Finding a Wild, Fearsome World Beneath Every Fallen Leaf

Dr. Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino university research professor and honorary curator in entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, winner of two Pulitzer prizes and scientific honors too numerous to recount, is on his hands and knees, pawing in the leaf litter near Walden Pond.

He eases into a half-sitting, half-reclining position and holds out a handful of humus and dirt. "This," he says, "is wilderness." [read more]