Climate Change

The Climate Group and Rt. Hon. Tony Blair will host the Climate Week NYC Opening Ceremony on September 21, 2009. An array of global business leaders and policymakers representing some of the world’s most influential companies, cities, states, regions and nations will present a series of bold commitments to the United Nations Negotiation Process. These Read more

CRUDE - Little people Big Oil Movie

Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Read more

Age of Stupid Premiere

Why didn’t we save ourselves when we had the chance? This is the question the soon-to-be released film, Age of Stupid, poses to us. The film takes place in a future where our world has been ravaged by climate change due to a business-as-usual approach to this growing global threat.

The good news is that this doesn’t need to happen. For now, our fate of being remembered as the Age of Stupid is still within our grasp to reverse. With your help, we can get the word out about climate change and our ability to help avert disaster. Read more

Ted Talks, Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other’s minds

Crude Oil, The Movie

Three years in the making, this riveting new documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Read more

Scandalous affair

www.michaelpollan.com

You might know something about the birds and the bees, but did you know the bees have been having a fling with the orchids? The vivid, vibrant little flowers give what amount to come-hither looks to bees. Some even emit an aroma — a kind of Givenchy for male bees — that tricks the bees into thinking that the orchid is a female bee who finds them irresistible.

Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food, has written about the scandalous affair in September’s National Geographic magazine. He tells NPR’s Scott Simon that orchids “practice some very weird sex — even by the standards of the animal world.”

The Ophrys orchid, otherwise known as the “prostitute orchid,” has actually evolved to look like a female bee, viewed from the rear, with her head stuck in a green flower. The male bee starts to “pseudo-copulate,” but soon realizes it’s not working. Aroused, he breaks off for a more suitable mate and frantically tries again with another bloom. His exertions aren’t all in vain; he does succeed in pollinating the flower.

But it’s not just bees that fall for the orchid’s wiles. The tongue orchid fools male Lissopimpla excelsa wasps into thinking it’s a female wasp. In this case, however, the male wasp actually ejaculates onto the flower. This “costly sperm wastage” seems “seriously maladaptive,” says Pollan, “but in fact, it’s a very clever strategy for the flower and for the wasp.”

This kind of wasp produces roughly equal amounts of male and female offspring when a female gets sperm from a male. However, without a male, the female can still produce offspring — but she produces a lot more males. “So the orchid is actually inducing its pollinator into having a large population of males who, of course, are all pollinators and will have to compete fiercely for females.”

On National Geographic’s Web Site

Read Michael Pollan’s article and see more of Christian Ziegler’s photos.

Love and Lies

Orchids Photo Gallery

For this species, Pollan says, “having sex with anything that moves, on balance, is a good reproductive strategy for males.” A male wasp that’s overly picky about its mates will end up leaving less offspring than a male that goes off and has sex with anything that looks like a wasp.

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