a-ho mitakuye oyasin

“Every woman is the architect of her own fortune”

Do justly, now.

Love mercy, now.

Walk humbly, now.

You are not obligated to complete the work,

but neither are you free to abandon it.

- the Talmud

Welcome to Earth Week on TED-Ed Tumblr! We’ll be sharing ways for you to be a more considerate resident of Planet Earth all week (that you can apply…all year!)

In honor of Earth Day, we took a few tips from Audubon on how to take action to protect birds! We’ve paired them with some of our favorite bird visuals from our TED-Ed Lessons <3

1. Reduce or eliminate pesticide and herbicide use. By using few chemicals in and around your home, you will help keep birds, pets, and your family healthy.

2. Plant native plants. Native flora provides birds with food in the form of fruit and seeds, and is home to tasty invertebrates like bugs and spiders.

3. Identify the non-native invasive plants in your region, and work to remove them from your yard. And don’t bring any new invasives into your backyard! Invasives don’t provide as much good food or habitat as natives do, and can threaten healthy ecosystems.

4. Attract hummingbirds with sugar water, made by combining four parts hot water to one part white sugar, boiled for one to two minutes. Never use honey, artificial sweeteners, or food coloring. Clean hummingbird feeders with a solution of one part white vinegar to four parts water once a week.

5. Make your windows visible to birds to prevent crashes. Put up screens, close drapes and blinds when you leave the house, or stick multiple decals on the glass (decals need to be no more than two to four inches apart to be effective).

And here are some TED-Ed Lessons to watch for the love of the birds:

Bird migration, a perilous journey - Alyssa Klavans

How do birds learn to sing? – Partha Mitra

How did feathers evolve? - Carl Zimmer

Love the Earth, and the Earth will love you back! Happy Earth Week!

Human: … Spin?

However, they only have teeth on thier bottom jaw!  they have corresponding holes in their top jaw for the teeth to lock into, which makes hanging onto a slippery, boneless squid:

It should be noted that the human here isn’t in particular danger of being eaten on purpose, but an accidental swing of it’s multi-ton head, a clip from the teeth, or being directly in the line of it’s sonar could seriously injure or kill them- Divers that have been in the direct line of echolocation for a sperm whale calf have described being hit with the soundwave like “being kicked by a horse” and some have suffered internal organ damage.  Sperm whales, like other large whales, aren’t particularly aggressive towards humans, but they are still very large wild animals who behave in unpredictable ways.