Adventures in biology section

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

In many desert countries, crop agriculture isn't too successful. Many countries in the MENA buy out land in fertile parts of Africa, but Qatar is trying to sustainably produce food in their country to improve food security, and survive climate change.

The agricultural company named Abba, headed by Dr. Mohamed Al Attiyah has been experimenting with several organic farming methods, and have found a lot of success with the application of mycorrhizal fungi, aka the fuzzy white fungus on plant roots, to the soil. In the video above, they've tested the application of mycorrhizal fungi in an area with high salinity and little nutrients in the soil. But because of the fungi, the plants didn't require chemical fertilizers, and still produced the same nutritional benefits as plants grown in fertile soils.

Mycorrhizal fungi innoculate is ridiculously easy to make and isolate for propagation, but even planting seeds or cuttings beside a healthy plant would be effective, since plants communicate and share through this fungi. This is one of the reasons why you shouldn't till 😅

This is actually a really interesting type of water retention that long grass does that I've never thought about before!

You can see how much slower the snow on the long grass is melting, which creates a slower percolation of water into the ground!

Farmers stack several compact layers of aquatic weeds like water hyacinth, duckweed or paddy stubs – the stubble of what remains after the rice grain has been harvested. The weeds are allowed to rot, and then mixed usually with cow dung and silt. Crop seeds are placed in small balls called tema that are made out of peat soil, and wrapped in coconut fibre.

After a week, when seedlings are about 15cm high, they are transplanted to the floating garden beds. Traditionally, seeds of leafy vegetables, like red amaranth, are sown directly on the floating beds. They [the floating beds] are then anchored with bamboo poles, so that they don’t drift away.

Both men and women work to make these organic floating beds, which last for around five to six months. Besides vegetables, rice seedlings can sometimes be grown. During the monsoon, farmers use small boats to navigate between these small islands.

Fish are grown in the water, too, which fertilizes the water for the plants, and prevents mosquitoes from breeding.

'Air meadows' is the beautiful description for a multi millennial old tradition of feeding European livestock. How do we know this? Well because in this form of silviculture, the standard way of growing trees for an optimum harvest was to pollard them and thus create a yearly plethora of thickly growing, thin leafy branches above browse height. Evidence of whole stands of trees pruned this way have been discovered dating from the Neolithic Period all over the continent and there still exist examples of ancient pollarded trees in parks common land and pre-Enclose Act hedgerows. It is very interesting to note that up until the beginning of the 20th century more tree hay, was cut, dried and stored for use in Europe than conventional (grass) hay. Furthermore, air meadows didn't just provide food, sheep in particular are known to self-medicate for internal parasites by using the tannins and other phenolic compounds found in leaves. So for free food and medicine, look to the sky.

Pollarding is similar to coppicing- the difference being the former is done above grazing level, cutting branches close to the trunk rather than cutting the entire tree down to a stump.

Only certain tree species can be cut in this way without dying, such as willow and hazel. Pollarding starts when the tree is young (cutting mature trees in this way is calling topping, and usually doesn't heal well), and requires cutting back the new shoots every 2-5 years. This usually results in the swollen knobs pollards are know for!

Usually 5 or so branches are used for pollarding (the rest being chopped down to the trunk competely), but you can cut all branches off too.

but also the Italian American methods of burying or insulating fig trees

Even Russian fruit trenches are cool af

All of these methods got me thinking...

If you kept fruit trees (and even vines that you train into woody stalks, like the method for vite ad alberello) low to the ground

it'd be so easy to put a hot compost beneath or beside these plants (100% grass clippings piled up = easy hot compost), and/ or cover the plants with straw/ hay for protection from the cold weather.

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1. Plastic waste could be cheaply recycled using water and oxygen

“Researchers have found a way to break down everyday plastic waste into valuable chemicals using nothing but water and oxygen, with no catalyst needed. Stirring melted plastic into water scatters it into microscopic droplets, and the chemistry that cuts the tough polymer chains begins on its own. […] The same approach handled a messy range of real waste [… and] ran just as well in tap water and seawater as in purified lab water[….]”

2. A Brazilian bay’s surprise shark nursery sparks conservation project

“A fishing community in Brazil’s southeastern Ilha Grande bay once saw the blacktip sharks […] as potential food. That perception has shifted, at least in part thanks to scientists who discovered that a nearby cove is frequented by dozens of pregnant blacktip sharks, prompting efforts to protect the area. […] The scheme also aims to start environmental education activities in schools so that sharks will come to be seen as part of the region’s natural heritage.”

3. Defying Trump, Baltimore Rugby Players Refuse To Comply With Trans Sports Ban Demand

“[... T]he new rules stipulate complaints about trans athletes can only come from an opposing team. As The Banner reports: “The Capital Union teams decided not to tell on one another, rendering the ban functionally meaningless in regionwide games.” [...] Countless other rugby teams are also speaking out against the ban, including the Golden Badgers of Golden, Colorado—a Division 1 team, meaning it competes at the most elite level.”

4. How a community is helping sea turtles hatch in the Philippines

“When they find a nest, the eggs are dug up, counted, placed carefully in a bucket and brought to a hatchery. In past seasons, researchers found that most, if not all, nests left “in situ” on the beach were eaten by dogs or flooded by the tide. [...] In the early mornings or evenings, researchers and local patrollers take the hatchlings that surfaced that day, sometimes a hundred at once, and place them on the shore, where they begin their race to the West Philippine Sea.”

5. Researchers unlock new path for ultra low-cost solar by swapping out scarce and costly metal in PV cells

“An international team of researchers has successfully built the first high-performance, commercial-scale tandem solar cell that does not rely on indium, a scarce and expensive metal, replacing it instead with [tin oxide,] a material that is far more abundant and costs one per cent as much. [...] “Remarkably, we scaled this technology up to a 207.9 cm2 mini-module, obtaining an outstanding certified efficiency of 31.0 per cent.””

Umbilicaria lyngei

Puckered rocktripe lichen

This umbilicate-foliose lichen grows in roundish, singular, up to 3.5 cm broad lobes attached to the substrate by a single, central holdfast. The upper surface is wrinkled-reticulate, dark-brown to black with pale pruina frosting the reticulate ridges, and the lower surface is black. It only rarely produces apothecia, which are black with gryrose discs. U. lyngei grows on rock in arctic and occasionally alpine North America.

images: source | source

via Seattle Times:

Local Ballard raccoon has been spotted thriving in a remarkably unique and charming body