If you somehow are not already in love with bark beetles, we self-interestedly recommend this wonderful new book: The Surprising Lives of Bark Beetles, by Jiri Hulcr and Marc Abrahams.
Tag: trees
The Sounds of Trees When Hit by Rocks Thrown by Chimps
What are the sounds that come from trees when those trees are hit by rocks thrown by chimpanzees? A new study addresses that question: “Chimpanzees use tree species with a resonant timbre for accumulative stone throwing,” Ammie K. Kalan, Eleonora Carmignani, Richard Kronland-Martinet, Sølvi Ystad, Jacques Chatron and Mitsuko Aramaki, Biology Letters, 18 December 2019, […]
Dead salmon, again in the service of science
Just a few years after dead salmon helped neuroscientists analyze data more carefully, other dead salmon are helping other scientists better understand how trees grow. The neuroscience salmon figured in the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study “Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction,” Craig M. Bennett, Abigail […]
Trees and drones — how will the tally turn out?
A new project, promoted by a beer company, offers a promotional video called “How drones are helping to plant trees“: If successful, this project will to some extent offset the damage caused when drones crash into trees. Numerous videos document the phenomenon of drones crashing into trees. Here’s a video that compiles a very few […]
I think that I shall never see a thing as sleepy as a tree
Inspired by popular interpretations of a new study (see below), we offer a revision to an old poem: I think that I shall never see A thing as sleepy as a tree. A tree with drooping bits depressed, All snoozy when it’s time to rest… Andy Coglan writes, in New Scientist, about a recently published twig on a branch on the […]
Lizards That Fell to Earth [podcast 60]
Lizards — lizards that fall from the sky, more or less — find their way into this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams —with dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg — tells about: Lizards that fall from above (1) — “Arboreal Sprint Failure: Lizardfall in a California Oak Woodland,” William H. Schlesinger, Johannes […]
Little Red Riding Hood and the Credibility Trees
Long long ago, you might have heard the story of ATU 333 – though you’ll probably know it by its more usual title: ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. And later, you might have wondered (as some have) about its phylogeny – or even its ‘Phylomemetics’. In which case, Dr Jamie Tehrani who is a Senior Lecturer […]
Nominative Determinism: Dr. Forrest on Trees
“This book presents a horticultural overview of the main plant families of trees and shrubs from temperate regions that are cultivated in urban and rural landscape schemes. Most of the plants used come from a limited number of plant families and within these families, certain genera contribute very significantly. The largest chapter in the book […]
The bonsai management model
“The necessity of performing managerial activities is perceived and apprehended not only in agricultural enterprises, food processing units, industrial works etc. but also in hospitals, schools, museums, theatres, design studios and many other organisations. The need of managerial activities is as old as the organised human society itself. Management is necessary for all groups of […]
The, or Some, Ethics of Topiary
If you’re an appreciator of cutting-edge topiary why not check out the Mosaïcultures internationales® exhibition in Montréal, Canada, which features around 50 works created by horticulturist-artists from 25 countries, and runs until September 29, 2013. You’ll find plants, bushes and trees clipped, snipped and cajoled into frogs, sheep, and Madagascan ring tail lemurs. But might […]