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Who says you can’t go on a nature hike just because you’re in a big city? There’s plenty of edible plants growing right there in the streets of Washington, DC!
During two expeditions on Friday, adventurous eaters, amateur botanists, and a handful of curious locals descended on the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of the Nation’s Capital in search of edible plants and wild foods with the renowned forager, ‘Wild Man’ Steve Brill. Our tour, co-hosted by Roadside Food Projects, Atlas Obscura, and Think Local First D.C., covered all of one block. But the number of foods we found, many of which were weeds you’d walk by without a second glance, didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the available bounty growing between the city’s streets.
Read about the safari and the things they found at Atlas Obscura. Link
(Image credit: Dallas Lillich)
Greg In the Desert shot this photo of pier in Ohio where the water stains formed a sunset-styled western scene complete with a cowboy on his horse. Sometimes it’s amazing what coincidence can do.
Link Via BoingBoing
Dark Roasted Blend has an amazing collection of stunning and interesting trees right now, including the African tulip tree above, which is apparently very invasive. With a tree that pretty though, I don’t think I’d mind if it took over my whole neighborhood. How about you?
I know just as well as anyone else how easy it is to hate rats, mosquitoes and wasps, but like many other pests, these creatures are entirely necessary for our survival and for the ecosystems we call home. This great Cracked article explains why.
Warning: Some of the language is NSFW.
Nature has a frightening variety of toxins that humans have adapted for their own purposes: first to hunt prey for food, and also to kill their human enemies. For example, take the strychnos tree, from which we get strychnine.
Most of us have heard of strychnos owing to its use in rat poison – as well as the occasional murder! – but it has been used for centuries as an arrow poison in the jungles of Assam, Burma, Malaysia and Java. A chieftain of the Limba people of Sierra Leone is holding iron-tipped arrows dipped in strychnos poison in the image above. The seeds contain 1.5% strychnine, but the flowers and bark contain the poison too. People and animals exposed to the substance will suffer paralysis, severe convulsions and, finally, death. On the plus side, medical science has used it in minute doses to help people as well.
Read about seven of these traditional poisons at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr member John Atherton)
When I was a kid I planted a tree that grew over the rooftop of my house. At the time I thought that was pretty cool, but now I have seen this great gallery of The Strangest Trees on Earth, which you will agree are pretty strange. See full gallery at the link.
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Last Father’s Day, we brought you a list of the world’s greatest animal dads, but now it’s time to thank the ladies for all their hard work. These matronly critters show just how much a mother’s love can mean to the success of her little one.
After a 22 month long pregnancy followed by delivery of the world’s largest babies (around 250 pounds), elephants deserve to be on this list even if they immediately abandoned their babes. But they don’t just say “thanks for all the stretch marks,” and get on their merry way, elephant mothers continue raising their babies. Baby elephants are born blind and completely dependant on their mother and the rest of the herd. While the baby is growing, they are fortunate enough to have a great support system consisting of multiple full-time babysitters, called “allmothers.” While the allmothers take care of the precious little one, the mother will work to eat as much as she can so she can make the most possible milk for her bundle of joy.
Image by Googie man [Wikipedia]
We don’t tend to think of cold-blooded animals as the most caring parents, but alligators certainly break that mold. The female alligator creates nests of rotting organic matter that not only self-incubates, but also determine the sex of the babies. Nests that are constructed with leaves are warmer than those made with wet marsh, and thus, produce more males than cooler nests.
Once mama gator has planned the sex of her litter, she will guard her nest from threats, including other alligators, who love to munch on baby gator nests. When the eggs hatch, she will load them into her mouth and then carry them into the water where she will continue to care for them for the following year, assuming they decide to stay near home.
Image via Catholic 85 [Wikipedia]
Female orangutans have to wait eight years between births (the longest interbirth time of any great ape), so they make sure their time with each baby counts. Infant orangutans are completely dependent on their mother for their first two years of life. In fact, during the first four months of a baby’s life, it will never break physical contact with its mother, clinging to her belly the whole time. Each night, the mother will make a nest and she and her baby will cuddle in bed during the duration of its infancy.
Even as they mature, they continue to stick close to mother and even breastfeed until they are five years old –making them the species with the longest dependence period. The girls stay with their mothers longer than the boys, sticking around to learn necessary baby rearing skills.
Image via JohnBurke [Flickr]
Marlice Van Der Merwe is a Namibian conservationist who really knows how to stick her neck out for her job. This video footage at the link shows her wandering through a Cheetah filled field with nothing but a motor bike and a stick as the wild animals hiss and growl at her. Link
The Gippsland Lakes are a chain of lakes in eastern Victoria, Australia. A combination of fire and floods changed the conditions of the water and led to the proliferation of Synechococcus, a photosynthetic cyanobacteria. But that wasn’t what knocked everyone’s socks off.
As summer took hold at the end of 2008, what happened surprised everyone – a new species called Noctiluca Scintillans began to prosper, by feeding on the Synechococcus.
In contrast to the widespread bright green of the Synechococcus, Noctiluca Scintillans was visible during the day as localised murky red patches, often building up on sections of shoreline facing the wind during the day. At night though, Noctiluca Scintillans produced a remarkable form of bioluminescence (popularly referred to as ‘phosphorescence’) – the water glowing brightly wherever there was movement – in the waves breaking on the shore, in ripples in the water and wherever people played in the water.
See more pictures of this phenomena at Phil’s Blog. Link -via Monkeyfilter
When you’re a kid, you know the dinosaurs went extinct, but it seems weird that a creature alive today could suddenly be wiped off the earth tomorrow. I remember the first time I really realized what extinction meant when I went to the San Diego Zoo and saw a picture of the dodo bird on a sign talking about extinction. I was familiar with the bird from Alice and Wonderland and asked my mom if we could see it while we were at the zoo. When she explained to me that the bird didn’t exist any more, my heart sank.
Even today I am saddened whenever I learn about a species becoming extinct, but the worst part is when you know it was caused by human activity. Here are seven such animals that are no longer on earth thanks to mankind.
Also known as the Tasmanian tiger, this carnivore wasn’t related to dogs, tigers or hyenas, as many people believe. It was actually a marsupial, closer related to kangaroos and wallabies than any of those other animals. It was originally found in Australia and New Zealand, but its was essentially extinct in those areas long before Europeans discovered it. Even so, it thrived on the island of Tasmania until European settlers issued began fearing that the animals were eating their livestock. Like wolves, the Tasmanian tiger was often accused of slaughtering sheep in the fields. As a result, the Van Dieman’s Land Company issued a bounty on the creature, offering one pound per adult and ten shillings for each pup.
Scientists have still not been able to verify accusations of the animals eating livestock, but it would be too late to help the thylacines anyway, as the last known individual was captured in 1933 and died in a zoo in 1936. That’s her in the video. Sadly, she died two months before the Tasmanian government enacted a law dedicated to protecting the animals.
While it looks like a strange cross between a horse and a zebra, a quagga was actually a subspecies of a typical plains zebra with a brown rear end and a striped head. It was once found in great numbers in southern Africa until Europeans started hunting the animals for their meat and their hides. It is believed that the last wild quagga was shot in the late 1870s. A number were sent to zoos before that point though and the last captive individual was killed in 1883. At the time, people still believed these were the same as other zebra species, the individuals just had different markings. It wasn’t until after the subspecies was eradicated that people realized the animal had become extinct. Some historians have noted, the story is particularly sad because if the same thing happened in modern times, the breeding programs of zoos could help rebuild the population of the animal and release them back into the wild.
Interestingly, because the animal was so closely related to other subspecies of zebra, South African researchers have attempted a selective breeding program to create a new stock of the animals. The third and forth generation animals created through this project do look similar to the extinct creatures, but scientists debate whether or not looks are enough to declare these animals quaggas.
As a slow-swimming marine mammal that never completely submerged itself and was loaded with blubber, the Steller’s sea cow was doomed from the beginning. These massive herbivores were once abundant in the North Pacific, but aboriginal peoples hunted them until their population was limited to only the Commander Islands. Unfortunately for the sea cow, they were then discovered in 1751 by George Wilhelm Steller on an expedition led by Vitus Bering.
The Stellar sea cows were over 25 feet long. They were slow swimmers who couldn’t submerge themselves. There were only about 1,500 when Europeans first laid eyes on them and it wasn’t long before those remaining were hunted down for food, pelts and blubber, which could be used in oil lamps. Within 27 years of Steller’s discovery, the animals were extinct.
October 27 marks the 152 birthday of one of our nation’s most memorable presidents and one of my personal heroes, Theodore Roosevelt. The twenty sixth president of the United States isn’t just a favorite of historians and scholars, but he’s also popular among the masses, constantly rated as one of America’s greatest presidents (or, in the words of Cracked, “The Most Badass President”). To celebrate one of the country’s most beloved leaders, it’s only fitting to take a look back at his life and learn what exactly made him so popular.
While most people know Roosevelt was an avid sportsman with an outgoing personality, he wasn’t always like that. As a child, he was asthmatic and constantly sick. Much of his childhood was spent propped up in bed or slumped over in a chair. He was also rather shy and spent much of his time reading rather than engaging with others his age. As a result, he ended up being incredibly brilliant and well-read and was known to read several books a day throughout his presidency. In fact, he and Thomas Jefferson are considered to be the two most well-read presidents ever. Roosevelt wrote 18 books as well as numerous articles throughout his lifetime.
Despite his sickliness, he developed a deep interest in zoology at only seven years old when he saw a dead seal at a local market. He immediately set about learning taxidermy and created a “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” at home with two of his cousins. The supposed museum featured a number of animals he caught, killed and stuffed. By age nine, he used his observations to write a paper entitled “The Natural History of Insects.”
As his health started to improve a little, his father started encouraging Theodore to take up exercise to improve his overall well-being. As a result, Roosevelt started taking boxing lessons, which became a lifelong interest, although he had to give up the sport during his presidency when a blow detached his left retina and left him blind in that eye.
While many presidents are known for their playboy behaviors, Roosevelt seemed entirely dedicated to his two wives. His first wife, Alice, died two days after giving birth to their child. Theodore also lost his mother that same day and he wrote about the events in his diary by simply stating “the light has gone out of my life.” Throughout the rest of his life, Roosevelt refused to talk about Alice, leaving her out of his biography and ignoring his daughter’s inquiries to learn more about her mother.
While you’ve probably heard Roosevelt called “Teddy”, it was actually a name he loathed throughout most of his life because it was Alice’s nickname for him. Throughout his presidency, those close to him always called him by his military rank or his full name –although the press insisted on calling him Teddy throughout his lifetime.
In 1880, Roosevelt graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard and began attending Columbia Law School, but he dropped out a year later when he had the chance to run for New York Assemblyman. He won and served as the youngest member of the Assembly. In 2008, the school awarded him a posthumous law degree.
During his years in the Assembly, Roosevelt was a dedicated activist, writing more bills than any other legislator in the state. Unfortunately, his first attempt at a political career turned sour when he became disenchanted with the results of the Republican National Convention in 1884. He soon announced his retirement from politics and then moved to the Badlands of the Dakota Territory.
While living out west, Roosevelt served as deputy sheriff and wrote about his frontier life for magazines back east. He learned to raise cattle, ride horses and hunt down outlaws. While he loved his time in the Badlands, he gave up his cowboy life after the severe winter of 1886 wiped out his entire herd of cattle. He returned to his home in New York, where he lived throughout the rest of his life (with the exception of his time in office). Upon his return, he attempted to get back into politics, running for Mayor of New York City with the title of “The Cowboy of the Dakotas,” but he lost.
Prior to the 1888 presidential election, Roosevelt traveled the Midwest and avidly campaigned for Benjamin Harrison. After Harrison’s inauguration, he appointed Roosevelt to the U.S. Civil Service Commission where Theodore served until 1895, fighting the corrupt spoils system that was in place at the time.
In 1895, he left his position in the Civil Service Commission to serve as the president of the New York City Police Commissioners board. Rather than just work on fighting crime in the streets, Roosevelt cleaned up the department itself and radically changed the way the department ran. When he entered the office, the NYC force was one of the most corrupt in the nation, but Roosevelt soon established new rules, standardized the use of pistols by officers, established meritorious service medals and introduced annual physical exams to the force. He also created a bicycle squad to help deal with traffic problems in the city.
Roosevelt left his commissioner position when he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by William McKinley in 1897. Despite the fact that he had never served in the Navy, Roosevelt displayed unique qualifications due to his groundbreaking study of the U.S. and British roles in the War of 1812 that was published after he left Harvard. Unlike other studies of the war, his book was unbiased and looked at specific facts of the naval strategies involved. The book was so well-written that it is even considered applicable today and is still in publication.
Because the Secretary of the Navy was largely inactive, his assistant Roosevelt was able to take full control of the department, where he played a critical role in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War. As soon as war broke out though, he resigned and formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, although you probably know this group by the name used by the press, the “Rough Riders.”
Interestingly, Roosevelt was the only Rough Rider that actually had a horse, as the rest of the horses were left behind due to limited access to transport ships. Theodore was originally given command of the regiment and promoted to Colonel, where he would ride back and forth between two fronts of the force to pass along news and orders.
At one point during the war, Roosevelt and other officers sent a number of letters demanding they be returned home and these letters were leaked to the press. Many, including Roosevelt himself, believe this is why he was denied a Medal of Honor. He was posthumously awarded the medal in 2001. In 1944, his son was also posthumously awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions in WWII, making them one of only two father and son duos to share the honor. Roosevelt is also the only American president to have won a Medal of Honor.
Roosevelt was elected governor of New York in 1898. True to form, he worked to eliminate corruption and nepotism during his term. He also helped end segregation in the state schools during his office. He made such a strong impression that he was forced upon McKinley as a vice presidential candidate in 1900. He was a strong asset for the president, who won by a landslide. While giving a speech at the Minnesota State Fair in 1901, he first used his soon-to-be-trademark saying, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
When McKinley was shot and killed by a crazed anarchist, Roosevelt became the youngest president in U.S. history at only 42.While he was known for being incredibly progressive, he did promise to continue McKinley’s policies and he also kept his cabinet in place. One of his first notable presidential acts was to deliver a 20,000 word speech to congress asking for control of monopolies and trusts. Roosevelt stayed dedicated to labor rights and curbing the power of big business throughout his presidency.
McKinley was known for effectively rallying the press and Roosevelt took advantage of this by providing regular interviews and photo opportunities to keep the White House in the news. He also helped establish the first presidential press briefing when he noticed the reporters huddled in the cold one day and opted to give them their own dedicated room inside the White House.
Roosevelt was an incredibly active and effective president, maintaining his exercise throughout his presidency while still reading multiple books every day and fighting for progressive legislation. In fact, he was said to be able to dictate letters to one secretary while giving memoranda to another, all while reading.
During a hunting trip in 1902, Roosevelt ordered the mercy killing of a wounded black bear and when a cartoonist illustrated the president with a bear, a toymaker asked him if he could use the name on a stuffed toy…thus the teddy bear was born.
Some of Roosevelt’s most important contributions to our society though were his passing of the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, which helped curbed the sickening state of the meat packing industry detailed in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and prevented drugs and food from being falsely labeled or impure.
The president also helped negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War and was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. This made Roosevelt the only person in history to win a country’s highest military honor along with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Roosevelt is also largely remembered for his role in establishing the National Park System. During his presidency, he established 150 national forests, 5 national parks and 18 national monuments. All in all, he helped conserve 230 million acres of land.
While he was a wildly successful president, he opted to give his support to William Taft for the election in 1908, rather than running for a third time.
After Taft was inaugurated, Roosevelt went on safari in Africa on an expedition in an attempt to collect specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He and his companions killed and trapped over 11,000 animals ranging from insects to elephants. The number of animals shipped back to Washington was so massive that after years of mounting, the Smithsonian opted to send a number of duplicate specimens to other museums.
Upon returning home, he soon became disillusioned with Taft and his policies and in 1911, he announced his intention of running for president in the next election. Unfortunately, Taft had already been campaigning and had garnered the support of many of the party leaders. Because most states still used caucuses instead of primaries to select candidates, Taft was given the Republican nomination despite the fact that Roosevelt had more pull with the public. So Roosevelt and his followers had to start out with a new party, The Progressive Party, that was commonly referred to as the “Bull Moose” party.
Roosevelt’s platform was based on the politics of his presidency, namely fighting greedy corporations in the name of the little man. During one speech, he explained, “‘This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.”
During a Milwaukee stop in his campaign, a saloon keeper shot Roosevelt in the chest, but his steel eyeglass case and 50 page speech slowed the bullet enough that it did not penetrate his lungs. Roosevelt still gave his speech, which took a full 90 minutes, before agreeing to go to the hospital. He even laughed off the assassination attempt by starting his speech saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” At the hospital, doctors decided that it would be more dangerous to remove the bullet than to leave it there, so Roosevelt carried it with him for the rest of his life.
Roosevelt’s split with the republican party is often cited as one of the critical reasons America remains dedicated to a two party system. Given that he won 27% of the popular vote and Taft won 23%, the Republicans would have undoubtedly beat Wilson, who received 42% of the vote, if they had just unified under one candidate.
After losing the election, Roosevelt embarked on a trip to South America with his son and a Brazilian explorer. The team decided to find the headwaters of the River of Doubt and then trace it to the Madeira and the Amazon. No one had ever taken on such an ambitious expedition and it ended up an exceptionally dangerous trip, particularly to Theodore, who contracted malaria and a major infection in a minor leg wound. At one point, he had to be attended to day and night by the team’s physician and he could no longer walk. He eventually told the rest of the party to leave him and complete the expedition so he would not exhaust their already low supplies. Only his son was able to convince him to continue.
Upon returning home, critics questioned the expedition’s ability to navigate the entire 625 miles of uncharted river that made up the River of Doubt. However Roosevelt was able to satisfactorily convince the National Geographic Society and others of his claims. Later on, the river was renamed after him, the Rio Roosevelt.
Roosevelt noted the trip cut his life short by ten years. And as it turns out, he may have been right. He was plagued by malaria flare-ups and later had to get surgery in his leg to treat the infection. To add to matters, his youngest son, Quentin was later shot down behind enemy lines in WWI a few years later. This devastated him and many claim he never recovered from the loss.
Roosevelt died from a heart attack during his sleep on January 6, 1919. At the time, Vice President Thomas R. Marshall proclaimed, “Death had to take Roosevelt sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.”
If you can’t already figure out why Roosevelt was such an important figure in American history, then perhaps you should take these important firsts into account:
Obviously, I have a mini crush on Roosevelt, but I’m curious to know what you all think about him? In your opinion, is he good, bad, overrated? Let’s talk about it!
Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, PBS, American Chronicle
Here’s a roundup of sixteen animals and how you can see them in their natural habitats. Some of these expeditions involve a lot of travel, depending on where you are already. Want to see a booby? Head to the Galapagos Islands!
A little more than 500 miles west of Ecuador lie the Galápagos Islands, a veritable treasure-trove of endemic wildlife. One of the islands’ most famous residents is the blue-footed booby, a seabird with distinctive turquoise-blue feet. While those colorful toes certainly catch the eyes of human fans, the birds are more concerned with impressing each other: Male blue-footed boobies show off their blue feet while “dancing” during courtship.
Link -Thanks, Jenny!
We are all familiar with animals that use camouflage, but some take it to an extreme level. Cracked found examples of animals that totally take on a different persona. What kind of creature do think this picture shows?
When they become frightened, they retract their heads backward into themselves, causing that bulge that looks like the head of a snake. The snake “eyes” are just spots on the caterpillar’s sides.
Yes, it’s a caterpillar. There are several species of caterpillar that can make themselves look like snakes (although small ones). See all nine animal disguises in this post that contains NSFW text. Link -via Interesting Pile
Day after day the passionflower vine and the handsome heliconius butterfly engage each other in a dramatic fight for survival in the tropical forests of Central and South America. The outcome is still uncertain, but the battle rages on.
Heliconius butterflies choose to lay eggs on the leave of passionflower vines. When the eggs hatch, the offspring feed hungrily on the leaves, threatening to eat the vines out of existence. But the vines have learned to fight back; they have evolved a series of defenses to limit the damage.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.
Imagine a tree, 3500 years old, and the history and knowledge it must possess. The Senator is a species of Bald Cypress situated at Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida. For year, travelers flocked to the tree, jumping log to log in the swamps, to catch a glimpse of this world wonder.
The Senator Bald Cypress tree measures close 18 feet in diameter and stands 118 feet high. The Senator’s age is estimated between 3,400-3,500 years old, the 5th oldest tree in the world.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.
There are more insects in the atmosphere than you’ll ever see. In fact, you don’t see them all because they fly really high. How high? NPR has an animated video with the surprising answers.
When British scientist Jason Chapman told us (listen to the radio piece or watch our video) there are 3 billion insects passing over your head in a summer month, he was talking about his survey in Great Britain. Closer to the equator, he says, the numbers should rise. He wouldn’t be surprised, for example, that in the sky over Houston or New Orleans there could be 6 billion critters passing overhead in a month.
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Bill McHugh creates kinetic sculptures that are driven by natural forces like wind, sun, water, squirrels or even birds!
Keeping the sculptures running literally costs peanuts — or birdseed, as the case may be. The Swirl-a-Squirrel runs on 30 peanuts a day, McHugh estimates. All combined, he figures he goes through 2,000 peanuts per week, or a 50-pound bag every three weeks.
But as he has refined them, he has also incorporated other elements. The bird-oriented one he calls “The Hitchcock” works this way: as many as 32 birds can land on the tiny metal cups that are spaced around a wheel. If they do, that sets a second wheel in motion; on it, other cups dip into a reservoir of water at the bottom and are carried up until they empty into a basin at the top. Then the water trickles down into the bottom reservoir and the process begins again.
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Scientists have successfully reintroduced giant tortoises to a Galápagos island where the species once teetered on extinction, raising conservation hopes for the rest of the archipelago.A survey of Española, the southernmost island, confirmed last week that a pioneering effort to repatriate giant tortoise hatchlings has produced a thriving, reproducing population of more than 1,500 specimens. The project aims to turn the clock back to before human beings all but wiped out a species that helped to inspire Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection. “It’s a great end to a sad story,” said Johannah Barry, president of Galápagos Conservancy, a Virginia-based organisation which partly funded the study.
There were hopes that Pinta Island could be similarly repopulated but Lonesome George, the only surviving Pinta Tortoise, has so far failed to produce offspring. Scientists are now introducing the Pinta’s close relation, the Espanola tortoise to that island.
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The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
I might like to turn back the hands of time for my next high school reunion, provided I wouldn’t wind up looking like a youthful jellyfish.
Link – Via Clusterflock
Isabella Rossellini has a new video series called Seduce Me, in which she acts out the bizarre mating rituals of different animal species. Besides the cuttlefish shown, there are videos for bedbugs, salmon, snakes, and duck mating. Warning: adult themes. Link -Thanks, Jelena!
Previously at Neatorama: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits
Take a look at this lovely and cute collection of miniature copies of some animals, like the horse. Several breeds of horse are less than three feet tall!
People sometimes train them as service animals (be the first on your block with a “Seeing Eye Horse”), and even as house pets, since I presume they make tiny road apples. However, they are still horses when it comes down to it, and their natural reaction to being scared is to run like hell, so they won’t be replacing your Black Lab anytime soon for those long walks in the woods playing fetch.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by euphoriajoca.
There’s a lot going on in a small garden pond! Mirko Faienza blends beautiful macrophotography and music in My Father’s Garden. -via Metafilter
Did you know there’s a word for those stunning light beams that shoot through trees, clouds and stained glass windows? I sure didn’t, but apparently the proper term is Crepuscular Rays and Environmental Graffiti has a great collection of photos that have perfectly captured these beams of light.
Link Image by Mila Zinkova
If you have a serious phobia of frogs, rats, bees or snakes, you probably shouldn’t read WebEcoist’s article on the most invasive species in the world. On the other hand, if you don’t have any phobias, it’s fascinating to know just how devastating a pair of bunnies ended up being to Australia and how Florida and other areas of the South are being taken over by released and escaped Burmese pythons.
You may well be thinking ‘The mystery of what?’ but resin (the type from trees) is still something of a mystery. The jury is still out about why exactly plants secrete (or excrete, depending on what side of the argument you are on) the sticky oozy stuff on which you may well have at some point inadvertantly put your hand or your clothes while taking a stroll through the woods. Plus at the right time it looks simply amazing, especially with insects inside it.
Some plants produce explosive resin. The Jeffrey Pine of California produces resin which is highly volatile – that mean it has, under the right circumstances – a tendency to vaporize. When people tried to distil it in nineteenth century America, they thought it was Ponderosa Pine resin. A number of distilleries exploded as a result of this mis-classification and the mistake was put right in something of a hurry. The reason behind the explosion was that the Jeffrey Pine resin was made up largely of pure heptanes – highly flammable. Distillation of Jeffrey Pine resin continues to be very dangerous to this day but the denizens of California have managed to get it right since the great pine explosions of 1852.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
Image Composite: Left: flickr/wallyg. Right: Twitter/@GarySoup
If you’ve been to the Fisherman’s Wharf part of San Francisco in the past twenty years, chances are you’ve seen (and heard) the resident sea lions that call Pier 39 home. I’d spend long stretches of time just observing them and their behavior patterns, and always found them neat.
Since about a month ago, when they collectively slipped into the bay and disappeared, the pier has been quiet and barren.
The sea lions’ disappearance is as strange as their initial colonization of the pier about 20 years ago, in late 1989. They just started showing up one day and as their numbers increased, their traditional hang out, Seal Rocks, became less populated. There are all sorts of theories about why the pier became a favorite haul-out spot for the sea lions, but no one knows for sure why the animals’ behavior changed.
It doesn’t appear that local weather conditions could have influenced the animals. The weather in San Francisco has been normal, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rick Canaepa. “It’s pretty typical winter conditions,” Canaepa said.
There is also no apparent population increase on Seal Rock; apparently hundreds of them just decided to move on.
The last thing seen by many a field mouse. 1000 frames per second. (via Cynical-C)
Both Christmas and National Poinsettia Day (December 12) are coming up soon, which brings up some interesting questions you may never have considered before. For example, why is a flower indigenous to Mexico commonly recognized as an international symbol of Christmas? Or why is it so darn hard to keep your poinsettias alive and blooming once you’ve bought them at the store? You may have never thought too hard about the most popular potted plant in America, but here’s your chance to learn about these fascinating blossoms.
Most people consider the bright red (or occasionally pale green, white, orange, cream, pink or marbled) areas on the plants to be the blooms, but in reality, these are just groupings of colored leaves called bracts. The actual flowers are those tiny little buds inside of the bracts (seen above) and these are called cyathias.
While we’re at it, most people think of poinsettias as red flowers, but as mentioned above, they can come in all the colors listed above. Still, over 74% of Americans prefer their poinsettias red, while 8% prefer white and 6% prefer pink.
Image Via Martin Heigan [Flickr]
In Aztec times though, it was called “Cuetlaxochitl,” which means skin flower. In Chile and the Andes, it was known as the “Crown of the Andes.” According to legend, King Montezuma would have the flowers carried up to Mexico City because the flowers would not grow in such a high altitude.
Later on, German botanist Wilenow gave the plant its Latin name, Euphorbia pulcherrima, meaning “very beautiful.” Soon after, it was introduced into the U.S. in 1828 by the first U.S. Minister to Mexico, Joel Roberts Poinsett. Years later, historian and horticulturalist William Prescott was asked to give the plant a new name. Having just written a book about Mexican history, he recalled Poinsett’s role in bringing the flowers into America. Prescott named the plant in Poinsett’s honor. In modern Egypt, they still call the plant “Bent El Consul,” meaning “the consul’s daughter” after Mr. Poinsett.
In Spain, the flower is known as “flor de Pascua” or Easter flower. In Mexico and Guatemala, it is commonly called “Noche Buena” or “Christmas’ Eve.”
Speaking of Christmas, it seems rather strange that these New World plants would become synonymous with a holiday celebrating the birth of a Middle Eastern carpenter. Still, they are in fact the most popular holiday plant around, representing over 85% of all potted plant sales in the holiday season.
The reasons go all the way back to the 16th century, where a Mexican legend began spreading about a young girl who couldn’t afford a gift for Jesus’ birthday. She was said to be told by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar. Soon after, crimson blossoms sprouted from the weeds and became poinsettias. Starting in the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Mexico began to include the plants in the Christmas celebrations.
Image Via Southern Pixel [Flickr]
Fast forward into America during the sixties and this Mexican tradition started spreading across the U.S. thanks to Paul Ecke Jr. This young man was a marketing genius who started sending television networks free poinsettias for display on air between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He also appeared on programs like “The Tonight Show” and Bob Hope’s Christmas specials to help promote the plant. His efforts were highly successful and largely responsible for the association of poinsettias with Christmas outside of Mexico.
Lest you think Paul was simply an overly enthusiastic supporter of the flower, his intentions were mostly monetary. Paul was an heir of the Ecke family, owners of a virtual monopoly on our modern day idea of poinsettia flowers.
His German immigrant grandfather, Albert Ecke, started selling the plants from street stands after 1900. Paul Ecke the first, Albert’s son, developed a grafting method that resulted in a fuller, more compact plant than the wild plants (seen to the left). He additionally discovered a phytoplasma infection to the plant would induce it to produce far more flowers than its natural, weed-like cousin. The family held the secret to these techniques up until the 1990’s, giving them a monopoly on the poinsettia market up to that point.
In the nineties, a researcher discovered the Ecke’s method and published it, allowing for competitors to the company. These days, many companies in Latin America sell the flowers all over the world, but the Ecke’s family (who now exclusively uses farms outside the U.S.) still controls about 50% of the worldwide market.
Image Via Jiggs Images [Flickr]
In 1919, a completely unfounded story began to circulate that a two year-old child died after she ate a poinsettia leaf. Researchers who looked into the story found that it is all hearsay and about as truthful as the razors in candy apple stories that circulate around Halloween. Ohio State University researchers found that a 50 pound child would have to eat 500 bracts to even get a sore tummy. Despite this, the rumor continues to circulate that poinsettias are poisonous and should not be kept around pets or children.
On the other hand, the sap from poinsettias can cause temporary blindness when introduced directly in the eye and some people with latex allergies will have an allergic reaction to the plants. So the only people who need to be wary of the plants are those that have a latex allergy or anyone with a habit of putting things in their eyes for no reason.
Image Via distopiandreamgirl [Flickr]
If you’ve ever bought poinsettias during the holiday season, you may have noticed just how finicky these beautiful plants can be. Even if you live in an area with a warmer climate that is suitable for the tropical buds, you still may not be able to get your plants to reflower the way they did when you bought them.
The reason for this is encoded in the plant’s genes. In order to produce the vibrant, thick blooms the plant is known for, the plant needs to have two months of completely dark nights in the autumn. Even minor exposure to houselights can hamper flower production. If you really want your plants to reflower, you need to cover the plant with a light-proof bag between 5 pm and 8 am starting early October and stopping when the bracts begin to show colors –usually around mid-December. To make gardening the plant even more complex, you also have to be sure the nighttime temperatures are below 75 degrees Fahrenheit, but also not too cold. Failure to keep the plant in the right temperature can also result in decay or lack of flowers.
Personally, I love gardening and I love poinsettias, but the effort involved with trying to keep them reflowering is just way too much for me. Have any of you had better luck?
Image Via Property#1 [Flickr]
Thinking about seeing The Road, the new movie based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy? Take note of some of the locations they filmed in, as they utilized existing devastated areas to serve as the cataclysmic setting.
Windy Ridge, which is on the east flank of Mt. St. Helens in Southern Washington, still looks like a wasteland nearly 30 years after the volcano erupted in a lateral blast. The filmmakers took advantage of the naturally creepy vistas that sweep around the formerly lush environment.
“They wanted locations that represented devastation,” Ludvigsen said. “The areas they liked were where trees were uprooted and root wads were showing, trees where the tops were snapped off from the eruption.”
It also helped that portions of Forest Road 99 had been washed out during recent flooding.
The crew spent a good portion of the day in that location, filming stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. In this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, Mortensen plays a father leading his young son through a landscape torn apart by some unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on Earth.
Link | Photo: Joel W. Roger/CORBIS
Photo by Carsten Peter
Perched above the lighted city of Catania, Italy, Mount Etna hurls a fountain of fire skyward as rivers of lava spill down its flanks. In spite of its dazzling displays, Mount Etna is a relatively safe volcano with rare, compact eruptions and slow-flowing lava that gives people a chance to escape. – National Geographic – {More Pics here!}
Lots of people live near a volcano. As for me, I live a relatively safe distance from Mt. St. Helens, but this region was severely affected by the eruption in 1980. I recently returned there, and it while it seems safe now, the devastation still shows. But The Geography Site cites four good reasons why society loves a lava-spewing mountain in their backyard.
Geothermal energy, minerals, fertile soil, and tourism. That last one is interesting, and many tourist attractions involve volcanic activity. And about that geothermal energy?
Countries such as Iceland make extensive use of geothermal power, with approximately two thirds of Iceland’s electricity coming from steam powered turbines. New Zealand and to a lesser extent, Japan, also make effective use of geothermal energy.
It makes sense that we’d be so close to that which can give us something powerful, while risking so much at the same time. Volcanoes rock.
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