1. Crows understand the concept of gifts.

There’s a little girl who started feeding the murder by her house and they started bringing her trinkets (cool pebbles, coins, shiny things, bleached animal bones, etc) as a thank you. 

2. Crows remember who has been kind to them and tell other crows about the nice humans.

There are various examples of people who have helped crows and the crows not only come back to say hi, but also bring friends who need help over for the nice human to help.

3. Crows are the only other animal known to make tools in order to make another tool.

4. Crows have been proven to have a sense of self

If you mark them with a coloured dot that they can see and then show them their reflection in a mirror they soon realize that the reflection is them and not another crow.

5. Crows have regional dialects and accents.

They are also able to copy each other’s dialects and accents to fit in if they move to an area where the accent is different.

6. Crows regularly visit their parents after leaving the nest.

“I get excited when I see waste,” the materials scientist told Patta, “because I know that’s life for us.”

The fact that plastic does not sink is precisely what intrigued Matee.

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“It took us about nine months just to make one brick.”

One brick wasn’t enough, but that was no problem for a woman who likes to get her hands dirty. Next, she built a machine to mass produce the plastic bricks. First the waste is sorted to remove rubble and metal, and then the plastic is baked — just like “making cookies,” joked Matee — before the boiling mixture is molded into building blocks. Her setup can churn out as many as 2,000 per day, and they’re 35% cheaper than standard bricks, and up to seven-times stronger. 

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Kenya’s fight against plastic pollution isn’t just a homegrown issue. It’s complicated by the fact that, two years ago, the U.S. exported more than one billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 nations, including Kenya. Now Washington wants to make the shipment of more plastic waste a condition of a proposed trade deal.

Greenpeace activist Amos Wemanya believes Kenya can barely manage its own waste, let alone recycle America’s.

Matee agrees that countries should keep their waste in their own backyards, and she intends to make good on what she calls her triple threat:

“The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce affordable housing… the more we created more employment for the youth,” she said.

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

Wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone has changed the ecosystem *significantly*.

One remarkable thing that was not predicted that demonstrates how interlinked these things are:

Wolf eat elk.

Elk eat fewer willows.

Willows become healthier.

Number of beavers increase.

Number of songbirds increase.

Overall health of streams increases.

Number of fish increases.

Water table stabilizes.

This is called a “trophic cascade” and we normally see them as bad things. But a positive trophic cascade is an amazing thing, and apparently nobody predicted this one.

What they didn’t predict was that wolf predation would keep elk on the move so they wouldn’t overgraze a specific area.

When the elk overgrazed the willows, they removed the best source of food for beavers during the winter.