CSIRO could make her a dragon (they did). Both understand a simple truth: that at the root of much of what we define as ‘science’ sits imagination and curiosity. It’s something to remember what it was like to be seven, to wonder about the why and how and where and when of things – as scientists do – and to find it only natural to ask. As Francis Bacon, that pioneer of the scientific method, put it: ‘Who questions much shall learn much, and retain much.’

  A short walk in the Australian bush

  Ludwig Leichhardt

  Note: Text in square brackets [ ] has been added by the translator.

  Doubtful readings are indicated by [?] and words that are illegible in the German original are indicated by [...]. Leichhardt’s marginal notes are enclosed by curly brackets { }.

  1 April 1842, Sydney

  I will sit down in the shade of the tall Eucalyptus and press my cheeks against its white bark and listen to the whispering of its lance-shaped leaves, which the refreshing sea-wind ruffles, while the carefree cicada sings its shrill song among them. So long as I have God in my heart and His Nature before my eyes, I shall always be content. And He will not forsake me!

  * * * * *

  On Monday I made an excursion in the direction of Botany Bay. I had heard much about the bush of Botany Bay and was a little astonished to have my expectations disappointed. Sandhills, like the dunes by the sea, yet with a solid sandstone core, lie confusedly beside each other, with no particular direction, enclosing trough-shaped hollows, at the bottom of which small ponds of water are found at this time of the year. The sand is white and looks as if it might well be sandstone ground down by the activity of a former sea. Towards the western slope, up which we climbed, everything was covered with Pteris (bracken). Gradually there appeared Banksia shrubs, low Eucalyptus bushes, and thin-leaved shrubs, on which mantis of various colours were crawling about. Epeirus and a very big Linyphia? with a silky-grey abdomen and yellow stripes behind its black feet had spun really strong webs. This is particularly so with the latter. Their young appear to stay close by or at least to live there temporarily, inhabiting the irregular forewebs. This is the first example of maternal care among spiders. Several distinctive types of caterpillar were found: the green red-tubercled Bombyx caterpillar, as well as a grey yellow-saddled, eight-tubercled Bombyx, a brown caterpillar with a slight saddle at the tail end, hairy caterpillars with two blackish tufts of hair, and a chrysalis, which has now changed into a wingless lepidopteran. Two green mantis, several small Acridium, and a small cricket. I mention here that one of the phasmids had caught a fly and was on the point of consuming it. These insects do not live exclusively on vegetable matter. On a pond, around which several dragon-flies were flying, I found some very interesting little plants: a composite, an umbellifer which seems to be a Hydrocotyle, and two species of Juncus. Some hemiptera were found in the moist sand. A myrtle plant with hairy fruit was common. The violet was also found, as well as Melaleuca, but it was rare. The new plant growth from spikelets of the Festuca can also be observed here. A plant, whose red flowers grow directly from the branches. Solanum nigrum seems to have been introduced.

  19 September 1842 [around Sydney]

  Yesterday I paid nature a very long visit and we were both alone with each other like the time I was making excursions to Paris and Naples, and going on walking trips from Rome to Florence or through Switzerland. The day was unusually mild: the mountains enveloped by a bluish-white glimmer, which became more intensely blue upwards and whiter downwards. I have rarely seen really blue distances out here, but during the setting of the sun, often when it is half an hour above the horizon, it floods the hills with delightful soft purple light just as it always hovered around the mountains of Italy.

  I noted down for myself what I found, and I shall copy out these notes here:

  Lead and sulphur in the sandstone, which is being quarried close to the jail. Round inclusions of grey clay and distinct imprints of shells … They are in a block in the sentry-box next to the jail. They are the first traces of fossils, which I have observed in the sandstone.

  Grevillea dubia? The leaves are very broad compared with those of other species and the edges are not curled [?]. An Oreodicus with pieces of plants arranged parallel in a sort of spiral.

  A small grey Rhynchophorus with a whitish line on each side. A yellow wasp was looking for a night cap among the dewy leaves of Banksia ericaefolia.

  Lambertia is now beginning to develop young shoots; likewise Hakea and perhaps all the Proteaceae one after the other. Those just mentioned are the first two I noticed. They do not appear to have very much sap pressure throughout the winter. Isopogon anethifolium is in beautiful bloom; likewise Conospermum tenuifolium, taxifolium, and linearifolium (a variety of longifolium?), Baeckea densifolia.

  It is interesting to observe the distribution of the dew on the leaves and petals of Philotheca australis (scabra): while there are large drops on each
side of the petals, the leaves of the stem are quite dry already. Is this in any way connected with the distribution of the glands containing volatile oils? – I observed the plant at 9 a.m.

  A small spider, apparently belonging to the Lycoseae (?), on the under side of a leaf of Angophora cordata/-ifolia, beneath some loose cobwebs.

  Hakea gibbosa exudes a tasteless, yellowish-white gum.

  On Casuarina stricta a black hymenopteran, covered with grey hairs and considerably larger than a bee though somewhat similar in appearance was copulating. The female was winged and very big; the male, wingless and very small, had grasped the female with its mandibles at the end of the abdomen and was carried away by her at the threat of danger. The females were very shy; I found them on only one species of Casuarina.

  * * * * *

  I found a small plant with four sepals and four petals (which were hat-shaped at the base), eight filaments (four longer); the anthers were at the end of a cross-beam so as to form a Latin T with the filaments (Lynd called the little plant Tomanthera). Two styles. There was an abundance of them in moist spots. The pod with six stigma [...] adhering. On Conospermum taxifolium, which is in flower and according to its veins [?] shows some differences, I found a metallic green, slender beetle, which must belong to the telephorid family. Also an elaterid with four pairs of white spots on a brown background (in the act of copulation) and finally a blackish-brown beetle, which resembled almost a carabid, but probably belongs to quite a different insect family. All these beetles seem to be in full copulation. They were shy, and the first and the last mentioned ones usually flew away very quickly, whereas the elaterid pretended to be dead when caught. I found only a very small beetle on Ricinocarpos. A grey spider with its young ones in a cell between the twigs of Petrophile pedunculata. {In addition I found a small beetle with yellow dots on the same plant, as well as Rhynchophora on some others. It seems that the flowering-season of this plant forms an entomological period. – A green-reddish bug.}

  The dark round shrubs of Banksia ericifolia, with their blackish, orange-coloured, cylindrical flowerspikes, are characteristic of the country around me. Gompholobium grandiflorum is a very beautiful legume. Conospermum taxifolium, Ricinocarpos with its white flowers, Eriostemon salicifolium, Sprengelia incarnata (the latter only in very moist soil) cover the ground all over. Casuarina stricta, and Comosperma virgata also add much to the beauty. Eucalyptus is only found as a very low tree. Genetyllis diosmoides, Petrophile and Isopogon. All around I heard the broken calls of several birds; it always is as if they are going to whistle a full tune, but they stop short. I was told that Australian birds generally have no coherent song or even do not sing at all. One of the gentlemen (Mr Rennie) said that they were only diatonic, which I have probably misunderstood, however. In a hole, apparently made by the larvae of the mantis, I found a very large black Rhynchophorus.

  In Europe we are almost certain to find various insects, particularly small staphylinids and scarabs, in dry cow pats. Here you find only ants. Just as the ant here changes its food, since originally there was no cow dung in Australia, so have various other insects relinquished their original food and chosen the introduced plants. The most striking example is an Acharista (a butterfly), which once laid its eggs on a native plant, but now badly damages the grape-vine, covering the young leaves with its echinoid-like eggs, from which little caterpillars crawl out in about 12 days and feed on the leaves of the vine during the whole summer. Mr Scott told me that Acharista still afflicts native plants as well, which, however, are related to the grape-vine (?). It would be worth the trouble to test whether the eggs can be transferred from one plant to the other.

  The butterfly larvae, which live in the Banksia and Lambertia, seem to metamorphose now like the Occodicus. However, the former must certainly take the chrysalis form first like the Occodicus did a long time ago (mid-August).

  The bark of the white Eucalyptus is very rich in sap and so soft that the impressions of the claws of the opossum can be seen everywhere. These impressions cause a kind of inflammation, or at least a more abundant flow of sap, and gradually small protuberances are seen to cover the smooth surface. Apart from these impressions, tracts of beetle larvae are found on nearly every trunk with smooth bark. They commence as very fine threads and become wider as the larva grows.

  I found a leafless plant with four petals, eight filaments (four long and four shorter), with separate anthers. This plant and the little one, which I found earlier, probably belong together. Very beautiful Leucopogon lanceolatus and Correa speciosa were found in a very delightful gully below the orphanage. Hibbertia cinerea [?] and many other fine plants are here together.

  I observed very strange excrescences on Banksia serrata; the bark of the tree is swollen, thick, and torose.

  Dianella cyanea. A hairy caterpillar on Lepidosperma (I gave it to the Kirchners; I do not know whether it is new).

  Let me have a little rest on one of the sandstone boulders or on a dry fallen-down eucalypt trunk. All day I have roved through low-growing bush and scrub land, and my eyes have become tired of looking at the pale-green distance and the simple undulating contours of the hills. Here a deep wooded gully descends to the sea. A small creek gives the vegetation greater freshness and vigour. Not only does the Eucalyptus rise to a considerable height in order to look, though unsuccessfully, over the walls of the gully, but also the Banksia with its thick knobbly bark rises higher. The warbling of the birds becomes more cheerful, the rustling of the leaves more animated. Below the damp rocks ferns, and particularly beautiful Osmunda barbata and Davallia dubia grow luxuriantly. The trunk of Xanthorrhoea arborea (the grass-tree) attains a height of 3–4'. Callicoma serratifolia bows its ever thirsty branches over the little creek, while the sweetleaved Smilax stretches over them. Everywhere Bauera is pushing forward to the moisture. Gleichenia flabellata. The magnificent Telopea speciosissima and a host of small plants, which did poorly in the constant heat of the sun further up, thrive vigorously down here. – And what mild air! Though our senses are not delighted by the perfume of flowers, the fresh smell of the vegetation does invigorate us. The white bulky trunks and branches of the eucalypts, and the frequent dry and leafless trunks add a wintry element to this warm but languid nature.

  In a small gully, which runs into the main gully further down, I found a new Logania.

  Planet of the vines

  Joseph Jukes’ epiphanies

  Survival in the city

  Nicky Phillips

  Most mornings a dozen or so sulphur-crested cockatoos flock to a large yellowwood tree outside my inner-Sydney apartment to feed. They flap and frolic in the tree’s canopy. The more adventurous ones swing themselves around overhanging wires like gymnasts on a bar. At times, their squawks are so loud they drown out the Darlinghurst traffic.

  But venture back to a Sydney before white settlement and the same species would have been a rare sight. In the early 1800s the British naturalist and explorer George Caley wrote of a flock he encountered in a long meadow near the Nepean River. ‘They are shy and not easily approachable,’ he wrote. A few pairs were reported closer to the city in the National Park (now the Royal National Park) in 1945, but large numbers only began to frequent the inner suburbs to feed on open grassy areas in the 1960s. Now, ecologists at the Royal Botanic Gardens and the University of Sydney are part-way through the first study to track the bird’s movements. It appears they’re true city slickers.

  The sulphur-crested cockatoo is one of a number of species that have relocated to Sydney. White ibis, noisy miner birds, green ants and golden orb weaver spiders have also taken advantage of their new surrounds. But it hasn’t been easy for everyone. As their bushland home was transformed into human habitat, local but less mobile species of mammal, reptile and plant have been forced to develop strategies to cope in the remaining pockets of remnant bushland, urban parks and backyards.

  Ecologists often prefer to study plants and animals in exotic locations, but a growing
number have turned their attention to the complex interactions of the wildlife that inhabit concrete jungles. Inner-city Sydney is the laboratory of choice for these urban ecologists.

  The research is timely. More than half the world’s population reside in cities, and urban development continues to stretch across the Earth. By 2030 the United Nations projects five billion people will call a city home. ‘We need to understand how cities are changing the ecology of the systems they are built on, and how plants and animals are adapting to them,’ says Dieter Hochuli, a biologist at the University of Sydney.

  For the most part, plants and animals adapt to their urban surroundings using the traits that help them survive in their natural habitat. But some scientists predict there may come a point when the pressure of the city, especially from pollution, becomes so great that evolution will intervene.

  ‘We’ve created this whole new habitat that never used to exist here,’ Angela Moles, a UNSW plant biologist, says. ‘There will be some species living here that are not doing so well and there will be selection for individuals who can do better in an urban environment.’

  If any species has learnt to thrive in an urban environment, it’s the native white ibis. Known as the ‘tip turkey’, the bird’s reputation for ferreting through inner-city bins and scavenging street garbage has not endeared it to the public.