You just got back from a dig.  Explain the kick of meticulously digging through rock and sand for a splinter of fossilized bone?

The American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson said it’s kind of like gambling without the vicious aspects of it.  You never know what you are going to find. Sometimes you get skunked. But you find enough to keep you going back.

What is it that makes dinosaurs so intriguing?

Dinosaurs demand answers. There is nothing quite like them. Every time bones are found, people keep coming up with stories about them, attempting to get at how they fit in the world. We explore them through myth and legends. All manner of questions tumble out of their bones. They cause us to question our own place in nature.

You write about the paleontological discoveries that resulted in the rechristening of your beloved Brontosaurus as Apatosaurus. You were five years old then. Do you remember your reaction? Was it like being told there was no Santa Claus?

I don’t recall being upset or crying. It was more like, “Well, OK, that is the proper name now. The adults got it wrong.”

In the chapter “Big Bang Theory” you tackle the subject of dinosaur sex, something the average reader doesn’t usually read about. Why?

Actually a lot of books mention it, but it’s been given short shrift because it was thought there wasn’t a lot to say. It’s an essential process that kept them around for millions of years. I really wanted to show that this is not trivia that can be brushed aside with a lurid illustration. The way they reproduced was how they generated the next wave of little dinosaurs and maintained their dominance.

You wrote that if there ever is a Jurassic Park 4, dinosaurs in the starring roles should sport some feathers and fuzz in accordance with the paleontological evidence, Steven Spielberg’s sense of taste be damned.  Isn’t that Hollywood heresy?

I wrote a blog saying so, too. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/20/a-velociraptor-without-feathers-isnt-a-velociraptor/

Quite a few fans of the film pushed back and wrote that feathered dinosaurs look stupid. In fact, there will be a Jurassic Park 4, and Colin Trevorrow, who will be directing, has said that there will be no feathers in it. Although we know Jurassic Park got things wrong, it was the first time that I saw something on film that looked real.  It’s still the greatest dinosaur film of all time.

“Dinosaurs,” you write, “are our guideposts to the past.” Do they have anything to teach us about the future?

Evolution continues. The world changes. Now we influence those changes. If we can understand why dinosaurs were successful over the many years when they were, and why so many died out when they did, maybe we can use them as predictors of human driven climate change.  Dinosaurs are proof that life changes dramatically over time and that extinction is the ultimate fate of all species.

What was the impetus for the book?

First of all, I was shocked that things I took for granted most people didn’t know. We scientists have done a poor job of communicating. There was a wildly popular, but scientifically anemic book, The Secret Life of Plants, published in the 1970s.  I wanted to set the record straight. The truth is so much more exciting than pseudo science.

And?

I wanted to convey the sense that science is an exciting process full of kooky people, amazing people. It’s a social endeavor. Not just one person sitting in a lab.

Plants can sense up from down. They can discern light, color; they have a tactile sense. They sense smells. Isn’t this rather sophisticated for a lower form of life?

It is if you don’t consider that all organisms need to sense their environment in order to survive. Even algae move toward the light to allow for photosynthesis. So we aren’t special in that respect [of having senses]. The only difference is that we are the only ones that think about what we are doing.

Let’s talk about why plants have all those skill sets.

Plants can’t run away. They are rooted. It’s the key to their evolution. Animals can survive by running away.

It’s surprising to learn that tomatoes have 25 per cent more genes than we do.

Plants use their genetic complexity to sense and survive adversity. It’s compensation for the inability to run away.

And, it turns out, we share a lot of the same genetic sequences. So that tulip staring me in the face is more closely related to me than I ever imagined?

On the one hand we have a huge diversity of form. There’s you and a giant oak. But we do have a unity of genetics. Those genes had to evolve from a common ancestor. Of course, we are talking two billion years of history since animals and plants shared a common cell.

A Gloriosa daisy flower in a vase. Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

Let’s talk about some of the shared biology between plants and ourselves.

One of the coolest is our response to light.  We respond to light knowing when we should be up and when we should be asleep. Plants respond to light as well, and so we share a circadian clock. Also, plants can respond to mechanical stimulation. A Venus flytrap responds to a fly by generating an electrical signal, in the same way our heart responds to electrical signals to contract.

Is it true that plants don’t care whether you play Mozart or Black Sabbath. They won’t grow faster either way?

There is no real evidence that plants have musical taste. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they respond to vibration.

Let’s talk applications. How does a plant’s ability to see or smell translate into the practical world?

We know that a plant senses light and shade. If plants are crowded next to each other, they sense shade and become tall and spindly. But if you breed a plant blind to the shade, then you can put more plants together, they will put their energy into growing more leaves and fruit, and you can grow more food in a smaller area.

What kind of reaction do hope for in publishing your book?

I am happiest if it makes people rethink their existence.

Marden, a legendary photographer and writer who worked for the magazine from 1934 to 1976, loved airplanes. He first soloed in 1935, and in 1983 at the age of 70 wrote a story on ultralights, those sparrow-like little aircraft then new on the scene. (He acquired one for himself and named it the Red Baron.)

Earlier in his storied career, he was one of the photographers on a National Geographic story celebrating aviation’s 50^th anniversary.  Marden had an insatiable curiosity about the world. He worked underwater with Jacques Cousteau, found the bones of the HMS Bounty, had an orchid named after him, and, most of all, pioneered in 35 mm photography at the Geographic.

Of course he would have known Orville Wright. This letter, with its interesting insight into Wright’s inability to fly in the later years of his life, is only one of many gems from Marden’s long, illustrious career.

A 1940 letter from Orville Wright to National Geographic photographer Luis Marden.

This cross was burned on the lawn of an African-American family. There were four small children in the house at the time. (Minnesota)—Photograph by Lynn Johnson

The geography of hate is a litany of tragedy and place names like Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda. But hate has no borders. Photographer Lynn Johnson spent five years documenting the wreckage of hate’s corrosive force in America.

Her project, Hate Kills, evolved from a master’s thesis and has been exhibited in her hometown of Pittsburgh and other venues around the country. Johnson, whose prize-winning work often appears in National Geographic, has no patience for the idea of photography as an amalgam of form, color, and composition. Photography needs—no, demands—a mission. (Related: Boston Bombing and Muslim Bashing)

“I think we’re supposed to improve the world,” she says. Hate Kills attempts to do just that. Editor-at-large Cathy Newman interviewed Johnson about the project.

Lovers Lollie Winans and Julianne Williams were found at an Appalachian Trail campsite, their throats sliced through. (Virginia)—Photograph by Lynn Johnson

Your photographs of hate crime scenes look so calm, so quiet. Then you discover that the sun-flecked path on the Appalachian Trail is where two gay women had their throats cut; the tree-lined road in Jasper, Texas, is where a black man, James Byrd, was dragged to his death, and the round imprints are evidence circles marking where bits of his flesh, his keys, his dentures were found. These places of horror seem so ordinary, so everyday.

Hate is an everyday thing. We use the word so casually. “Oh, I hate that girl … I hate the way he does that.” I carried a little book while I was doing this project and asked people to write the word down; most wrote it in a contained, deliberate way, as if they were afraid of the word. That these places are so everyday reflects how we use that word.

Too easily…

Too easily. Too next-door. Too casually.

Other photographs are stunning in their intimacy. For example, the image of the drag queen, Thomas. He’s dressing for a show, in transition between male and female. He looks so vulnerable. How do you gain someone’s trust enough to make that kind of photograph?

By being yourself. The more authentic you are, the more authentic you can be with others. It has to come from an intention not to manipulate.

Thomas before a show. Photograph by Lynn Johnson

The picture of James Byrd’s sisters holding hands over the grave of their murdered brother invites the idea of forgiveness. But how does a parent forgive the loss of a child? A wife the loss of a husband? A sister the loss of a brother?

I don’t know. I don’t think you ever recover.

Yet, you show how it could be different. There is the photograph of the white woman and black woman on a swing in Jasper, Texas, laughing.

Yes, they are friends. So you can teach your children the way of the Klan, or you can teach them a different way—the way of discussing and being in community.

Tolerance is the antidote…

I don’t like the word tolerance. I think it’s a negative. No, we shouldn’t work for tolerance. We should work for the seamless embracing of others based on the quality of that individual. Tolerance is too shallow. You are just putting up with somebody. It’s the language of arm’s length. You can sit beside me, but not too close.

Hate is a neighborhood issue, a question of inclusion and exclusion. Who lives next-door? What color, race, religion are they? Let’s talk about where you live.

When I was married I lived in an old steel mill area with my husband. When I was divorced, the first place I moved was Squirrel Hill, a middle-class neighborhood where I grew up. One night at 3 a.m., I heard the alarm go off in the house across the street. No lights came on. No one came out. I refused to live this way. At the time I was involved with someone who was all about living in a diverse environment, so I moved here [to the North Side of Pittsburgh] where people are out on their stoop and everybody knows the name of everyone as well as their cats, dogs, rabbits. People watch out for each other. There is connection. There are street parties to which black, white, gay, straight, ethnic come.

James Byrd, a black man, was dragged to death on Huff Creek Road by three white men. He was alive for the first two-and-a-half miles. (Texas)—Photograph by Lynn Johnson

You’ve said as journalists we slip in and out so easily out of people’s lives. This project made you sit still. For the first time in years, you weren’t always running to catch a plane. What changed?

I never understood how destructive it was to come and go out of people’s lives. All my energy was going toward trying to become a thoughtful photographer, believing in the power of photography. We so easily walk away. I think it takes its toll. Are you going to be connected to people and pay that price? Or are you going to become master of the disconnect?

As if you had quick-release crampons attached to your emotions?

Where does that come from—the decision to slip out of a situation? Does that come from being given up at birth for adoption, as I was? A woman who ran my office helped me understand. She said, “You are never still. You travel all the time. You always seem restless, dissatisfied. I think you need to find your birth mother. It will calm you down; you will understand so many things.” I just dismissed that.

And then?

I started to look for my birth mother, but pulled back. There was too much going on—professionally and personally. Too many things were all in the air.

The deck of cards is airborne; how will they all come down?

It was tumultuous and exciting. I was redefining every part of my life and identity. Now I understand this hate project is all about identity—every area of conflict and potential is. It’s the basic question: Who are you?

Are you black, white, a Jew, gay, Hispanic…

And how much do you control that, and how much is it random? Of course I don’t think anything is random.

Evan Kittredge is gay. He was beaten and left in the trunk of his car to die. (Charlottesville)—Photograph by Lynn Johnson

Control and random are interesting words to hear from a photographer. Aren’t you trying to control how things arrange themselves in the lens?

The best photographs are the ones you have no control over; you simply respond. It’s better to sit and wait for something to change. Either it will align and you are ready, or it will not and you move on to the next challenge, frame, or thought.

One could say that about one’s life too…

I think it is sometimes better to shoot when you are not thinking at all.

Zen and the art of photography?

Like meditation. A mind always ready. You go in knowing your story; then you are respectful of what and who is present, guarding against having an agenda and bias.

But you had an agenda with this project?

Yes, this is different. At this point I have given myself permission to step over that line that as journalists we don’t feel is appropriate to step over.

What happened to the classic ideal of the dispassionate observer?

Which I don’t believe anymore. We are totally passionate about what we do. How could you constantly leave home, abandon your family, destroy your relationships, have a fractured home base, friendships you can’t maintain, zip in and out of other people’s lives, cultures, languages and not believe in the power of what you do? How do you separate that kind of passion from the passion for the subject? You can’t.

Particularly when there’s a subject you care about, like this one.

Photography is the engine of change. People have to be reflected if they are going to change. It’s mirrored on both sides. Even as I invite others to look, I am standing there with them. I have to face my life choices and how they were destructive to others. My life has been a laboratory for this project. I don’t want to be hurtful about my birth mother, but I see how judgmental she is, whereas I was raised by my adoptive parents with a sense of being loved and embraced.

So you found your birth mother?

My mother and father were supportive. Once I found [my birth mother], my mom and I went to see her for the first time. We went to Seattle. We bought flowers. We went up to the door. I have seen a lot of the world, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous as when I knocked on that door.

You wondered if you would be rejected again?

I never thought about that; I had absolute love from the mom who raised me, the one I was holding onto. We knock, this woman opens the door—and I’m shaped just like her. I give her a hug. Then my mom gives her a hug and thanks her for the gift of me. I forget when I realized this project was the mirror of my two moms, but that’s what it’s about. It is personal, but also everybody’s story. Who do you trust? Who are you? There is only one story in the world and it’s “who are you, and how are you going to work out from that place, and what is your gift to the world?”

A chain used in the murder of James Byrd. Photograph by Lynn Johnson

The writer Eudora Welty talks about the internal lens of a photographer: To discover the world is to discover oneself as well.

Photography enables discovery. You understand the world in relation to your own motivation. You can talk about saving the world all you want. I think we all work from our own insecurities and inadequacies; to shore ourselves up.

We are loved for our vulnerabilities, not our strengths…

Why are you drawn to that image of Thomas? It’s the vulnerability.

You once said: “Every so often you have to review your intention as a photographer. It has to be right. It has to be true.”  

I do so with every story. I love complex stories that force you to address your own issues as well.

The hate project allowed you to do that?

Sure. It’s about relationships. Love, hate, trust, acceptance. It comes back to identity. We decide who to trust based on what a person looks like. You walk down the street. You decide whether you are going to trust the person you pass or standing next to you in the subway.

Some people insulate themselves against making those decisions.

Sure. You can live in the gated community if you like, if you have the money. But sooner or later you have to come out.

Have you ever been the object of someone’s hate?

I was called a dyke once. I definitely have been on the other side of unfairness.

Four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a devout Sikh, father of five, was killed in the name of patriotism. (Arizona)—Photograph by Lynn Johnson

How do we explain, [or] even comprehend, that people hate enough to kill?

People who hate others probably also hate themselves. People turn self-loathing outward; it’s too toxic to absorb. They don’t have the tools to process it. The more they hate themselves, the more they strike out against others. There’s the fear that you are the thing you hate. It is not uncommon for gay-bashing to be done by a guy who is gay. “I’m not one of them—look, I’ll prove it.” Ronald Gay, who shot seven people in a gay bar in Roanoke, was teased about being gay. Whether he was or not, it was part of the identity he was trying to wash away. The dysfunction joins with a societal message, especially now by the Christian right, that it’s okay to hate gays. You have to wonder which side you would be on. Would you prevent a hate crime? As a rule we do not stand beside those under attack. And I mean everything from being bullied to crime on the street.

So, it’s back to living in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood and hearing the alarm go off and no one responds?

It’s all about community. How do you build community that’s engaged, that’s inclusive?

How do you imagine this project can help create that kind of community?

It will create conversation. You may not have resolution. But at least you can have conversation.

Was there an image or set of images taken for this project that was particularly difficult for you?

Roanoke was difficult. I wanted the story of the shootings in the gay bar to be a collaboration with the people I photographed. I promised it would be used for education. I tried to be true to that. There won’t be any profit in this. I won’t make profit off people’s pain.

You’ve been trying to get your project published as a book, without success so far. Is this because the images are so difficult, so tough to look at?

It’s hard to find a publisher for this because there’s no profit in it … except for improving society.

Photograph by Lynn Johnson

Which is why, perhaps, when it comes to trout, things are a downright mess.  Thanks to the British, as the Empire expanded beyond the sunset, so did trout. In 1864, they were introduced to Tasmania, India in 1889 and South Africa in 1890.  Trout traveled to places no trout swam before.

Brook trout are among the smallest of their group, but many people consider them among the most beautiful. Photo: Marc Peter, MyShot

That wasn’t all. In the 1880s, European brown trout went to America, while American rainbow trout came to Britain. The biological bouillabaisse has been stewing, says Stephen Moore, Supervisory Fisheries Biologist at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ever since Roman times. (The Romans transferred salt-water mullet and lamprey—species that could tolerate freshwater—into natural lakes.)

“There’s a long history of tinkering with fish populations,” Moore says. “We’ve put fish into habitats where there were no fish, and we’ve put non-native species on top of natives. The thinking was: ‘God made a mistake and didn’t put our favorite fish there.”

Spoiler alert. The species shuffle causes biological havoc. Non-natives out-compete natives in every situation. “It took man a long time to realize that once the non-natives are free and establish reproducing populations that it is impossible to turn the clock back,” says Moore. “Our only hope is where feasible to restore segments of historic range for native species like brook trout.”

The brook trout, specifically the Southern Appalachian brook trout, is Moore’s favorite fish. They are vibrantly beautiful with orange bellies and fins, flanks dotted with red surrounded by a halo of blue.  They also represent Moore’s 30 year-long commitment to restoring them to their native habitat.

Upsetting Fish in the Smoky Mountains

When large-scale logging in the Smoky Mountains at the turn of the century stripped shade-providing streamside vegetation, summer water temperatures rose to intolerable levels for the fish; sediment from the eroded banks clogged spawning gravel impairing their ability to reproduce. Brook trout all but vanished from waters at elevations below 3,000 feet.

To mitigate the damage, well-meaning logging companies restocked streams with rainbow trout, further compounding the problem when the aliens out-competed and interbred with the remaining brookies.

As if things weren’t bad enough, acid rain from the region’s coal-fired power plants and nitrates from agriculture contaminated the water, adding to the trout’s litany of woes. Native brook trout lost about 75 percent of their range.  Nothing short of an aggressive restoration campaign could provide a fix.

Brook trout can be an important part of an ecosystem, as on Lake Nipigon in Ontario. Photo: Bill Marzana, MyShot

Restoring Brook Trout

The fix began in 1976, right at about the time Moore began work for the National Park Service as a young graduate student. He eventually became the head of a program that combined electro-shocking shallow streams and the use of antimycin in deeper waters to weed out the invaders, and then restocked streams with native brook trout. Careful monitoring of water quality and tightened EPA regulations regarding air pollution helped, too. So far, says Moore, more than 27 miles of historic brook trout range has been restored, with another 15 to 20 miles to go.

It’s a win-win for fish and man. Trout, you see, are the mine canaries of fresh water.  When there is trouble in the environment, they are the first to go. When trout are where they ought to be, all is right with the world.

Brook trout in the Enfield Fish Hatchery in Maine. Photo: Pamela Wells, MyShot

According to the photographer, this garter snake caught a brook trout, but was ultimately unable to swallow it. Photo: Tianne Strombeck, MyShot

The bug film fest was the idea of Professor May Berenbaum, head of the university’s Department of Entomology. “It’s about education,” she says, and righting the wrongs done to “the most misunderstood taxon on the planet.”  National Geographic Editor at Large Cathy Newman caught her between classes to talk about the event.

Let’s talk about how the idea of the Insect Fear Film Festival was…pardon my saying so…hatched.

I was a graduate student in entomology at Cornell University, walking across campus when I saw a sign advertising a showing of Godzilla, sponsored by the Asian Student Association.  ‘If they can have fun, so can we,” I thought. When I pitched the idea of an insect fear festival, my department head said it was undignified.

Many years later, when I was on the faculty here at the University of Illinois and established in the field, I tried again. My department head loved it.  We held the first festival in 1984.

How does it compare with Cannes?

Well, it’s not so much about film as insects. And we don’t have premieres.  The goal is education through entertainment. For our purposes a film doesn’t have to be excellent.

I imagine most insect films meet the criteria of non-excellence. Is there anything above a grade B film in the genre?

The granddaddy of them all is Them! A 1954 film about an encounter with a race of giant ants.  It was nominated for an Oscar and was Warner Brothers’ biggest grossing film that year.  Angels and Insects (1995) won an Academy Award for costumes. Many big actors got their start in bug films. Clint Eastwood appeared as the jet pilot in Tarantula (1955). Leonard Nimoy appears in Braineaters (1958).

Are there trends in insect films?

In the 1950s big bug films were popular—oversized insects made so by radiation. What causes the mutation differs with the era.  Genetically engineered big bugs came in the 1990s. In the 1970s, swarms were popular.

Is the film festival an attempt to proselytize the public and convert them to the cult of entomology?

It’s a plea for tolerance. Yes, there are bad actors in the insect world. Insects that have caused pain and suffering. Insects are vectors of disease. They consume 30 percent of the world’s crops. But there are far more good guys than bad guys. They recycle and can tackle materials not otherwise broken down. They pollinate. Without insects the world would be bleak and inhospitable.

How did you get interested in insects?

I used to be afraid of them. I would go out of my way not to cross the path of a caterpillar. But I always wanted to be a biologist and at Yale, when I placed out of introductory biology, a course on terrestrial arthropods was the only one available. I confronted my fears and here I am today.

Do you have a favorite insect? And a favorite insect film?

I’m asked about my favorite insect all the time. Do you ask an English major their favorite author?  Each has its own appeal. As far as film, it would be Beginning of the End, a 1957 film in which giant irradiated grasshoppers attack central Illinois, end up in Chicago, and drown in Lake Michigan. One reason I like it is because it starts out here in central Illinois, but it is clearly not filmed here because you can see mountains in the background.

If you have a fly or cockroach in your house do you catch and release it outside?

It depends on the fly. I know which ones pose a risk and which don’t. I have a low tolerance for mosquitoes because they carry disease. Of course there are mosquitoes that pollinate orchids. No one species is totally irredeemable.  As far as insects in the house, I’m perfectly happy to escort the harmless ones outside.