West Coast History of Tobacco * Termites make Fairy Circles in the Sand * The Science of Religion * Brother Guy Consolmagno, Jesuit Astronomer
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West Coast History of Tobacco
Listen to this item (pop up player) or Termites Make Fairy Circles in the Sand
For decades, scientists have been mystified by so-called 'Fairy Circles', found within desert margin grasslands in southern Africa. The circles are sandy in the middle with a belt of grass around the perimeter. They vary in size from 2 metres up to 50 metres in diameter. Now new research by Dr. Norbert Juergens, a Professor of Biodiversity, Ecology and Plant Evolution from the University of Hamburg in Germany, has discovered what creates fairy circles, and how they function. The circles are created as tiny sand termites eat the roots of the grasses, resulting in a small area returning to its sandy origins. As the area of dying grass becomes bigger, it takes on a circular shape as the termites eat roots from their nests out. The circle of sand becomes a permanent store of water deep enough to avoid evaporation. In this way, the fairy circles are able to help sustain the grassland and promote biodiversity.
Related Links
- Paper in Science
- Not Exactly Rocket Science blog
- New York Times article
- Dr. Norbert Juergens
Listen to this item (pop up player) or The Science of Religion
Galileo before the inquisition by Cristiano Banti
(Originally broadcast April 11, 2009) One of the major efforts in the study of human behaviour, over the last couple of decades, is the attempt to understand it in evolutionary terms. So, scientists have studied many universal human behaviours - such as music, language, and art, to try to understand if there are evolutionary reasons why our minds would produce such things. Recently, more attention has been focussed on another universal human behaviour - religion. Religion in many forms is nearly ubiquitous around the world and as far back in history as we can determine. So, a small group of scientists has begun to ask important questions, such as, why do we have religion? What is it about our brains, our psychology and our evolutionary history that drives us to search for signs of the divine? In short, how and why are humans built to believe?
Dr. Justin Barrett, who, when we spoke to him in 2009, was senior researcher at the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at the University of Oxford, is one of several researchers looking for the roots of religion in important cognitive processes we use as "shortcuts" to perceive and make sense of the world. He thinks that because of these cognitive tools, we're primed to look for signs of intention in the world, and to think that most events have some agent, possibly a supernatural one, making them happen. In this conception, religious thinking is a kind of natural byproduct of normal mental processes. Interestingly, Dr. Barrett, a Christian, thinks that these ideas are easily reconcilable with many different religious faiths.
Dr. David Sloan Wilson approaches the science of religion from another perspective. A self-described Atheist who studies religion, he's also a distinguished professor in the Departments of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University in New York. He's investigating religion as a possible adaptation - in some sense, like biological adaptations, such as the opposable thumb or the eye. He suspects that religion is a way of binding social groups together, which then gives those groups selective advantages over other groups.
Related Links
- Dr. Justin Barrett
- Why Would Anyone Believe in God?
- David Sloan Wilson's web site
- Evolutionary Religious Studies web site
Listen to this item (pop up player) or Brother Guy Consolmagno, Jesuit and Astronomer
Related Links
- Brother Guy Consolmagno
- Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer - Lecture by Br. Consolmagno
- God's Mechanics by Br. Consolmagno
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