Three variables produce nearly every dune shape there is: how much sand there is, how many directions the wind blows from, and whether vegetation is holding anything down. Here are…
There is a way of thinking about disturbance that treats it as damage — something that happens to an ecosystem and that the ecosystem then recovers from.
That framing works…
There is a question about animal communication that has been argued for a long time, and alarm calls are where the evidence is strongest.
The question is whether animal signals…
Fruit Ripens Because of a Gas It Releases Itself, and One Ripe Piece Will Set Off Everything Near It
There is a category of everyday phenomenon that turns out to have a mechanism nobody would guess, and the way fruit behaves in a bowl is one.
The observable facts…
Peat forms where the ground is too wet and too acidic for dead plant material to rot completely, so it piles up instead. That single condition produces a landscape that…
Source: Wikipedia
There is a systematic bias in what the past leaves behind, and it favours hard things.
Bone, shell, wood and teeth survive burial. Skin, muscle, hair, feathers, membranes and…