Environmental Stressors Quotes

Life has survived for more than three billion years because it is robust, and almost no mutations can easily outwit the defense mechanisms built up through eons of exposure to potential pathogens.

An Ecologist lives in a world of wounds.

We've found that frogs are counting the number of chemicals in the water. If you expose them to two chemicals, there's a slight delay in metamorphosis; if you expose them to ten, there's even more of a delay. No single compound will do this.

A lot of America is stressed by Mother Nature.

There may be an evolutionary advantage for schizophrenia genes during famine.

As the planet warms, evolution speeds. We've known this for a long time.

Life has evolved to thrive in environments that are extreme only by our limited human standards: in the boiling battery acid of Yellowstone hot springs, in the cracks of permanent ice sheets, in the cooling waters of nuclear reactors, miles beneath the Earth's crust, in pure salt crystals, and inside the rocks of the dry valleys of Antarctica.

In environments that are energy-rich but liquid-poor, like near the surface of Titan, natural selection may favor organisms that use their metabolic heat to melt their own watering holes.

Most animals are built to withstand one bad year.

We're constantly re-evaluating the potential for life. We're finding it where we didn't think it could exist, such as volcanic vents and other extreme conditions like under arctic ice. We're finding life in these incredibly harsh and dynamic conditions, so we're having to re-evaluate our own ideas of what's possible on this planet alone.

In general, I would say I'm probably a little more conscious of looking after my skin since I moved to L.A.