Telling the Bees(emergencemagazine.org) Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an enduring spirit of survival.
The Dire Wolf Is Back(newyorker.com) Extinction is a part of nature. Of the five billion species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 per cent have vanished.
Getting hit by lightning is good for some tropical trees(caryinstitute.org) Getting zapped with millions of volts of electricity may not sound like a healthy activity, but for some trees, it is. A new study, published in New Phytologist, reports that some tropical tree species are not only able to tolerate lightning strikes, but benefit from them. The trees may have even evolved to act as lightning rods.
14 points by simonebrunozzi 41 days ago | 3 comments
Hyperion (Tree)(wikipedia.org) Hyperion is a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in California that is the world's tallest known living tree, measured at 116.07 metres (380.8 ft) tall in 2019.[1][3]
Backyard Cyanide(suziepetryk.com) There’s a bushy tree in my backyard with these dark red fruit — the kind that makes some primal instinct scream at you across millennia, but you can’t tell if it wants you to eat them or not.
Magpies and crows are using “anti-bird spikes” to make nests (2023)(audubon.org) Humans have made the world less hospitable for birds in many ways. One obvious and intentional example of this can be found in towns and cities worldwide: anti-bird spikes. The pointy wires you might see attached to roofs, ledges, and light poles are meant to deter urban species like pigeons from landing, pooping, and even nesting where people don’t want them to. But in an avian act of poetic justice, a handful of European birds have struck back.
234 points by perihelions 47 days ago | 84 comments
How to Build a Thousand-Year-Old Tree(noemamag.com) As the world faces an accelerating crisis of biodiversity loss and spiking rates of extinction, Britain’s protected natural areas are getting an explicit new assignment.
19 points by kaycebasques 52 days ago | 16 comments
A Few of the Birds I Love(wordpress.com) Whenever you feel that there is no joy in the world, you must go to a place with swallows. Few things are more euphoric than a swallow in flight.
Flashy exotic birds can glow in the dark(arstechnica.com) Found in the forests of Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Eastern Australia, birds of paradise are famous for flashy feathers and unusually shaped ornaments, which set the standard for haute couture among birds.
The teeming life of dead trees(knowablemagazine.org) Though no one may be around to hear when a tree falls in the forest, countless critters take note. Dormant fungi within the tree awaken to feast on it, joined by others that creep up from the soil. Bacteria pitch in, some sliding along strands of fungi to get deeper into the log. Termites alert their colony mates, which gather en masse to gobble up wood. Bit by bit, deadwood is decomposed, feeding new life along the way.
Nature loves patterns(fayziev.com) As I drift through my winter vacation, detoxing from work, tech and world matters, I notice my little brother crawling toward a heat stove. With a week of rest behind me, my mind wanders into philosophical territory, and I can't help but map this moment to machine learning.
A decade later, a decade lost (2024)(meyerweb.com) I woke up this morning about an hour ahead of my alarm, the sky already light, birds calling. After a few minutes, a brief patter of rain swept across the roof and moved on.
Signs Of Life In A Desert(noemamag.com) In the dry and fiery deserts of Central Asia, among the mythical sites of both the first human and the end of all days, I found evidence that life restores itself even on the bleakest edge of ecological apocalypse.
LA tree enthusiast shares her love for the city's canopy(theguardian.com) On a recent Sunday morning, 25 Angelenos gathered under a large rusty leaf fig tree for a walking tree tour in a local Culver City park that was also playing host to an outdoor tai chi class as well as a group of yogis.
In search of Europe's rarest wild mushrooms(bbc.com) In Lithuania’s Dzūkija National Park, losing yourself amongst the pine trees while hunting for mushrooms is an occurrence so common it has its own word: "nugrybauti".