Humans Made Conchs Shrink (And One Kid Saw It Coming)

The classic, swirling shell of a conch helps protect it from hungry birds and sea creatures, but when a human decides to pluck one from shallow water and boil it for supper, there's not much the animal can do. Its only defense is to evolve, as a species, to be smaller and less appealing to people. That's what conchs in the Caribbean have done—today's humans get 40 percent less food out of a conch than our ancestors did. But that's not so surprising to a 12-year-old girl who described almost the same thing in a piece of fiction. To explain the fictional version, I have to insert myself into this story—hello! In my day job I edit a kids' science magazine called Muse. We recently ran a contest that asked readers to write a brief, made-up story in the style of the magazine's science news page. (The results were sometimes ...