The root system you see here isn’t just part of the plant: it’s joined by fungi, making it a mycorrhiza — a symbiosis of plant and fungi. Most plants rely on mycorrhizae — the fungi elements give the roots better access to precious nutrients like phosphorous and water, and the plant bits give the fungus […]
Mycorrhiza: Symbiosis of Plant and Fungi Read More »
TIL that 30 million years ago a species of mound-building termites evolved with next-level techniques that we humans could learn from in order to deal with our environmental challenges. These are the Macrotermes, and what makes them particularly special is the very ancient relationship they co-created with the fungus Termitomyces. Neither survives without the
Termites and Mushrooms: A Quid Pro Quo Read More »
I love how scientific technologies are helping us understand the earliest millennia of human history ever better. This drawing, for instance, features an artistic re-creation of skull fragments dated in 2017 that have helped to overturn our understanding of human evolution. Basic questions, such as “how long have Homo Sapiens been around?” And “where
Appearances of Homo Sapiens Read More »
You are looking at an artist’s rendition of a device known as “the staff of al-Tusi” which sounds like a magical weapon straight out of Tolkien but in fact was a genius scientific tool made by one of the most important mathematicians in history. Sharaf al-Din al-Muzaffar al-Tusi (c. 1135-1213) lived in various cities
The Linear Astrolabe of al-Tusi Read More »
It’s pleasant, from where I write this post in my ice-bitten and wintery grey state of Pennsylvania, to look at this lovely plant. Here is _Indigofera tinctoria_ the most important plant to make the dye colored indigo — a color that meant beauty to some, but misery to many others. Indigo is one of
The purple color of this Victorian dress testifies to the discovery of “mauve,” the world’s first synthetic dye. And it was a really, really big deal. The color was produced serendipitously by a brilliant 18-year old named William Henry Perkin in 1856, who didn’t start out his career path to become the millionaire founder
The Discovery of Mauve Read More »
Today in my Early Medieval Europe history class, I had one of the funnest discussions ever that bridged from talking about Medieval ideas about sex (“only okay if done to make a baby”) to a 20th-century pregnancy test my students thought sounded perfectly Medieval. And this would be “the rabbit test,” and it involved
Yesterday’s post was about a legend of green people who lived in Medieval England. Today I bring to you the true story of blue people who lived in the United States in the 19th-21st centuries. The first group come from a family of Kentucky folks who stemmed from a common ancestor named Martin Fugate. He
The Blue Fugate Family Read More »
I’ve done loads of posts on human cannibalism, which might bring about some self-disgust for our species. Would it cheer you up to know, then, that it’s not just us moderns who’ve a legacy of eating each other?. Turns out, humans have a very long history of self-consumption, stemming back a million years to the
Ancestral Cannibals Read More »
You are looking at a Colonial American recipe for abortion. Published in 1748, it was not the only at-home herbal abortifacient of the time, but it was one of the most well read. And given the publisher, that makes sense — it was Ben Franklin. Eager to adapt a British guidebook that had set out
A Colonial Recipe for Abortion Read More »
Ah, the poor doomed philosopher Giordano Bruno. Whereas Galileo had been allowed to live after recanting his astronomical views that ran counter to Roman Catholic teachings, Bruno — himself a Dominican friar — was executed by the Church in 1600. His death and his willingness to buck the Catholic Church’s stranglehold on acceptable views about
Giodano Bruno, the Doomed Philosopher Read More »
Wanna be a smidge happier? Learn about an extremely rare illness discovered in 1882 by the French neurologist Dr. Jules Cotard — if you can read this post, you almost certainly don’t have it. And for that, you will be gladdened. At his hospital at the Pitié-Salpêtrière University in Paris, the doctor saw a patient
Cortard’s Syndrome Read More »
Take a guess as to what this Medieval illustration is a drawing of: upside-down fallopian tubes? Sea-creatures? Mirror-image diagrams of some planetary motion? The answer is below, but before you look — ask yourself how you are arriving at your guesses. The process of investigative inquiry to figure out the nature of reality is something
Hasan Ibn al-Haytham and the Scientific Method Read More »
I know a joke isn’t funny after you explain it, but at least after reading this you might find phlogiston humorous (and also, I just made a pun). Phlogiston isn’t real, but Early Modern scientists thought it was. They used it as a way to explain the ash or calx (for metals) residue after something
Paleo-anthropologists have recently analyzed the skeletons of two humans dating over 2,300 years ago from Ancient China which suggest that deliberate amputation of the limbs of one leg might have been done as a type of legal punishment. The skeletons came from the former Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771-256 BCE) near the modern city of Sanmenxia.
Amputations in the Eastern Zhao Dynasty Read More »
Yesterday, I was fortunate to experience the full solar eclipse from the Pymatuning State Park Reservoir in western Pennsylvania. The light turned silvery as the sun neared total obfuscation, and green colors emerged and reds dimmed, the effect of our eyes’ cones coming offline and employing the rods more. Shadows close to the ground sharpened
A new article from the science journal _Nature_ throws another wrench in the mystery about the origins of the greatest pandemic in history, the Black Death. Here you see the Chüy Valley in modern Kyrgyzstan and one of the tombstones involved in the recent study. Dating to 1338, and written in Syriac, the stone’s translation
One of the joys about cutting-edge studies that merge scientific data with the discipline of history is the chance to answer questions that we never thought we’d be able to. This photo of Greenland’s ice sheet gets at the way that climate scientists are trying to understand one of the most transformative aspects of earth
Younger Dryas Cold Snap Read More »
The Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail is a 70 mile stretch of forested lands begining in Ohiopyle and heading generally northeast almost to Johnstown. Begun in the 1970’s, it is an example of the invaluable natural patrimony of the state of Pennsylvania.
This statue of a worshipping man is from the third millennium BCE is from Ancient Sumeria, and I like the way his lips are pursed, almost like he has a half-smile. Judging his age by the long beard, I think his IRL corresponding figures would have had good reason to smile: they, unlike most other
