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WORK TITLE: How the Zebra Got Its Stripes
WORK NOTES: trans by Barbara Mellor
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1989
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: French
https://profilebooks.com/leo-grasset.html * https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/16/interview-leo-grasset-how-the-zebra-got-its-stripes-book-youtube
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born October 1, 1989, in France.
EDUCATION:Earned B.S. and M.S.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, evolutionary biologist, and science educator. Dirty Biology (a YouTube channel), founder.
WRITINGS
Also author of a blog, Dans les testicules de Darwin.
SIDELIGHTS
Leo Grasset is a French writer and evolutionary biologist. He is well known as an science advocate who works to popularize science for younger generations, particularly millennials and those who spend a lot of their time on YouTube. He hosts the YouTube channel “Dirty Biology,” which boasts more than 500,000 subscribers. The channel contains science videos on controversial or risqué topics that are intended to provide a fun and irreverent way to explore topics in biology and other fields. In an interview with Nicola Davis in the London Guardian, Grasset explained his intentions for the channel. “Everyday animals do stuff that we think is gross such as cannibalism or incest. It is my goal to show that biology, and the living world, is not a clean world—it is way more interesting than that,” he said.
Grasset is also the author of a blog titled Dans les testicules de Darwin, which in English means, roughly, “In Darwin’s Testicles” (referring to Charles Darwin, a scientific icon for his theory of evolution).
In How the Zebra Got its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told through Evolutionary Biology, a collection of short essays on scientific topics, Grasset discusses many of the strange and quirky aspects of the natural world. In addition, he covers the effects that humans can have on nature and where human interference, whether accidental or deliberate, can cause serious problems. Throughout the book, he “adopts a breezily entertaining approach that avoids flippancy, aiming to popularize evolutionary biology,” noted a Publishers Weekly contributor.
With evolutionary biology as his base, Grasset “offers pithy kernels of insight about some of the oddest features of well-known creatures,” commented Sarah Hunter, writing in Booklist. He looks at subjects such as how and why the giraffe evolved such a long neck. He explains the social arrangements of elephants and buffaloes, noting that when it comes to herd leaders, elephants react better to dictators while buffaloes take a more democratic approach. Humans do not escape Grasset’s attention as he reviews two million years of human evolution and how it has created modern humankind. He also discusses some animal physical quirks that evolutionary biologists are still unable to explain, such as why the female hyena has an oversized clitoris that is about the same size as, and functions very similar to, the hyena penis.
In the interview with Davis, Grasset observed that science can be advanced by failure as well as success. “The way we teach science is definitely too simplified. For example, we only hear about the success stories of science and never about the failures—but science is all about failure and it is interesting to understand why something doesn’t work.”
This observation was based on Grasset’s experiences as a student studying zebras on the African savanna. The research project, he told Davis, was intended to determine whether or not the zebras’ stripe patterns had anything to do with their behavior, and whether there could be any connection made between zebra stripes and zebra personality. Grasset admitted that the research didn’t find anything. Zebra stripes, however, have been found to help how the animals regulate body heat, discourage attacks by flies, and deter predators.
Grasset admits that his approach to science and science education is unconventional, but his intention is to gain attention and spread awareness of scientific principles as widely as possible. He told Davis that there are governments and individuals who make “important decisions that are scientifically related about climate change and genetically modified organisms. You need a scientific education to understand these things.”
An Internet Bookwatch reviewer called How the Zebra Got Its Stripes “serious science at its entertaining and accessible best,” while a writer on the website 4to40 found the book “informed and engaging.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 15, 2017, Sarah Hunter, review of How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told through Evolutionary Biology, p. 4.
Economic Times, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ (December 22, 2016), Vikas Datta, “Zebras, Giraffes, Impalas, and Other Evolutionary Conundrums,” review of How the Zebra Got Its Stripes.
Guardian (London, England), October 16, 2016, Nicola Davis, “Leo Grasset: ‘The Way We Teach Science Is Definitely Too Simplified,’” interview with Leo Grasset.
Internet Bookwatch, July, 2017, review of How the Zebra Got Its Stripes.
Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2017, review of How the Zebra Got Its Stripes, p. 65.
ONLINE
4to40, http://www.4to40.com/ (December 22, 2016), review of How the Zebra Got its Stripes.
Leo Grasset Website, http://leo.grasset.free.fr (November 11, 2017).
Léo Grasset: ‘The way we teach science is definitely too simplified’
With 400,000 YouTube subscribers and his first book on the way, French evolutionary biologist Léo Grasset talks about research, failure – and teaching people to think
Léo Grasset: ‘Being curious, being educated is actually a very good way to never be bored again.’ Photograph: Ed Alcock/MYOP
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Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Sunday 16 October 2016 10.30 BST
Last modified on Wednesday 22 February 2017 17.43 GMT
L
éo Grassest is a 27-year-old French evolutionary biologist whose offbeat, knowledgeable style has helped him amass more than 400,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel Dirty Biology. He also writes a blog called Dans les testicules de Darwin and is publishing his first book, How the Zebra Got Its Stripes.
Why is your channel is called Dirty Biology?
Everyday animals do stuff that we think is gross such as cannibalism or incest. It is my goal to show that biology, and the living world, is not a clean world – it is way more interesting than that.
Why did you choose YouTube?
There is a very logical explanation: because at first TV would never have wanted to work with me! Now they do – I have a television project and some publishing projects. TV is a complex system and they are slow to move and slow to adapt to changes in the habits of their audience. They are not used to working with people from the internet or young people.
How do you get millennials excited about biology?
I try different methods. For example, in an episode where I wanted to talk about evolutionary psychology, I related it to pornography. There is an evolutionary hypothesis that the quality and quantity of sperm should increase in the context of sperm competition. Researchers have tested whether exposure to pornography, for example seeing other men having sex with a woman, can cause men to produce more active sperm and such like.
I couldn’t find any correlation between stripes and personality in zebras. My zebras didn't have any personality!
Does social media make it easier or harder to get people interested in science?
It is hard to compete with a cat video on YouTube, but at the same time I think people are more educated now than they were in the past – I can talk about processes like natural selection and I can be sure that 80% of people will understand.
The title of your book How the Zebra Got Its Stripes is a reference to your own work when you were in the African savanna as a student researcher. What were you studying?
My research project was on the stripe pattern of zebras – we were interested to know whether the stripe pattern was related in one way or another to their behaviour and tried to find clues about the personalities of zebras. We didn’t find anything.
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One of the animals you look at in the book is the giraffe, and you give lots of theories as to how it got its long neck – not just that it is because the animals evolved to reach the high leaves on trees. Is science simplified too much at school?
The way we teach science is definitely too simplified. For example, we only hear about the success stories of science and never about the failures – but science is all about failure and it is interesting to understand why something doesn’t work. I didn’t get anything about the correlation between the stripes and the personality of zebras – my zebras didn’t have any personality! I had to explain this lack of signal, and when you’re in school you never really get to hear about all these failures and the real methods of science.
You also say that we should be careful not to take the attitude that every trait has evolved “for a reason” – remembering the example of the male nipple…
We tend to oversimplify it – because we tend to choose only the great examples where natural selection works and everything is perfect. But in the chapter about the female hyena penis – this huge clitoris, which is a kind of pseudo-penis – if you try to explain something like that, it is very strange because it kills hyenas and it kills babies. All the simple explanations have not worked so you have to scratch your head a bit and try to find alternative explanations. It should be explained that evolution is very complex and that natural selection creates functions that can give the impression of purpose, but there are many mechanisms that are very complicated.
There have been some concerns about amateur, “garage” scientists being able to do genome editing – does that worry you?
I am sceptical of the risk. We overestimate the power of genetics to explain us. Most of the interesting traits that we would like to change, like height, are linked to hundreds of genes, and genes are not the only component that creates height – there are environmental components, too. I think the effect of [experiments] at home will be less scary than you think. I think people in their garage, if they are correctly regulated in their research, will do interesting work. I think Crispr [a gene-editing tool] is more interesting as a tool to understand how the genome is made and how it works than a tool to make us superhuman.
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What would you change about your DNA?
Were it possible, I would like to change the colour of my eyes – try new colours, stuff like that. I think there would be a market for that.
There seems to have been a craze for people dressing up and living as wild animals as part of their research – someone just won an Ig Nobel prize for dressing as a goat. Would you do that?
Maybe. I am very interested in how wolves became dogs. I would be really interested to live among wolves for a while.
Why is it important to get biology out there?
I believe that it is really important, not just for natural history but for all science, to make people aware that science is not only important but also very interesting and very fun, very cool. Being curious, being educated is actually a very good way to never be bored again.
You cannot make good decisions for the world when you don’t understand how the world works. People make important decisions that are scientifically related about climate change and genetically modified organisms. You need a scientific education to understand these things. The most important thing is to teach people how to think, because people are usually a bit emotional about these topics and not very rational.
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes is translated by Barbara Mellor and published by Profile (£9.99). Click here to order a copy for £8.19
Léo Grasset is the French punk scientist par excellence, founder of Dirty Biology and author of the blog 'Dans les testicules de Darwin' devoted to biology, testosterone and rock'n'roll (danslestesticulesdedarwin.blogspot.co.uk). He is also one of France's leading up-and-coming evolutionary biologists: see him in action on YouTube giving a paper at the École normale supérieure conference in Lyon in April 2015 on 'Les hommes hybrides - des chimphumains à Denisova'.
In French
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told Through Evolutionary Biology
264.12 (Mar. 20, 2017): p65.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told Through Evolutionary Biology
Leo Grasset. Pegasus, $26.95 (160p)
ISBN 978-1-68177-414-5
Grasset, the charismatic personality behind the YouTube series Dirty Biology, takes to print with a collection of short essays that address the whys of the wild as well as the influence humans can have on animal behavior. He adopts a breezily entertaining approach that avoids flippancy, aiming to popularize evolutionary biology. Grasset also clearly communicates the core point that explanations are not always simple. Careful observation of natural phenomena often yields clues that override widely shared ideas, such as elephants having graveyards, or reveals the multiple methods by which a biological feature can offer advantages, such as zebra stripes helping to dissipate heat, deter flies, and discourage predators. Grasset discusses the relationships between animal and human behaviors, whether by actual interaction, such as cub-killing sprees provoked by lion poaching, or by analogy, as with the similar simple rules that govern the group self-organization of schooling fish and clapping concert audiences. Small illustrations are adequately placed, if largely unnecessary, and a central eight-page spread of wildlife shots adds little value. Grasset stays true to his format, which allows the book to be read in small bites but leaves some of the essays, such as his musing on his love for the honey badger, feeling a bit disconnected from the rest. Illus. Agent: George Lucas, InkWell. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told Through Evolutionary Biology." Publishers Weekly, 20 Mar. 2017, p. 65. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA487601799&it=r&asid=b2a572bfc0e2f6b8392d12e511e264e4. Accessed 7 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A487601799
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told through Evolutionary Biology
Sarah Hunter
113.16 (Apr. 15, 2017): p4.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told through Evolutionary Biology. By Leo Grasset. Tr. by Barbara Mellor. May 2017.168p. Pegasus, $26.95 (9781681774145). 575.
The natural world is full of curiosities, and as Grasset, a popular French science blogger, argues in this collection, the explanations behind those curiosities are often just as fascinating. Taking evolutionary biology as his approach, Grasset offers pithy kernels of insight about some of the oddest features of well-known creatures. The hyena clitoris, for instance, looks remarkably similar to the hyena penis, and while scientists still don't fully understand why, Grasset offers a few theories about why they could have evolved in such a way. In addition to physical traits, Grasset also covers the intersection of animal behaviors and geographical features, even that of humans. He argues, for example, that the divide between human interaction and the unspoiled natural world is not nearly as distinct as it's been made out to be. Though collectively the vignettes never quite come together, and Grasset's shifts in tone can be somewhat jarring, the individual chapters offer tantalizing tidbits of often heady information, which should pique the interest of readers looking for something meatier than typical pop science.--Sarah Hunter
Hunter, Sarah
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hunter, Sarah. "How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told through Evolutionary Biology." Booklist, 15 Apr. 2017, p. 4. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA492536042&it=r&asid=4f2e9ee403201703f072ac858026eef1. Accessed 7 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A492536042
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes
(July 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
How the Zebra Got Its Stripes
Leo Grasset
Pegasus Books
80 Broad Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10004
www.pegasusbooks.com
9781681774145, $26.95, HC, 256pp, www.amazon.com
Why do giraffes have such long necks? Why are zebras striped? And why does the clitoris of the female hyena exactly resemble and in most respects function like the male's penis? Deploying the latest scientific research and his own extensive observations in Africa, in "How the Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian Stories Told Through Evolutionary Biology", author Leo Grasset offers answers to these questions and many more. Complex natural phenomena are explained in simple and at times comic terms, as Grasset turns evolutionary biology to the burning questions of the animal kingdom, from why elephants prefer dictators and buffaloes democracies, to whether the lion really is king. The human is, of course, just another animal, and Grasset's exploration of two million years of human evolution shows how it not only informs our current habits and behavior, but also reveals that we are hybrids of several different species. Serious science at its entertaining and accessible best, "How the Zebra Got Its Stripes" is very highly recommended for both community and academic library General Science collections. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "How the Zebra Got Its Stripes" is also available in a Kindle format ($12.99).
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How the Zebra Got Its Stripes." Internet Bookwatch, July 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA502653140&it=r&asid=05ebc6b9f0a420664c4b61c7c0b322cc. Accessed 7 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502653140
Zebras, giraffes, impalas and other evolutionary conundrums (Book Review)
Dec 22, 2016, 10.37 AM IST
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Leo Grasset Book Review: How the Zebra Got its Stripes And Other Darwinian Just So Stories
4to40 Team December 22, 2016 Book Reviews Leave a comment 330 Views
Author: Leo Grasset (translated by Barbara Mellor)
Publisher: Profile Books / Hachette India
Pages: 162
Price: Rs 499
It was birthplace of the human race but that is not the only contribution of Africa to life on our planet. On its sprawling savannah can be seen many intriguing and inexplicable natural phenomena, spanning morphology (stripes/long necks), behaviour (deer warning signals) and habitat (termite mounds), which show how it still is a laboratory of evolution. But the reasons or explanations are still elusive.
Why do giraffes have such elongated necks, and zebras are striped (and how does this help in constructing stealth ships)? Why are buffalo herds a model of incipient democracy, and elephants of dictatorships? What does the deer response to danger teach us about human crowd behaviour and what was wrongly depicted in the Disney hit “The Lion King”?
These are among questions that French natural scientist Leo Grasset seeks to answer in this informed and engaging update of Rudyard Kipling’s whimsical stories, but also showing how complex these phenomena are and “answers” are more of probabilities than certainties.
Citing eminent evolutionary biologist and geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, who held that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, he notes that “sometimes, when the questions being explored are at the cutting edge of scientific research, the light of evolution casts shadows that are hard to decipher!”
Grasset, who terms himself a “punk scientist par excellence” and runs the blog ‘Dans les testicules de Darwin’ devoted to biology, testosterone and rock’n’roll, is also one of France’s leading up-and-coming evolutionary biologists. He contends that of all the laws governing evolution of human beings, selection is the most powerful.
This, as he goes on to show, is “especially evident on the great African savannah” where if one individual possesses a slight advantage over the other, it will produce more young, which if inheriting and passing on the same advantage, will ultimately dominate the species’ gene pool while the other disadvantaged ones go into “evolutionary oblivion”.
Admitting this may be a bit simplified as things are not very straightfoward in the real world, he seeks to illustrates the theory with the case of the male nipple, and two rival reasons that seek to explain it. He goes on to two more oddities — the penis-shaped clitoris of the female hyena, horns of the female buffalo and some other quadrupeds — and continues to explore more bizarre sexual attributes such as male impalas’ behaviour in the breeding season.
In explanation, Grasset notes that “some apparently ‘natural’ characteristics” do not necessarily have a function, while some others, that seem to have no purpose, are the fruit of the important purpose of selection and do have some important functions.
“Evolution is a complicated phenomenon,” he holds, noting it “makes organs and appendages disappear, creates new ones and repurposes existing ones for different functions”. In light of all this, “it is sometimes difficult for biologists to understand the functions of the shapes and appearances of the creatures they study” and they are too ready to put out multiple, even contradictory hypotheses.
“Perhaps researchers are looking for simple explanations, whereas the exuberant creativity of evolution requires something far more complex,” he says, and proves it in attempts to explain, with a lot of wit, the reasons for the giraffe neck, the gazelle’s random flight, the zebra‘s stripes (which can also help it to escape anti-tank missiles!).
Grasset also introduces, with much similar wit, the marvels of termites’ “air conditioning”, the impalas’ “Mexican Wave”, the contrary political systems of buffalo and elephants, and the antelopes’ sexual manipulation as well as extraordinary creatures like the dung-beetle and the honey badger, habits like the elephants’ skill at discerning sounds, including of humans, and finally, his attempts, in a Zimbabwean game reserve, at finding out if zebras have individual personalities.
Also key are his investigations into the human effect on environment and the rest of the animal world as we learn that nature is not only stranger than what we think but much more stranger than we can think — and amazingly responsive and resilient too.