Pictorial tributes to the natural world and to crowning achievements in science, engineering, and medicine adorn the granite walls in the cavernous lobby of the National Academies Building in Washington. On the back wall, a giant salmon hovers, midstream, just to the right of Einstein's E=mc2. A much smaller fish, its design evocative of an Inuit totem, is inscribed in the middle of the salmon's body, perhaps as a tribute to native cultures or as a nod to the diminutive but central role of the human dimension in the natural world.