Nature’s Depths

Walking through nature with John Palka, a neuroscientist who loves plants and ponders big questions

2016 January

The Breath of the Forest

By John Palka — Posted January 24, 2016

Exploration

I like to think of the forest as not only teeming with life, but also as breathing. Let me explain what I have in mind.

The Trees and I

By John Palka — Posted January 10, 2016

Rumination

In the mid-1970s I had a remarkable experience while walking in ancient forests on the west side of the Cascade Mountains of Washington. . . I was grasping an essential truth that was based on familiar science (relating to genes), but the nature of the grasping had a quality that I was not able to put into words, and that, even if I could, a scientific journal would probably never allow to be published on its pages.

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Explorations and Ruminations

The posts on Nature’s Depths come in two forms, Explorations and Ruminations.

An Exploration is an account of the natural world from my point of view as a biologist who loves nature and is fascinated by how it works.

A Rumination is more personal, relating to my study of nature but written primarily as a reflection on what this has meant to me.
About This Blog
To see a world in a grain of sand—to peer so deeply into the nature of any one thing that the riches of the Universe begin to be revealed—that to me is the essence of science as a quest. Not as a profession or a career, not as a niche in complex modern society, but as a quest for understanding your deepest nature. Read More
About the Author: John Palka
I was a professor of biology at the University of Washington in Seattle from 1969 to 2002. My specialty for all of my academic life was neuroscience, but the very first love of my scientific life was the world of plants. It was peering through a microscope at the brightly colored petals and stamens of an Emperor tulip during my first college course in biology that got me hooked, that literally kept me up at night trying to learn as much about living things as I could. Not only that, it played quite a role in my courtship of Yvonne, whom I married a few months after graduation and with whom I continue to share life, love, and interests 55 years later. Read More