Word: knoll
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...high school student, Andy Knoll was an avid fossil collector, but it never occurred to him that he would someday become a paleontologist. Where he came from, a small town near Reading, Pa., bright teenagers aspired to careers in medicine, law and, in Knoll's case, engineering. But one day while sitting in his dorm room at Lehigh University, Knoll realized that he hated engineering and loved biology and geology. That's when it hit him: as a paleontologist he could indulge his passion for both...
That revelation marked the beginning of Knoll's lifelong fascination with one of the most mysterious episodes in the history of our planet: the sudden appearance some 540 million years ago of a wild profusion of multicelled animals. That event, known as the Cambrian Explosion, created the evolutionary dynamic that produced most of the species that subsequently populated the earth, from insects and fish to dinosaurs and humans. Given his background, Knoll was particularly interested in how geophysical and geochemical changes (caused by powerful tectonic forces) might have set the stage for everything that followed...
...Knoll said he does not take Time’s praise too seriously...
...winner of many major awards, including being elected to the National Academy of Sciences—an event that “for most scientists, tells you you’ve arrived,” he said—Knoll said he feels the awards from his peers are more important than honors from the media...
...Although Knoll said he is grateful for the recognition, he added, “it’s not something that has any great or important long-term consequences...