1970s

Aircraft Accident Report: United Airlines Flight 173, DC-8-61, Portland, Oregon

The copilot knew they were running out of fuel. He didn't say it clearly enough. On December 28, 1978, United Airlines Flight 173 crashed into suburba...

Decomposition in Terrestrial Ecosystems

This classic textbook synthesized decomposition biology including the cascade of decomposer organisms from scavengers to mineralizers. It established...

On the theory of central place foraging

Orians and Pearson extended optimal foraging theory to situations where organisms must return to a fixed location, fundamentally changing the optimiza...

The roaring of red deer and the evolution of honest advertisement

Classic study demonstrating that red deer roaring contests are honest signals of stamina and fighting ability. Higher roaring rates predict contest ou...

Energy maximization in the diet of the shore crab, Carcinus maenas

Elner and Hughes provided the empirical demonstration that shore crabs optimize mussel selection exactly as optimal foraging theory predicts. Their de...

Golden-winged Sunbird Territorial Economics Studies

Empirical demonstration of resource-defense threshold with precise caloric accounting. Gill's tracking of 47 sunbirds over 3 years across different fl...

Micromotives and Macrobehavior

Schelling's influential book explored how individual behaviors aggregate into collective patterns, including tipping points and coordination games. Hi...

Threshold models of collective behavior

Granovetter's seminal paper provided the theoretical foundation for understanding threshold-based collective action in human systems. He showed how in...

A History of the Span of Management

This historical review traced the evolution of span of control concepts in management theory, from early prescriptive rules (5-6 subordinates maximum)...

Evolution of ageing

Kirkwood's disposable soma theory reframes aging from biological defect to strategic resource allocation. The insight that organisms invest just enoug...

Mechanisms of Succession in Natural Communities and Their Role in Community Stability and Organization

Landmark paper that distinguished facilitation (early species enable later species) from inhibition (early species prevent later species) as successio...

On the Evolution of Photoreceptors and Eyes

This landmark review estimated that eyes have evolved independently at least 40 times across animal phyla, documenting the diversity of eye types (com...

The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process

This seminal paper coined the term 'fundamental attribution error' - the systematic tendency to overweight dispositional (personality-based) explanati...

Interviews and Kodak Archives

First-hand accounts of the 1975 digital camera invention at Kodak and the 1976 executive demonstration. Documents the 'that's cute - but don't tell an...

Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem

Charnov's marginal value theorem is the foundational mathematical framework for the entire chapter. It formalizes when organisms should leave a resour...

Optimal Foraging, the Marginal Value Theorem

Why Bamboos Wait So Long to Flower

Janzen first proposed the 'predator satiation' hypothesis explaining why bamboo species flower synchronously on 40-120 year cycles. This counterintuit...

Aggressive Mimicry in Photuris Fireflies: Signal Repertoires by Femmes Fatales

She answers his flash. He flies toward her. She eats him. Lloyd's classic 1975 paper documented the most ruthless exploitation of honest signaling in...

Mate selection - a selection for a handicap

Why do peacocks waste energy growing enormous tails that make them easier to catch? Amotz Zahavi's 1975 handicap principle revolutionized understandin...

Okinawa Centenarian Study

Okinawa, Japan has one of the world's highest concentrations of centenarians. Traditional Okinawan diet involves eating until 80% full ('hara hachi bu...

Scent-Marking in Wolves

Foundational study on wolf scent marking behavior and degradation rates. The finding that scent marks degrade 30% per week (worthless after 3 weeks) f...

The social significance of avian winter plumage variability

Demonstrates that house sparrow badge size is kept honest by social enforcement rather than production costs. Males with artificially enlarged badges...

Sea otters: Their role in structuring nearshore communities

This paper established sea otters as keystone species in kelp forest ecosystems by comparing Aleutian islands with and without otter populations. The...

A new evolutionary law

Why do companies with decades of dominance collapse overnight? Van Valen's 1973 analysis of extinction patterns in the fossil record revealed a devast...

Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence

Established the encephalization quotient methodology for comparing brain sizes across species. Documents human EQ of ~7-8, meaning human brains are 7-...

Job Market Signaling

Why would anyone pay $200,000 for a credential that teaches them nothing they'll use at work? Michael Spence's answer won the Nobel Prize: because edu...

Size and shape in biology

McMahon's paper provided rigorous mathematical treatment of how structural scaling works in biology. He showed why elephants have proportionally thick...

Circadian rhythms in drinking behavior and locomotor activity of rats are eliminated by hypothalamic lesions

Published simultaneously with Moore & Eichler's work, this study independently confirmed that SCN lesions eliminate circadian rhythms. Stephan and Zuc...

COLREGS: Preventing Collisions at Sea

Between 1956 and 1960: 60 collisions in the Strait of Dover. After COLREGS traffic separation schemes: 16 collisions. This is distributed coordination...

Loss of a circadian adrenal corticosterone rhythm following suprachiasmatic lesions in the rat

One of two independent 1972 studies that first identified the suprachiasmatic nucleus as essential for circadian rhythms. Moore and Eichler showed tha...

Geometry for the selfish herd

Every animal in a herd is trying to get to the center. Not for warmth, not for social bonding, not for the good of the group—but to put other animals...

Selforganization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules

Eigen's foundational work introduced the concept of the 'error threshold' - the highest mutation rate a population can sustain without fitness collaps...

Cellular control of the synthesis and activity of the bacterial luminescent system

Kenneth Nealson's 1970 discovery fundamentally changed how we understand bacterial life. Studying Vibrio fischeri - bacteria that live in squid light...

Die Riechschwelle des Seidenspinners

This foundational research demonstrated that male silk moths can detect single molecules of the sex pheromone bombykol, representing the extreme sensi...

Die Riechschwelle des Seidenspinners (The Olfactory Threshold of the Silkworm Moth)

One molecule. That's all it takes. Kaissling and Priesner demonstrated that male silk moths detect single molecules of bombykol, operating at the theo...