Life is full of questions, some much more compelling than others. Nonetheless, moving to a big city, Dan and I have been exposed to an inexplicable phenomenon of nature unobserved in suburban areas: the pigeon, a crowning jewel in the evolutionary process. These fine, feathered friends, who are neither fine nor friends, eat anything from tin cans to cigarette butts. They bathe lavishly in refuse water. They drink, it seems exclusively, from discarded beer bottles. Last night the Moscow temperature dropped from 32 F (0 C) to -4 F (-20 C); yet, there they were at sunrise, standing on our window sill, their beady little eyes staring into our warm apartment as if to say, "you'd best give us your bread if you knew what was good for you, spoiled little aristocrats." Why won't the pigeons die? What is their secret? What biological purpose can they possibly be serving by continuing on in this manner? The pigeon: one of the 7 greatest wonders of the world. I guess not all mi...