ENHS Nature Trails March 2002 Article 1

This month's speaker: Dr. Brownell

For many in the Natural History Society, reading Dr. Brownell's answers to our questions will bring smiles and head noddings as we remember our own youthful exchange with those in authority and with the attitudes of the day . . . but I suspect that's another story. For others of us we will feel a little tug of envy for the life experiences of value that Dr. Brownell has extracted from both our natural and sensory worlds, the settings for his talk on Friday. His enthusiasm for his field in general and research in particular points to a fascinating and meaningful talk on both a scientific and a sociological level. (Dr. Brownell's stated goals for one of his zoology classes: ". . . to illustrate the connection between biological structure and function and its evolution. . . . [and] to influence the thoughts and attitudes of students as they learn the importance of biology for personal and social decision-making.") Our speaker's answers below give understanding to his classroom goals and insure an absorbing evening learning about "Too Many Legs: What Arachnids Tell Us About Our Natural and Sensory Worlds."

WERE YOU INTERESTED IN NATURE AS A CHILD?
Yes, since I can remember. I grew up in Castro Valley, California, with Crow Canyon behind my house and steelhead migrating up the creek there. My earliest recollection is digging a jail cell for Tarzan in my back yard, then gathering a gang of my friends with homemade bows and arrows to capture the wild man who lived high in the eucalyptus along the creek. We didn't find Tarzan, but we did bring home mason jars filled with snakes, pollywogs and nestling birds. We filled the jail with water and learned that trout need cool, fresh running water to survive, the first of many lessons in environmentalism.

PARENTAL INFLUENCES?
Mom, certainly, for letting me roam free in the creeks and canyons behind the house, and for feeding all those baby sparrows at 3 AM in the morning. My Dad for taking me into the woods to fly fish, hunt deer and ducks.

EARLY TEACHER INFLUENCES?
Ms. Zigadinovitch, for telling me I could do much better than "F" in Chemistry 101.

LANDMARK EXPERIENCES?
Getting a "B" in Chemistry 102. Tear gas and night sticks in Sproul Plaza, Berkeley, 1969. Waking up on top of Mt. Kilamanjaro. Seeing my son born and my daughter play Appalachian Spring at HS graduation. Watching a sand scorpion hunt in darkness. India in general. The trauma ward for Black townships near Capetown.

ANY NATURE HOBBIES?
Running/biking in the woods; bird-watching; white water boating; gardening; back-country skiing; mountaineering and backpacking, photography.

MEMORABLE TRAVELS?
Circumnavigating the globe through its major deserts. Running the Inca trail and descending on Machu Pitchu from above. Floating the Tiputini River into the heart of Amazonia and discovering the diversity of arachnids living in the rain forest canopy.

WHO INFLUENCED YOU TO PURSUE STUDIES IN BIOLOGY?
The young male in uniform who pulled my hair from behind at the Alameda County Induction Center.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO YOUR AREA OF SPECIALIZATION?
Following scorpions around in the dark on sand dunes of the Mojave, then going to the Woods Hole and meeting people who made a living figuring out how animals do what they do.

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR TRAINING?
UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UC San Francisco.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO OUR TOWN?
A job as assistant professor at OSU; nice people spaced at a reasonable distance; beautiful landscapes without parking meters in the waysides.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US FRIDAY NIGHT?
What the world looks like from the perspective of nocturnal specialists, like sand scorpions. What deserts and the people living there have to tell us about environmental conservation. That the reason I am talking so fast is to get home and pack and catch my 6 AM flight to Munich.

Aside from teaching large introductory classes, and graduate seminars at Oregon State University, Professor Brownell employs a "guild of nocturnal, predatory scorpions living in sandy deserts" as an experimental model for his "current research focus on structure and function of sensory systems in arachnids." Dr. Brownell likes scorpions because they "utilize several unique sensory systems to locate prey and potential mates in the dark." Exploring related fields in the microanatomy and neurophysiology of signal processing pathways in the CNS, Dr. Brownell hopes to achieve his "ultimate goal [to] clarify the mechanisms of information processing and perception in nervous systems."

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