The New Nautilus Issue—Play

[[newsletter20_header.png] June 6, 2019 [16101_117007d714adf33db6d2653d903ebf2d.png] Chapter One: Risk]( [READ ISSUE]( Dear Nautilus Reader, In his new book, Life Finds a Way, Andreas Wagner informs us that nature is a playpen for life to mess around in. He ends with an understatement that sounds this month’s Nautilus theme. “The 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas was onto something when he wrote that God created the world in play.” Wagner is not a philosopher. He’s an exquisite evolutionary biologist and writer who’s helped advance the understanding of evolution as not just survival of the fittest but, as the title of his previous book has it, Arrival of the Fittest. Natural selection alone can’t explain life’s extraordinary diversity, Wagner writes. That’s “because natural selection is not a creative force. It does not innovate, but merely selects what’s already there.” Wagner magnifies the chemical reactions and molecules that form the primary colors of nature’s innovations. In Life Finds a Way, he shows how biochemical reactions can be applied to us and our institutions, nations and schools, to enhance creativity and harmony. In fact, the role of play can’t be understated in nature. Let’s talk spiders, as Wagner does in this week’s Nautilus article, “Why It Pays to Play Around.” Male spiders of the species Anelosimus studiosus play at sex with females before the females are capable of reproduction. The males, evolutionary biologists Jonathan Pruitt and Susan Riechert tell us (Wagner cites their research), screw around to perfect copulating quickly and effectively. Why? Because the faster they perform with fecund females the less likely they are to be A) attacked by aggressive males and B) eaten by their female partners. Females also get something out of the foreplay. By the time they’re ready to produce eggs they sense which males have the goods for the most fit offspring. This issue also explores the emergence of play outside the forest. Indre Viskontas, who has a dual career in neuroscience and opera singing, takes us inside the concert hall to explain how musical ensembles tap into brain wells of creativity and empathy that can’t be reached by going it alone. We also look at a dark side of play. Barclay Bram, a writer and Oxford University Ph.D. candidate stationed in China, shares his everyday experiences with the app WeChat, which nearly everybody in China uses to connect in play and work and everything in between. The WeChat ecosystem, however, bears the fingerprints of forces in nature, namely dominance and control, that stifle the vital evolution of play. All told, we’re delighted to bring you another diverse issue, at play in the fields of science. Best, Kevin Berger Editor info@nautil.us [16077_55aef34e0d62637c23ad60186310cd4d.png]( [16091_f9d826b62995d8bfe6d12ccd4d3b9ffa.png]( [Why It Pays to Play Around Play is so important that nature invented it long before it invented us. By Andreas Wagner The 19th-century physicist Hermann von Helmholtz compared his progress in solving a problem to that of a mountain climber “compelled to retrace his steps because his progress stopped.”](  [16081_6aeb3208dc5a2684a711578fbfdc3121.png]( [Paid Advertisement Keep Up With World News With This Newsletter Daily Pnut is the fastest way to consume the most important news from around the world. From China to South Africa to England to Russia - Daily Pnut reports on everything. Sign up for Daily Pnut today and start getting the world in a nutshell tomorrow.](  [9127_b0ced0814fa6619b258c1dc71bc965c9.png]( [Learning Chess at 40 What I learned trying to keep up with my 4-year-old daughter at the royal game. By Tom Vanderbilt My 4-year-old daughter and I were deep into a game of checkers one day about three years ago when her eye drifted to a nearby table.](  [16102_6ca4e9af5ea662a095c3243dc591bf54.png]( [Your Support Matters NAUTILUS PRIME Support science journalism by becoming a member of Nautilus Prime. Gain access to unlimited content on Nautilus, and more!](.  [3550_018dd1e07a2de4a08e6612341bf2323e.png]( [Why I Traveled the World Hunting for Mutant Bugs A researcher who works through painting tells her story. By Cornelia Hesse-Honegger When Chernobyl happened, I knew it was time for me to act.]( [READ ISSUE]( [nwms_fb.png]( [nwms_twt.png]( [nwms_ing.png]( NautilusThink, Inc. 233 Broadway Suite 720New York, NY 10279 [Add us to your address book]( Copyright © 2019 NautilusThink, Inc., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website. [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](