Walking through nature with John Palka, a neuroscientist who loves plants and ponders big questions
Scientists have a reputation of being solitary and introverted, their labs functioning as isolated silos and their teams driven by competition. However, friendship and collaboration are at least as important, as are shared passions outside the world of science.
The sky is a powerful presence, and its blue color is an integral part of our experience. But what is the sky, really, and why does it look blue while the Sun looks golden during the day and reddish at dawn and dusk?
Living things are almost never found in isolation. Rather, life occurs in communities and ecosystems. By no means all the members of a biological community are apparent to the naked eye or to the camera lens, but I find it rewarding to look for moments when the way a community functions reveals itself in a visible way.
Water enters a plant through the roots, but it is needed by all of the plant’s living cells. The leaves (or the needles of a conifer) can be several hundred feet above the soil. Trees have no pumps analogous to an animal heart. How, then, does water get to the top of a Doug fir or a redwood? Read and find out!
Many of us enjoy the brisk cold of winter, especially out here in Minnesota. Hardy mammals and birds at least tolerate the frigid weather. But what about plants? No fur or feathers. No moving out of the wind or digging a cozy burrow under the snow. What keeps trees and bushes from literally freezing to death in the cold mid-winter?
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.