最新一期的Systematic Biology（IF=10.225）发表了一篇奇葩，这篇文章竟然是一首诗！诗的题目是生命之树，作者是俄勒冈州立大学David R. Maddison，这位仁兄诗兴大发，竟然在SCI期刊上写起诗来，真是令人无比艳羡。我若是毕不了业，在SCI上灌两首诗，是否就不愁毕业啦！此诗文全文如下，SB连接网址http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/04/sysbio.sys057.full。

Tree of Life

 I think that I shall never see

A thing so awesome as the Tree

hat links us all in paths of genes

 Down into depths of time unseen;

Whose many branches spreading wide

House wondrous creatures of the tide,

Ocean deep and mountain tall,

Darkened cave and waterfall.

 

Among the branches we may find

Creatures there of every kind,

From microbe small to redwood vast,

From fungus slow to cheetah fast.

 

As glaciers move, strikes asteroid

A branch may vanish in the void:

At Permian's end and Tertiary's door,

The Tree was shaken to its core.

 

The leaves that fall are trapped in time

Beneath cold sheets of sand and lime;

But new leaves sprout as mountains rise,

Breathing life anew 'neath future skies.

 

On one branch the leaves burst forth:

A jointed limb of firework growth.

With inordinate fondness for splitting lines,

Armored beetles formed myriad kinds.

 

Wandering there among the leaves,

In awe of variants Time conceived,

We ponder the shape of branching fates,

And elusive origins of their traits.

 

Three billion years the Tree has grown

From replicators' first seed sown

To branches rich with progeny:

The wonder of phylogeny.