Domestication
The posted coordinates, of course, aren't to the cache. It's hidden somewhere in a standard way, nothing fancy. The reward is in the learning here.
To find this cache, you'll need to do a crossword puzzle and a good amount of research on the topic of domestication. This mainly centers around the ongoing experiment performed by Dmitry Belyayev and Lyudmila Trut in Russia. To solve this cache, you'll first have to complete the crossword puzzle below. The clues to the puzzle are arranged in an order that kind of tells part of the story of this experiment in domestication. I wanted to share enough of the fascinating story that might get you interested in looking up the rest. When a clue refers to a person, it's always the person's last name. When it refers to a word in a phrase, the "xxxx" part means the word in the phrase. And I've been careful about tense and plurality in the clues, so make note.
Once you solve the crossword below, use the following formula. The notation "1A (3)" means the third letter of the 1A answer. Transform the letter of the alphabet to its numerical equivalent, remove the tens digit, and only use the ones digit. So, if 1A was "boxer", the number you'd need is 4 because "x" is the 24th letter of the alphabet. Make sure you pay close attention to the addition and subtraction signs!
Please be warned. I fed some of these questions into Chat GPT and it produced several incorrect answers. The facts I'm using are from a book coauthored by one of the principal investigators--now the lead--in the domestication experiment. You should be able to find or intuit the answers without this book as I've given a ton of context in the clues.
If you like topics like this, you might also enjoy The Butchering Art, which tells the story of Joseph Lister and germ theory. And now you know some of the audio books I listen to when traveling to and from caching destinations.
Final Coordinates
N 36 05.ABC / W 79 48.XYZ
A = 5D (5) + 10D (6) + 9D (3)
B = 2D (4) + 17D (2) + 16A (4) - 1A (3)
C = 13A (2) + 6D (7) - 4A (6) + 3D (3)
X = 8D (5) - 12A (3) + 12A (12) - 3A (5) + 15A (8)
Y = 7D (9) + 14D (6)
Z = 18A (7) + 11D (2) - 11D (6)
Crossword Puzzle
5 Down - Stalin promoted this uneducated peasant man to the director position at the Academy of Sciences. The only experience in crop breeding he had was in cultivating sugar beets. Genetics would expose him and his work as a fraud, so he aggressively opposed genetics. He ruined the careers of and sometimes executed Russian scientists who worked with genetics--even Belyayev's own brother. The animal domestication experiment had to disguise itself as a way to produce better furs and research into increasing the breeding cycles to more than once a year. It was a very dangerous time to be in genetics. Belyayev, however, was difficult to touch because he was well-respected by the government for being able to produce furs that sold extremely well on the world market, giving the USSR much-needed cash. Belyayev called this man a "scientific bandit" and spoke out against him. In fact, this man has an entire scientific way of thought named after him!
10 Down - The xxxx in the Science of Biology
The most disingenuous speech made in the history of science, made by the person in the answer above. The speaker denounced Mendelian genetics (you know, Gregor Mendel and the peas?) and furthered Lamarckian inheritance. Lamarckian inheritance argued that traits used by an organism over its lifetime can be inherited. For example, if an organism used a particular organ extensively, that organ would become more developed and then be inherited by its offspring. It's like saying a bodybuilder's children will inherit the bodybuilder's muscles. Genetics, on the other hand, says DNA is used to pass traits on. This speech and its adoption by the Communist Party set back Russian genetics for decades, making it dangerous to work the field.
9 Down - This man collected more than 250,000 domesticated plant specimens, and more live specimens than anyone in history. He wrote more than 350 papers, several books, mastered more than a dozen languages, and worked in trying to solve Russia's famines through crop breeding. He traveled the world looking for domesticated plant samples and the birthplace of domesticated plant species. Through studying plants, he was able to identify eight centers of world plant domestication. His life was like a movie: after WW I, his ship struck a German mine and sunk, losing the samples he had collected during a trip; he was arrested on the Iran-Russia border and accused of being a spy because he had some German textbooks with him; in the central Asia region, he was abandoned by his guide, ditched from his caravan, and was attacked by robbers; he fell between two train cars on the border of Afghanistan and was left dangling by his elbows while the train kept running; in Syria, he contracted both malaria and typhus; and he contracted dysentery many times. He kept going. In the end, due to his opposition to the government's anti-genetics stance, he was forbidden to travel abroad and was publicly denounced. He refused to back down from his conviction in genetics. He was later thrown into prison and slowly starved to death over three years. His work deeply influenced and interested Belyayev.
2 Down - Humans have tried to domesticate many animals over the millennia. For example, deer have been a good food source in parts of the world. However, no matter how humans tried with the dozens of deer species, only this one species of deer has been domesticated. It's the same with horses and zebras: though similar, zebras could not be domesticated. Just because two species are similar doesn't mean both can be domesticated. So, the question is this: why can some animals be domesticated and others can't?
17 Down - Belyayev used this animal for the domestication experiment. The question is this: just how long did it take wolves to be domesticated into dogs? What pressures were involved? Did humans capture and tame the wolves? Did the wolves self-select for tameness and start hanging around humans because they were a consistent food source? What was the early relationship like? Belyayev thought if they bred this animal solely on tameness, domestication could eventually follow, but might take decades or centuries for just tiny changes to show up. What other traits would follow along with domestication? Everyone would be surprised at what happened in the experiment. Later, it was thought humans, due to tool use and speech, domesticated themselves. Then when wolves began selecting for domestication, humans and dogs both underwent changes due to their association with each other.
16 Across - The xxxx Rush
A so-called time in Prince Edward Island when beautiful pelts rose from a couple hundred dollars to $2,500 on the world market. The finest breeding pairs were selling for tens of thousands of dollars. Russian fur breeders imported several of these animals to get in the market. By the late 1930s, the Soviet Union was one of the top exporters of this animal's fur. However, the animals were aggressive towards humans and everyone had to wear two inch thick gloves to avoid being bitten. Belyayev started his experiment at a fur farm with a small group of these animals. Soon after, the experiment was moved to another farm and Lyudmila Trut was recruited to oversee it.
1 Across - The domestication experiment began, and the animals were selected only for tameness. In just the fourth generation, an animal by this name consistently wagged his tail when humans approached him. None in his generation did so, and this trait was not repeated until the sixth generation. In addition, the animals were becoming noticeably tame and more comfortable around humans. Belyayev and the researchers were stunned that in such little time their experiment was showing results. Just how fast can these animals be domesticated? By the sixth generation, many animals were coming to the front of their cages and licking the caretakers' hands. So fast!
13 Across - The classification given to the animals that most exhibited the markers for domestication. Animals in this category were tame, exhibited friendly behavior, tail wagging, licking or nuzzling, and seeking out human social contact. The third generation had 5% of animals in this category. The sixth had 50%, and the tenth generation was past 80%. It should be noted there was a control group. Later, they began the process in reverse, breeding for aggression--and, sadly, they succeeded (because those animals were extremely aggressive). In one experiment, eggs from tame and aggressive mothers were swapped in an experiment to determine whether the behaviors were genetic or learned. The aggressive mothers birthed tame pups and vice-versa, proving the tameness was not a learned behavior. Though the aggressive mothers tried to discipline their tame pups when they attempted to seek human contact, the mothers were unsuccessful as the pups remained tame.
6 Down (plural) - According to the experiment, it's said these optimize an animal to its environment. The findings suggested a link between the selection for tameness and changes in xxxx regulation in the stress response and social behavior. The experiment provided insights into the genetic basis of the observed xxxx changes and their connection to the broader process of domestication. Later, it was proven there were significant changes due to domestication. One of the first of these discovered was adrenaline.
8 Down - Speaking of the above, when a human mother stares into a baby's eyes, this becomes elevated in each. Same when people pet a dog. Having an animal relationship seems to be good for health. Scientists tried the same with a wolf, cow, and pigs and the levels of this were unchanged. But when interacting with the animals in Belyayev's domestication experiment, it was shown this was also elevated in both the human and animal when interacting. This is a strong indication of a bond forming between humans and their domesticated pets. The animals in this experiment have never been domesticated before, and yet this distinct reaction was showing up with them when being petted. Further proof of not only domestication, but also the bond shared.
4 Across - xxxx Selection
One of Belyayev's theories, though not the major purpose of the domestication experiment. Usually, the wild will select for certain traits and won't deviate too much. For example, gray wolves, zebras, and lions all seem to adhere to a standard morphology: not too much difference between individuals. But with domesticated dogs, you see an extreme variety of traits due to domestication. So too did the animals in this experiment begin to develop doglike traits: curly tails, floppy ears, piebald coats, star patterns on faces, etc. It seems when you select for tameness, a ton of other morphological traits come along for the ride.
3 Down - Animals in the wild engage in less of this behavior as they mature--and many different species do this. Domestication, however, seems to prolong this behavior. Indeed, domestic dogs perform this behavior all the time. This behavior is important for social interaction and in a willingness to explore one's environment. In studies, once a wild adult animal knows something is not food, they're not interested in it. But domestic animals tend to continue interacting with the object, known as object xxxx, for no other reason than amusement. The animals in the experiment were exhibiting this behavior more and more. Over the years, the experiment caught the eye of animal behaviorists, and several intriguing experiments were run.
12 Across - The Role of Hereditary xxxx of Behavior in the Process of Domestication
Belyayev was invited to give a talk at the ethology conference when it was held in Scotland. This is his presentation's title. Everyone who was anyone in the field was at this conference. This was the first time someone from the USSR was invited to such an event. Belyayev's findings astonished the community and put Russian genetics on the map. Belyayev showed some photos of animals from the experiment. Many people thought he was fooling them by showing pictures of dogs, so close to dogs the animals were becoming.
Hint: The term also seems to apply to businesses
3 Across - The name of the animal in the fifth generation that Lyudmila moved into a house on the experiment's grounds and lived with as part of the domestication experiment. This was the first animal that came when its name was called. This was an astonishing animal, loving and loyal in all the ways dogs are. One night, it sensed something wasn't right and ran off to bark at a security guard and settled down immediately--just like a dog--when Lyudmila began talking with the guard. It was never-seen behavior in this species, that an animal would seek out the threat and bark to warn a human of danger. This animal even fooled Lyudmila one day. She came to the house and saw the animal lying on the ground, seeming not even to breathe. Lyudmila thought it had died and, after checking the animal, went to call a vet. She looked back and saw a crow had landed near the animal, intent on having a snack. The animal then jumped up and caught the crow. This demonstrated a clear thought and planning process that had not been witnessed before (at least by her group; I know of another naturist studying this species in the wild in Great Britain around the same time who also witnessed this behavior). Sadly, though, this animal and all but one of her litter were slaughtered when some thugs broke into the house and killed them to sell their fur. Lyudmila and the team took this hard because the animals had not before understood that there are humans that are unkind. When the thugs broke in, the animals probably approached them for affection and were slaughtered instead.
15 Across - John xxxx
Finally, Russia got to host the genetics conference. In 1977, this head of the department of genetics at NC State University was invited to the Akademgorodok (where the experiment was in Novosibirsk) to evaluate the Soviet research programs (not only this experiment). He gave the programs flying colors. Belyayev, of course, showed him the animals. Like anyone exposed to them, his heart melted. This experiment became known as the institute's calling card, their major achievement in the field. Tons of research papers and experiments regarding these animals (genetics, behavior, and psychology) were produced.
Hint: He's listed as a professor emeritus at NCSU
7 Down - American xxxx
After the collapse of the USSR, funding became tight, but the institution managed to scrape together the funds necessary to continue the experiment. In only a couple years, the collapse meant there was no funding for anything at all. Lyudmila had to go out and beg passing cars for money or food to feed the animals. They couldn't even pay any of the caretakers, though some remained to work free. Lyudmila wrote an article to this magazine to tell of the experiment and its plight. She had 700 animals at the start. While waiting through the -40F Siberian winter, she couldn't keep all the animals fed. Some starved. Others--mostly in the control and aggressive groups--she had to kill and sell furs to keep the tame group fed. Even the tame group suffered. Several caretakers had to go into therapy because they were so distraught over the animals' deaths. One person even had a mental breakdown and had to be admitted to a psychiatric ward. Finally, in a spring issue, this magazine published her article and pictures. She dared to hope that something would come of it. Letters began to pour in from around the world, from people asking how they could donate to the experiment, some a little, some tens of thousands of dollars. The experiment continues to this day. In the early 2010s, I heard you could purchase a nonbreeding animal from the experiment for $6,000 (and it would take an additional $3,000 for paperwork and importing the animal).
14 Down - Some of the domesticated animals began making a vocalization that sounded like this sound humans make. None of the control or aggressive animals ever made this vocalization. Lyudmila made several recordings and eventually found someone to analyze the sound. The researcher said if you graphed out this sound and put it next to a human making the sound, she'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference as it's eerily similar. On a side note, if you pull up any YouTube video of Finnegan Fox at SaveAFox, you can hear him making the same vocalization when he's being petted.
18 Across - This is a gesture humans make when they want to call attention to something. Dogs are geniuses at studying human gestures and determining what humans want and mean. No other animal came close to them. In an experiment, food was hidden under one of two cans. The human would then make this gesture at the can with the food. Sometimes, the can would only have an item on top to denote it. Dogs immediately understood what the human was doing and went for the food. It was later repeated with toys to the same results. Wolves, as dogs' cousins, did not do well with this experiment. Primates faired less than dogs, some not understanding at all. When this experiment was done with the animals in the experiment, the control and aggressive groups didn't do well, either. However, the domesticated group did on average slightly better than dogs. Considering dogs have had tens of thousands of years to study humans and get used to gestures and reading humans' faces and tones of voice, no one expected an experiment only fifty years old domesticating these animals could produce animals that were even better than dogs at reading humans and interpreting their gestures. It's said these domesticated animals are loyal and smart like dogs, independent like cats.
11 Down - Man is Making a New xxxx
Belyayev died in 1985. He wanted to write a book about these animals to let the world know. This is what he wanted to title the book. Lyudmila, who was handling the experiment for him since almost its inception, continued running the experiment after his death, and to this day. She ended up writing a book with another author in the late 2010s, but used a different title.