Note from the Author
Hey there all you environmental enthusiasts!
Hope your July has been going alright. Not too much has been going on with me. Preparing for a move next month, so that's been taking up a fair bit of my time. Still managing to write up everything for Prismatic Planet, though!
I've still been finding time to get out to volunteer on the prairie every week which has been a blast. It floors me every week how much the landscape of the prairie can change from, even in such a short amount of time. It feels like just yesterday I was out taking pictures of the trees budding for spring, the grasses of the prairie were mere blades poking through the ground. Now they're towering, reaching over 6 feet tall, and some of the species are still growing!
I can't recommend enough that if you happen to have a prairie restoration project near you to give volunteering a shot. It feels good helping maintain an ecosystem that has historically lived alongside humans. It's also a treat for the eyes from week to week.
Anyway, enough rambling from me. I wish you all the best over the next month!
~ Jon
~ And, as always, don’t forget to keep wondering ~
New from Prismatic Planet!
Haikusday
Berries in needles?
Upon closer look reveals
A cone in disguise
A pale purple cloud
It passes with the seasons
Under light spring rain
Light descends the sky
Giving way, encroaching night
Blots the forest floor
Take in the day's light
Trees absorb 'til sunfall, they
Take in the day's light
Educational Topics
Breezing Along with Wind Systems
Over the course of writing previous pages on Earth systems for this site, I've tangentially stumbled into the wind. No matter where I happen to be researching, it plays some key role in how something works. Dispersing plants throughout the planet? Wind propagation was key before other organisms helped move plants around. How waters move across the surface of the ocean? The wind helps move these waters in addition to underwater ocean currents. How does rain not just fall right back onto the ocean? Through wind pushing clouds over the land in a process called advection. How areas without water move minerals over geologic time? That would be wind erosion.
It seems like this miraculous thing that a brunt of other important Earth systems depend upon. It also seems like it just happens to work, something we're just lucky to have on our planet. While this is slightly true, how our wind system works does follow a certain set of rules. As wonderful as it is to have wind on the Earth and we are lucky as to how it is tuned to operate, it is far from a magic trick.
Let's dive in!
Human Nature
Imagine yourself walking through your local grocery store. You're looking for some fruits and vegetables to bring home for a week's worth of meals and you're confronted with a plethora of delightful options. Yet, despite the brilliant display of colors and plenty before you, you're probably still going to pick up and put down at least a few of them before putting anything in your basket. There's this feeling while you're picking your groceries that out of these options, there is some perfect pick for you in the moment.
And, hey, maybe this is true. Maybe you're planning on making a fruit salad in a few days and you don't want the ripest fruit in the batch. It's going to be sitting on your countertop for a few days, and you'd like to account for that. Beyond that bit of planning, though, what is it that's making us be so selective about the food on display. It all looks good enough to prepare meals and cook with. Why are we doing this?
You might be thinking that this is an instinctual human behavior, ensuring we're finding the food that's best for us. This is a correct thought. Humans, as with all animals, do need to go through a certain trial and error when being introduced to an environment. Before we knew which food to display, we needed to know which foods we could actually eat. To some extent, this selection behavior could be a residual habit of our ancestral gathering selves. But, in this environment, it's not about whether the food is edible. Beyond that ripeness point, our selection is one primarily of luxury. We're looking for an "ideal" food. So where does this concept come from?
Let's dive in!
July Eco News
Tracing Plant-Fungi Relationships
Humans have known for a while that plants get help from massive systems of fungi called mycorrhizae. This relationship lets plants and fungi exchange nutrients to the benefit of each other. Research published this month demonstrates a plant whose roots will blush a reddish color when its interacting with these fungi, making it immensely easier to visualize this relationship!
Climate change is problem that impacts everyone, but it can often still feel like an "us vs them" scenario. A behavioral research experiment reported on this month shows that people are generally in more agreement about needing to take action in a climate crisis. Though people would help more when they know others around them are helping as well. It may be that being more open about our own climate actions can help expand how many participate in those actions as well.
One of the goals of countries globally is to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030. Given historic attempts at doing this, some people are concerned about how possible this goal is. This Nature article discussed the possibility of using OECMs (Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures) to meet this goal, the upsides to acknowledging them as legitimate ways to promote biodiversity, and the pitfalls to look out for when using them.
Dogs, Wolves, and Human Connection
A recent study shows that, despite sharing an ancestry, dogs are much more likely to take cues from humans than wolves. Even in the case where wolf puppies are raised by humans and dog puppies are raised by their mothers, when it comes to understanding humans, even the untrained dog puppies performed better than the human-reared wolf pups. This study reinforces that dogs have developed a "theory of mind" ability that lets them infer the thoughts and feelings of humans!
When One Tree Makes a Difference
When we think of trees being helpful, we probably tend to think "the more the merrier" considering forests to be more beneficial than sparse trees. Studies show, however, that even lone trees, especially in urban environments, can provide much needed shade and cooling for the area, particularly in the evening. This reinforces a need for greenery in urban planning, even if this greenery is spread out.
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~ And, as always, don’t forget to keep wondering ~