Archive for the Category earth
ice between the sea and air
“Frost flowers,” he was told. “I’d never heard of them,” Jeff says, “but they were everywhere.”
the vocal organ of a bird
…and this song through ten muscles each one shorter than a grain of rice.
here’s a movie about dirt
Dirt-The Movie. Yes. Simply a movie about dirt.
Google presents 100,000 stars
Our knowable, mapped galaxy.
That’s our Internet at work!
But only for the Chrome browser.
Also check out
200 Free K-12 Educational Resources.
fires, forest fires
This picture is Polk County, Iowa,
It’s 755 square miles.
If you were in Iowa, this is how much land might be on fire,
If you’re in Siberia, this area is on fire.
Siberia’s 1,826 forest fires have burned about 755 square miles.
And across eleven western states, nearly 2,000,000 acres have recently burned. That’s about 3000 square miles.
How big is that? Nearly the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined; four counties in Iowa.
In 2009, we protected wilderness lands across the country adding up to more than 3,000 square miles. There’s 3,125 square miles allocated for possible oil shale development in just three states.
de-clutter city streets
Philips has invented suspended street lighting —no streetlight poles.
grid dancing through the ages
In 2006, Li and his colleagues began working on a hydraulic hybrid vehicle.
They were in the process of developing an energy storage system for that purpose when they realized that their idea was better suited to grid-scale energy storage.
And on the other hand….
Specifically, he teaches them that the food and bathroom waste they produce every day can be transformed by a biogas digester into fuel to clean and cook plus a compost to fertilize crops.
http://www.
One flame in a room.
There once were 10s of 1000s in old rural China; so simple, so common, but now?
vast new bubbles
these 2 links
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/16mar_theedge
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/new-structure.html
sometimes I wonder if our senses are helping us
walkable living
The symbol of American success often involves having the biggest house possible, but our outsized fantasies seem to be shifting. It turns out most of us value nearby stores and parks rather than McMansions.
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” —Jane Jacobs
do not rely on friendly gardens
February 14, 2012
Plants aren’t so cooperative after all
Posted by Linda Chalker-Scott
One of the underlying tenets of ecology is the principle of competitive exclusion. This principle states that when two species compete for the same vital resource, the better adapted species will ultimately displace its competitor. Simply put, it’s survival of the fittest.
AND…
More recently, some ecologists have suggested that nature’s not quite so brutal – that the species composition in an ecosystem is determined more by random fluctuations in population numbers than by direct competition.
BUT…
But last month, this “neutral theory” was directly challenged by evidence on three continents which compared the abundance of particular tree species, both in the fossil record and in existing forest ecosystems. The similarities were so close among all the comparisons that it’s most likely due to direct competition rather than random fluctuations.
THEREFORE…
While this information might seem pretty esoteric, it does have direct application to gardens and landscapes.
Among your plants, you will have some that compete better for water, nutrients, and other resources.
The concept of “companion plantings” as plants actively helping each other survive is a wishful projection on our part.
THIMK ABOUT THIS:
And this all ties into the discussions we’ve been having about mulch. While living mulches – turf, ground covers, etc. – help protect soil structure and reduce erosion, they also compete with other plants in the landscape.
GET IT?
Maintaining landscapes with living mulches will require more water than the same landscape with organic mulches. It doesn’t matter if the plants are native or not – it’s just a question of limiting resources and who’s going to be the most competitive in extracting them.
(Forgot to include the reference the first time I posted this – here it is: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen (LMU). “Jostling for position: Competition at the root of diversity in rainforests.” ScienceDaily, 26 Jan. 2012.) 16 Comments
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