Lost in Curiosity
In most known frog species, males advertise their sexual availability with mating calls while females choose their partners in silence. So when graduate student Johana Goyes Vallejos heard of an obscure frog species with vocalizing females, she wanted to know more. The inch‑long, nocturnal frog, known as the smooth guardian frog, was tough to find in the Bornean rainforest, but when Vallejos did find them, she discovered that not only did the females call, they did so before, during, and after mating. The behavior hinted at an inversion of the Darwinian script, suggesting a rare case of sex‑role reversal — a phenomenon that had never been reported before in frogs.
In Lost in Curiosity, science journalist Roberta Kwok embeds with Vallejos and other young researchers working in fields ranging from paleontology to astronomy to reveal the unglamorous effort that underlies testing hypotheses and the grunt work behind the research stories that typically make the news. The result is nine rigorously reported, character‑driven narratives in which the scientific process, rather than its outcomes, takes centerstage.
The protagonists in Kwok’s narrative share a core persistence, grounded in quiet conviction that their work matters. But small details tell readers about their distinct personalities. In a field where the evidence may take years to materialize, astrophysicist Apurva Oza names a hypothetical exomoon after a Bollywood song — unafraid to attach himself emotionally to an object whose existence is hard to prove. Urban ecologist and Afrofuturist Chris Schell, whose research examines how structural inequities shape the ecology of urban wildlife, frequently quotes Batman, hinting at a preoccupation with justice and hidden systems.
Shadowing researchers, Kwok shows readers what scientists notice, what they infer, and how they recalibrate hypotheses and expectations based on what they find. In Berkeley, CA, for example, when a coyote stomach yields a dozen undigested baby rats, Schell is delighted, because it allows him to recast the animal as a human ally rather than a scourge. Rat predation could potentially slow the transmission of certain diseases in cities, a point he can press with groups intent on culling neighborhood coyotes.
In Greenland, glaciologist Jessica Mejia realizes she can no longer access her GPS stations, installed earlier that year at a crevasse. A warm summer has melted six feet of snow instead of the expected six inches, making it unsafe to land near those units. Mejia notes that the crevasse has widened — exactly the change the instruments were meant to capture — and decides to return with a rope team the next summer to retrieve the equipment and the data.
Vallejos — a Colombian citizen — faced a near decade‑long delay in securing the visas and permits required to return to her first field station. Once, what she thought would be an epic expedition never materialized. The experience left her “flabbergasted, defeated and heartbroken.” Fieldwork, it turns out, is the result of a combination of scientific intent and an array of variables — funding, weather, geopolitics, and other factors — that determine what can be accomplished in any given season.
The question arises: can truth be wrested from nature through valiant but necessarily sporadic attempts? Here, Kwok cites philosopher of science Michael Strevens, who argues in The Knowledge Machine that “it is by accounting for the fraction of an inch, the sliver of a degree, that the truth will make itself known.” What will all of the labor Kwok recounts — whether in extreme environs, in climate‑controlled labs, or late at night in a researcher’s home — amount to? Scientific proof offers no guarantee of action. More than one of Kwok’s subjects suggests that hard‑won evidence could make inaction indefensible, particularly in the face of existential threats such as climate change and pandemics.
One of the book’s strongest chapters unfolds in Navajo Nation, where a new generation of Diné researchers is tracing the long shadow of uranium mining — a Cold War enterprise that left Indigenous communities exposed to radiation. Cleaning up the abandoned mines would take a “Manhattan Project–like effort,” and this may never be forthcoming. Does that mean the damage will never be undone? Diné environmental toxicologist Richelle Lynn Thomas tests whether medicinal plants absorb heavy metals from the soil, a question her traditional‑healer grandfather had wanted answered. She analyzes soil samples and helps people decide where they can safely farm. Scientific agency becomes a form of healing and restoration.
With Lost in Curiosity, Kwok brings readers to the wings of a play whose ending has not yet been written. The drama lies in the process of discovery; the almost irrational insistence on continuing to search for answers, and the endurance to persist despite setbacks. It reminds us that science is not about answers delivered, but about the refusal to stop asking questions.