al-mofhariz

Surrounded by the Coral Sea, the Louisiade Archipelago is a volcanic island chain stretching away from the southeastern extremity of Papua New Guinea’s mainland. These tropical islands are home to rare plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Earlier this year, Dr. Susan Pell led a five-person botanical expedition to the islands’ remote mountains, rain forests, and wet savannahs. The team’s goal? To locate rare and endemic plants and identify endangered ecosystems . A molecular plant scientist at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and blogger (who sometimes sends posts via satellite phone), Dr. Pell chronicles her team’s search as they boat from island to island; hike across swollen rivers teeming with freshwater crocodiles; and encounter creatures such as giant spiders , walking “stick” insects the size of small branches, boa constrictors, and flying foxes. So grab your boots and backpack . . . And don’t miss this hot and steamy, flower-powered adventure! Before & After --

Make your bones at the Secret Science Club. . . Our species, Homo sapiens, is a mere 200,000 years old (give or take). Where did humans come from? How did we evolve? And what were our ancestors like? Fossil hunters have been asking these questions ever since Darwin developed the theory of evolution. And in the last few decades, we've been getting some pretty amazing answers. One find revolutionized the world's thinking about early human origins: I n 1974 paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered the bones of Lucy —a 3.2-million-year-old early hominid—in the Afar region of Ethiopia. With about 40 percent of Lucy's skeleton intact, she represented a new species, Australopithecus afarensis . The founding director of the Institute for Human Origins , professor of paleoanthropology at Arizona State University's School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and author of the just-published Lucy's Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins, Dr. Johanson joins the Secret