The book highlights how samples taken in Yosemite and Olympic national parks built climate science\u2019s famous Keeling Curve, demonstrating increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Other examples include how findings at Pinnacles and Mauna Loa led to an understanding of plate tectonics, how Lassen\u2019s volcanic mud may reveal secrets of life\u2019s origin and how a Channel Islands canyon yielded some of the continent\u2019s oldest human bones.<\/p>\n
As Lull\u2019s book shows, every time we breathe air free of lead, enjoy microbe-based meat substitutes or dairy-free cream cheese, we benefit from discoveries made deep within U.S. national parks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s crystal clear from these stories is that national parks aren\u2019t just places where routine science occurs, but also essential settings for some of science\u2019s most important breakthroughs over the last 150 years,\u201d sLull said.<\/p>\n
![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Figure-4.9-768x1024.jpeg\")
Dr. Robert B. Lull works as a volunteer planting Joshua trees at Cima Dome in the Mojave National Preserve.<\/p>\n
Lull said the idea for the book started when he was filling in for a professor on sabbatical to teach the \u201cRevolutions in Natural and Social Sciences\u201d course for Smittcamp Family Honors College students at Fresno State. Since his background is in media and communication, he decided to reframe the course using science and nature documentaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One episode he showed told the story of geochemist Clair Patterson, who calculated the age of the Earth by measuring how long it takes radioactive uranium to decay into lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed as Neil deGrasse Tyson was telling this story on \u2018Cosmos,\u2019 he talked about how they went into the mountains, and they showed a paper on the screen during this particular episode,\u201d Lull said. \u201cIt sounded interesting, so I looked it up, found that the research took place in Lassen Volcanic National Park, and was intrigued.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lull looked up the 1960s study measuring lead-laced snow at Lassen Volcanic National Park, just six hours north of Fresno State. He later found that Patterson had established a field station in Thompson Canyon, a remote location in northeast Yosemite National Park. The lab ran for 25 years to sample how much lead came from natural sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey measured the rock as the baseline, but they kept going back measuring the little meadow creatures, the grass. They\u2019d measure the snow when it snowed. They measured everything, and the story was always the same. There\u2019s way too much lead here,\u201d Lull said. \u201cThere\u2019s no road anywhere near here, so it\u2019s floating in the air and it\u2019s contaminating the natural environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patterson\u2019s work revealed the Earth is 4.55 billion years old, a number that has held since 1956 after decades of varied estimates. He also found that the entire planet was contaminated with lead, leading the Environmental Protection Agency to ban leaded fuels for highway vehicles in 1996.<\/p>\n
While Lull was fascinated with the national parks\u2019 role in the study, it was not until the pandemic when media outlets widely reported that PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests used to diagnose COVID-19 stemmed from a 1966 discovery by microbiologist Thomas Brock. He found a heat-loving bacterium called Thermus aquaticus living in Mushroom Spring in Yellowstone National Park. That heat resistance meant scientists could cycle temperatures repeatedly to amplify DNA and RNA fragments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the lead story here, and we\u2019ve got the PCR story here,\u201d Lull said. \u201cThese were directly relevant to human health and science, and so I kept pulling on that [thread] and the book came out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lull hopes \u201cOur Natural Lab\u201d will inspire his students\u2019 curiosity, deepen the local appreciation of the national parks in the Valley\u2019s backyard and enlighten readers to the scientific importance that hides within the natural beauty of the public lands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything [the book] can do to cultivate more of a connection to the natural world locally \u2013 as granular a level as my students, and as wide a level as the whole region \u2013 that\u2019s a major goal of mine,\u201d Lull said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although thoroughly researched with hundreds of citations, the book features the accessible, narrative flow of a documentary and is intended to be enjoyed by science and nature lovers alike, Lull said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
By revealing the world-changing breakthroughs that occurred in the \u201cThree Sisters\u201d \u2013 Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon \u2013 Lull hopes to inspire his students and Valley residents to explore the world-class natural laboratories right in their backyard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As he tells his students at the end of every class, \u201cPut your phone down, go touch grass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Located 75 minutes from Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite \u2013 the \u201cThree Sisters\u201d as Dr. Robert B. Lull…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-452755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}