You have likely heard the term “bonsai”, which is a Japanese term that, when literally translated, means “planted in a container”. It is a horticultural technique that creates miniature versions of regularly-sized trees for ornamental purposes [1]. There is, however, another similar technique used in Japan that is much less-commonly known around the world. Daisugi...

As humans, we use a variety of means to give us clues about our past in order to answer questions like where we came from, and how we got here. Written records, ancient ruins, and unearthed remains of people and places have provided us with an immense amount of information to help answer some of...

If you’ve ever dreamed of living in a simpler time, then this is just the place for you. Love Valley in North Carolina is famous as the town where cars are banned, and just might be the answer to your slow-paced life dreams. Love Valley: The Town Where Cars are Banned Looking like the set...

Planting trees has become a movement to help replenish forests and reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So naturally, we should start planting ice in the Arctic, right?  A team of Indonesian designers embarked on a mission to find out if this was possible. They created a unique machine to help fight climate change: an...

Having healthy, thriving rainforests are crucial to the survival of our planet. Considered to be the oldest biomes on earth, tropical rainforests contribute significantly to the world’s biodiversity, and are home to fifty percent of the world’s plants and animals, despite only taking up six percent of the earth’s surface area [1]. They also play...

Melvin Nicholson, a British photographer was out working on the Rannoch Moor, south of Glencoe in Western Scotland. In a moment he described as “magical”, Nicholson witnessed and captured a stunning natural phenomenon – a white, colorless rainbow caused by fog in the sun’s glare, gleaming brightly in the sky. It was a sight so...

100 years ago, there were more than 200,000 lions living in the wild in Africa. Today, only about 10% of them remain. Lions have disappeared from 95% of their historic range [1], and many live inside of protected animal preserves in order to protect the animals from poaching. Unfortunately, wildlife preserves don’t have a perfect...

Toilet paper – you probably use it multiple times per day, but have you ever stopped to consider the impact it has on the environment? In the United States, the average person uses around fifty pounds of toilet paper every year, which adds up to a lot of waste [1]. Fortunately, hemp toilet paper could...

The deep sea is full of fascinating- albeit terrifying- creatures, that look more like they jumped out of the pages of a sci-fi novel rather than real life. For the general public, images of these creatures can often be jarring, but for ocean scientists, they’re simply a part of everyday life. Every so often, however,...

Arizona is, to borrow from the neighboring state of New Mexico, a land of enchantment. The southwestern U.S. state is home to the meteor crater, Grand Canyon National Park, Monument Valley, Saguaro National Park, and the focus of this article: Petrified Forest National Park. In a way, Petrified Forest National Park has been with me...

Today, the earth’s north and south poles appear as frozen wastelands, inhabitable for only a select few plants and animals. With temperatures dropping as low as -100 Fahrenheit (-75 degrees Celsius) in Antarctica during the winter months, it is not surprising that most of the world’s plants and animals choose to take up residence closer to...

Spiders. Some people hate them, not too many love them, but they’re everywhere and they’re here to stay. By and large, spiders don’t deserve the hate they get from people There are more than 43,000 species of spider in the world, and so far we’ve only identified 30 species which are capable of killing a...