The Song of the Rosy Walrus
Scientific careers usually follow reasonably predictable paths. A beginning would-be researcher undertakes studies with increasingly narrow focus, starting in classes with titles like "Introduction to Geology" or "Biology 101" and concluding with an individual research project covering a tiny slice of the universe.
The danger then, as a scientist friend of mine once put it, "is that you get to know more and more about less and less. If I keep at it long enough, I expect to know absolutely everything about nothing whatsoever. Then there are careers in science like that of Kathy Turco. Her name may seem familiar to long-time readers of this column because a couple of years ago she reported here on work underway: her thesis research on the thermoregulation of walruses.
As she tells it, she grew fascinated with walruses' ability to stay warm while watching them surge from the chill of the Beaufort Sea into the even colder winter air. Even more fascinating was an observation she made while watching the walruses basking in the sun during a warm day at Round Island, the walrus sanctuary in the southern Bering Sea. "What struck me," she writes, "was that the skin of the walruses sprawled out on the rocks below me was a variety of shades of pink and red, while the skin of some of the walruses near or in the water was white."
From that observation grew a study of how walruses control the circulation of blood to their outer surfaces. In cold water, they look pale; they've shunted most of their blood flow in toward their internal organs and warm body core. Lolling about in the sunshine, they keep from overheating by blushing, or sending blood through their skin so it can radiate heat to the air.
Had Turco proceeded along a standard scientist's path, she might by now be dissecting walrus blubber in the laboratory somewhere, working out the nuances of the tusky beasts' circulatory systems. Instead, she was called by another observation: the racket made by 7,000 walruses basking on the rocks and wallowing in the sea. The watchful observer had to fight the urge to nap in the sunshine, "with the chorus of walrus grunting, groaning, and the frequent high-pitched chiming serenade of groups of walrus swimming by. It's the strangest but most beautiful sound. It's practice for the breeding season, when a bull will station himself alongside a herd of females and perform a variety of visual and acoustical displays."
The clicks, grunts, tooth-clacking and whistles she goes on to describe help explain how her career took a sidestep. The material quoted above comes from Turco's draft radio script, which should be heard in final form October 16 on Fairbanks station KUAC and at other times on other public radio stations in Alaska. It's the first time she will have tried providing a full context for the natural noises that have come to absorb her career. Her work of capturing the sounds of the north---from the gentle splash of Diomeder's paddle to the chiming of the walrus serenade---has been used by many of those outfits bearing the acronyms becoming so important nowadays, like BBC and CNN. The script combining sounds, her experiences, and an explanation of her research may mean yet another turn in Turco's career.
Science depends in large measure on serendipity, plain good luck meeting a receptive mind. Turco's pursuit of walruses now has less to do with blood flow and temperature regulation and more to do with capturing, preserving, and sharing the audible aspects of their behavior. Careers like hers are reminders that data can take many forms, and that paths into science need not run straight.
