Science à la Carte

Abstract

At 19,019 miles, winding through seventeen different countries, the Pan American Highway holds the Guinness Book of World Record as the longest motorable road in the world. As it turns south from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, the road passes through arctic tundra, boreal forests, prairies, arid deserts, and mountains. In Costa Rica, the highway climbs to almost eleven thousand feet before traversing the “Summit of Death.” Undeterred, it continues across rivers and dense tropical jungle before abruptly stopping deep in the Darién province of Panama. From here, the only way south is by water or air, until starting up again in Colombia.

It is not just the people who work in the laboratories who do the science, but everyone who takes part in sponsoring, producing, justifying, or making use of scientific knowledge.

— Robert E. Kohler, 1990