Counting steps

Quite recently, scientists have found out that ants count their steps to find back their way home. I won’t comment here on the cruel scientific method of leg-cutting, for that concern find yourself an animal rights website. This animal fact came back to me, when I was enjoying a (plastic) cup of coffee outside just now and became intrigued by the procession of ants that tried to walk through where I was sitting and forced me to stand up again. As you know, when you have to count things yourself, even the minor distraction can lead you off track. What about the ants that bump into each other, will they be distracted from their step-counting and getting back home again? Or does (evolutionary) safety in numbers take over here? Scientists count your ways back to the lab!

Connecting the dots

Modern technology has lifted wildlife conservation to a new level. A range of species have been tagged with transmitters by which they can be tracked. Taking a closer look at the turtle in this picture (source: BBC), it shows that it has been turned into a hybrid creature, a cyborg, by attaching the transmitter on top of its shield, thus bridging (or denying) the nature-culture divide. Walruses are another species that in a recent project can be tracked for a couple of months (as long as the transmitters stick into their skins) following the dots on a map. In this respect, there is not much of a difference between wildlife conservation and hunting in terms of material culture (a crossbow, a CO2-powered gun, and a harpoon) or behaviour (silent approaches, tracking). It’s not a coincidence that many wildlife conservation projects depend on training native hunters, in the hope that they will refrain from hunting endangered species. If you want to be pessimistic, this could mean that hunting will be lifted to a new level as well.

Used books

As a librarian of a small university department library I have spent countless hours erasing pencil marks from books. There’s always a sense of eradicating other people’s efforts, when I do this. I have to say that I have been tempted to mark the process of reading one of my own books only once , but I always find comfort reading other books used in this way. Part of this comfort lies in the fact that the book has been read already and that your reading it adds to its lifecourse. At the other extreme lies the excitement of being the first to open uncut books (an activity which I’ve also spent countless hours on in my job as a librarian). Another part of the comfort in reading this category of used books is that the underlining of sentences helps you to work your way through it, especially if its contents challenge your intellectual capacity. If there’s a coincidence in emphasis between earlier readers’ (re)marks and your own thoughts, there’s a sense of comprehension that goes beyond simple understanding of the author: I’m not alone, so there must be more to it. On the other hand, if parts that you would have emphasized are not marked, there is a sense of discovery: am I the first to recognise this as a significant part?, which creates a sense of privilege in understanding the author. This experience becomes even more intense, if you know the person who did the underlining, and sometimes even made remarks in the margin. I’ve been lucky enough to read and also get a lot of books as a gift from my (under)graduate supervisor, who doesn’t have the same reservations about marking books as I have. When I’m reading one of his books, with critical remarks in his handwriting, there’s always this enhanced sense of connection. Save one book, my master’s dissertation with his comments, which I haven’t touched ever since I got it. There should only be so much sense of connection.