Sir

In his otherwise excellent Millennium Essay1, Roel Snieder proposes an analogy between scientific specialists and tube worms found at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. He advocates Homo universalis, an interdisciplinary 'team-player' who can communicate effectively with colleagues from other fields.

But although individual tube worms themselves don't move into new (vent) fields when conditions change, it is now becoming apparent that their notable symbioses with chemoautotrophic bacteria, their remarkable physiological adaptations and their impressive reproductive capabilities allow their species to deal quickly with changing conditions by colonizing new opportunities (vents) — and yes, even interbreeding among different colonies, in time2.

And a good thing, too, because deep-sea vents at fast-spreading centres are, individually, some of the most unstable habitats on this planet. Perhaps tube worms would make good interdisciplinary scientists, after all.