Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
by Michael Melford
The palette of the Adirondack forest shifts with the seasons. In the delicate tracery of a viburnum leaf, summer’s green gives way to autumn’s red as chlorophyll fades and underlying pigments emerge.
This article will examine ten geological discoveries that have made headlines in the scientific world. The events have all occurred in the last 15,000 years, which is recent in terms of the geologic time scale.
"Ice crystals form in a wide variety of shapes and sizes: stars, needles, columns and plates. When bright light passes from the sun, moon or an artificial light source through a portion of the sky containing a concentration of ice crystals, magical apparitions often appear. The crystals focus, scatter, bend, split and reflect the light rays into a kaleidoscope of optical phenomena: arcs, glories, halos, pillars and sun dogs." The Weather Doctor
“Everything has the energy of its making inside it.” Andy Goldsworthy
"He’s a British sculptor, photographer and committed environmentalist, and he likes arranging things. He turns random piles of stones into gravity-defying structures and scattered leaves into dazzling gradiated rainbows. He tracks lines and curves upon the ground where none should exist, stacks ice in the unlikeliest of places, and puts patterns and colors into the landscape that would make any onlooker rub their eyes. And the true magic of his work is that for a second – just for a second – you believe it’s the work of Nature. What would your first thought be if you encountered these in the wild?"
Glow-in-the-dark Neonothopanus gardneri rediscovered after 170 years.
"In 1840, English botanist George Gardner was traveling in Brazil. One night, he noticed some boys playing with a strange, glowing object. To his shock, he had encountered a bioluminescent mushroom. It's only taken 170 years to find some more. After Gardner sent a sample of the fungus to Kew Herbarium in England, it pretty much disappeared completely, and it's now thanks to biologists at San Francisco State that we've finally found some more."
