Part I I wasraised in a redbrick Baltimore row housewhere summer was marked by the ti- honored ritual of firefly-chasing - a backyard tradition that has endured the gene- tions.Amidtheexcitement, myfatheroftentoldthestoryofhow, whenhewasachild, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University had appealed for the systematic capture of live fireflies en masse. Science had engaged the Baltimore youth in an entrepreneurial quest to jar as many lightning bugs as the dwindling light of dusk would permit. The very next morning, each 100-count glass jar of glowing crawling insects could be exchanged at...