A Natural Philosopher in Cascadia

Source: The Oatmeal

Further reading/listening:

Mantis Shrimp Vision is Not as Mindblowing as You’ve Been Told

Mantis Shrimp Have the World’s “Best” Eyes - but Why?

Who cares about the history of science? 

The 2015 Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Lecture was this year presented by Professor Hasok Chang, Hans Rausing professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.

He looks at how we can learn from the radically different ways in which scientists have made sense of the universe over the ages.

Interested in Citizen Science? Check out the new Citizen Science page on the Brilliant Botany website!

It features a list of botanical citizen science projects that you can contribute to.

by Keith Carey

neither albino nor polar bear, these rare black bears (there are fewer than five hundred) are known as kermode bears, or what the gitga’at first nation call mooksgm’ol, the spirit bear — a word they did not speak to european fur traders lest the bears be discovered and hunted.

the white fur in these bears is triggered by a recessive mutation of the same gene associated with red hair and fair skin in humans. though it remains unclear as to how the trait arose (or disappeared), it is especially pronounced on certain islands.

this week, the b.c. government introduced legislation that will protect 85 percent of the 6.4 million hectare rainforest from logging. trophy hunting, sadly, will remain legal in many southern parts of the great bear rainforest.

Photo credit: Peter Pearsall/USFWS

Springtime visitors to coastal Oregon can take advantage of warmer weather to see a perennial (and mostly evergreen) attraction: our massive maritime forests. Whether one is a serious hiker or a paved-path ambler, the forested parks, waysides and refuges along Highway 101 offer plenty of opportunity to experience this lush and diverse habitat. At Cape Meares National Wildlife Refuge in Tillamook County, visitors can hike through a rare stand of old-growth conifers and explore an ecosystem several millennia in the making.

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees: Here and elsewhere along the Oregon coast, conifers shoot up 150 feet or more from the sodden earth, their broad trunks enrobed in mosses and lichens, their closely-spaced crowns all but invisible from the forest floor. Not uncommonly these trees would reach even loftier heights—200, even 300 feet tall—but scant few were spared the logger’s axe. These trees may not be the tallest on earth, but they are among the stoutest.

Pacific wren. Photo credit: Peter Pearsall/USFWS