Tree of Life
M y childhood was full of adventures, though mostly happening within the walls of our apartment. I have tried all the professions imaginable, enthusiastically sampling them one at a time. I was a cartographer, making detailed maps of the areas surrounding our building, giving mysterious Latin names to its different bits and extending the map towards the terra incognita around. I was a nature explorer, zoologist and botanist who, besides extending the corresponding collections through regular "expeditions" to the playing grounds, was also a humble observer, logging hourly observations on the activities of different types of birds linked to the temperature, humidity (a single long hair regularly donated by my cousin was serving for this purpose, see here ), precipitation, atmospheric pressure (a milk bottle with a rubber membrane from balloons on its opening that had a clock hand attached to the centre of the membrane) etc. I was an ecologist, thoroughly surveying and...