(via thebumblebees)

brian-brooks:

Morrissey Gets a Job by Brian Brooks (1999)

(via de-lish)

nybg:

Plant reproduction is fascinating. No, really! It is! In all of its forms, from beautiful flowers that become delicious fruits, to fungi that smell like roadkill, stationary plants have come up with a myriad of ways to ensure their genetic survival into the next generation. Now, a new study has found that this process isn’t just fascinating, it’s also precise and a ” model of logistical efficiency.” To think that some people find science boring? ~AR

jmddn:

Scientific research in a forest

Multi-part BoingBoing article on Harvard Forest.

dailysciencething:

Some photos of seeds from the Millenium Seed Bank Partnership, which strives to collect the seeds from as many plant species as possible in order to prevent their total extinction.

(via theherbarium)

these motions are also applied when using my favorite tool (aside from a pruning saw), the pick mattock:

(via trappersandwoodsmen)

jmddn:

If I could do this, I would do so in public bathroom stalls.

my dad can! and I’ve met these guys…

workman:

carex:

Catalpas:  Out of fashion but still loved by some of us.  Blooming now in the Washington D.C. area, this great U.S. native shade tree can get 60’x40’.  Plantsman Allan Bush wrote an excellent post on Catalpas in Garden Rant today:  http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2012/05/catalpa.html.  

I grew up with Catalpa trees in my front yard. I just absolutely love them. Wonderful flowers, leaves, and interesting insects that live on them.

(via theherbarium)

npr:

Ooooo.

jtotheizzoe:

Genetics of the Beautiful “Glass Gem” Corn

Corn gone viral? You’re looking at an ear of a corn variety called “Glass Gem”, grown by Greg Schoen of Seeds Trust. This is real corn! How does it grow this way?

First you have to understand a few things about corn. Each corn kernel is actually a sort of unique plant. A corn plant’s male parts (the “tassels”) sit at the top of the stalk, and drop pollen downward. Unfertilized ears (the female parts) catch the pollen with the sticky ends of their corn silks. Each corn silk (I hate when that gets in my teeth) grabs a pollen grain, shuttles it allllllll the way down inside the ear, eventually creating one kernel for each pollen-silk-ovum combination. It’s one of the more interesting and inefficient breeding schemes I know of.

If you’ve taken genetics, you know that the parents’ genes will combine by chance, leading to certain ratios of inheritance in the offspring. This is the basis of Mendelian genetics (great Khan Academy video here).

With corn, we’ve simply carefully bred all the interestingness out of them. Native Americans were used to multi-colored corn, because corn plants held many varieties of color genes that could combine at random. Now all we are left with are one-color clones.

This “Glass Gem” corn is the other extreme of the spectrum, a combination of corn color hybrid genes and random pollination. It’s almost too pretty to eat!  

(via Discover Magazine)

cabinporn:

Public treehouse designed and built by students at the Yestermorrow school.

(via banked)

oliphillips:

Woodcut Prints

by Bryan Nash Gil

(via theherbarium)

(via juliasegal)

dailysciencething:

Some photos of seeds from the Millenium Seed Bank Partnership, which strives to collect the seeds from as many plant species as possible in order to prevent their total extinction.

(via symbiosis)

jmddn:

The World’s Saddest Dance

A short film about the eradication of Bulgaria’s dancing bears. Apparently it’s one of the last places to still have such tradition.

thebumblebees:

hypna: Catherine Ulisky has painted the connections between the European starlings in these photographs to show the entire flock as one faceted geometric shape.