Walking through nature with John Palka, a neuroscientist who loves plants and ponders big questions
Among the annual changes that occur in the deciduous forests of the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, and many parts of Canada is the extravagant production of the sweet sap of sugar maples (Acer saccharum, Family Sapindaceae) and a handful of other tree species.
Water is abundant on our Earth and is also essential for all of life as we know it. It is part of our daily experience—we see it, we drink it, we feel it on our skin. But what is water? How does it get the properties that are so familiar to us? Why is it central to the processes of life? Let’s take a look.
Today is the last day of 2017. As we look toward the future, it is a good time to contemplate what we have explored during the year just past and how it helps us grasp the place of our lives in the grand scheme of things.
In the autumn, why do particular leaves fall as if the trees had gently let them go, while most still cling to their parent branches? Is it happenstance, or do the trees regulate the fate of their leaves? Let’s look more closely.
Over and over on Nature’s Depths we have seen that a forest is in many respects like a super-organism, with startlingly many interacting components ranging from towering trees to soil microorganisms that we can only detect with a microscope or with molecular techniques. When we go walking, however, it is the trees that largely make up the forest of our experience, and that experience changes with the seasons.
Many neuroscientists ponder big questions because, after all, most of us believe that the nervous system is the seat of human experience and emotions and thus of what is most meaningful in our lives. It is less common to find neuroscientists who also love and study plants. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you how this dual affinity came about for me.