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ETHNOBOTANY. “The age of enlightenment saw a rise in economic botanical exploration. Alexander von Humboldt collected data from the New World, and James Cook's voyages brought back collections and information on plants from the South Pacific. At this time major botanical gardens were started, for instance the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1759. The directors of the gardens sent out gardener-botanist explorers to care for and collect plants to add to their collections.” https://lnkd.in/dmU_6jn View in LinkedIn

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SO ENDS this first of two weekends devoted to an evo-devo analysis of the human nose. As a case study, it is an exemplary example of the power of combining evolution and development as tools to untangle a complex dual function organ like the nose. While you may not have spent sleepless nights worrying about these questions, this very elegant article guides you effortlessly between arcane medical school anatomy, involuted embryology and taxa surveys to answer this question. Walk in somebody else’s shoes a mile or two. View in LinkedIn

"TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE seeks to comprehend such complexity by operating from a different epistemological basis. It eschews reductionism, placing little emphasis on studying small parts of the ecological system in isolation from the dependent interacting biophysical milieu. It also recognizes that the reductionist approach is impractical in the extreme: even if one were to know everything there was to know about everything of importance under all possible combinations and permutations of variability, such an immense database would be impossible to work with in practice." https://lnkd.in/dvpgYsT View in LinkedIn

DOUBLE FUNCTION. “Thus, with the amphibians the primary olfactory nose has evolved towards a nose devoted to olfaction and respiration. The amphibian nose communicates externally via the external naris and connects with the oral cavity posteriorly to the primary palate by the internal naris. The nasal cavity of amphibians is lined by olfactory epithelium with the exception of its ventro-lateral wall region.” http://www.wjgnet.com/esps/DownLoadFile.aspx?Type=Digital&SubType=2&DOI=10.5319%2Fwjo.v6.i2.33&FilePath=Pub%5C10.5319%5Cv6%5Ci2%5CWJO-6-33.doc View in LinkedIn

RANGE OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE. "Many scientists have begun to understand that such traditional knowledge extends far beyond what in western science would be called descriptive biology, beyond knowing how to identify different species of animals, or describe their feeding, reproduction, or migratory behaviour.” https://lnkd.in/dvpgYsT View in LinkedIn

OLFACTORY PRIMACY. “In amphibians, their ability to smell is derived from the superficial oscillatory movements of their buccal floor in order to establish intimate contact to their immediate surroundings be it a terrestrial or aquatic medium. The nasal respiratory function, however, is secondary as skin respiration is predominant. Amphibians, as a result, recruited the olfactory organ, as an intermittent tool for its respiratory apparatus.” http://www.wjgnet.com/esps/DownLoadFile.aspx?Type=Digital&SubType=2&DOI=10.5319%2Fwjo.v6.i2.33&FilePath=Pub%5C10.5319%5Cv6%5Ci2%5CWJO-6-33.doc View in LinkedIn

WESTERN VIEW. "Contemporary Western attitudes concerning the management of natural resources, treatment of nonhuman animals, and the natural world emerge from traditions derived from Western European philosophy, i.e., they assume that humans are autonomous from, and in control of, the natural world." https://lnkd.in/dAGFHp2 View in LinkedIn

INDIGENOUS VIEW. "For traditionally schooled aboriginal people in many regions, the environment is seen as a whole; all the parts are interconnected in a seamless web of causes and effects, actions and outcomes, behaviors and consequences. People, animals, plants, natural objects, and supernatural entities are not separate and distinct." https://lnkd.in/d-xjfAa View in LinkedIn

FOOD CRITICAL. "Beginning 11,000 years ago, it was the rise of food production (agriculture and herding), yielding 100 to 1,000 times more food per acre than the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, that fueled the rise of sedentary populous societies with storable food surpluses and all of their consequences." https://lnkd.in/d4Twb7p View in LinkedIn