Tag: environment
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The Science Behind The Red Sun During Wildfires
A Red Sun seems otherworldly, but it can be explained by the very same fascinating physics that give us our blue skies on a normal afternoon.
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Do Penguins Have Knees?
There’s something about penguins, isn’t there? They evoke our curiosity, our affection—nay, our adoration—at levels that other members of the animal kingdom would be hard-pressed to compete with. Perhaps it’s their wobbly gait. Maybe it’s the stark contrast they have with the often otherworldly habitats in which we often mentally…
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How a Puffin Problem Led to the Creation of a Star Wars Icon
Star Wars is as much a product of human ingenuity as it is a space odyssey. Just look at how they solved the Puffin Problem.
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Did Ben and Jerry, the Blue Ducks Who Married, Really Cause an Extinction?
In a sense, this is a story of a story that never needed to be one.
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Where the Earth Opened Up
Where the Water Reflects the Sky | Part One The depth of our history— humanity’s, life’s, earths, and that of the universe itself— is unfathomable. Yet that is where our series begins—deep time. Before you and I. Before everyone you’ve ever known, loved, or learned about. Before the pyramids, before…
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Why Do Hedgehogs Have Spikes?
Hedgehogs are easily one of the most unmistakable little critters out there, but how much do you know about them
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Bull Kelp
A couple of weeks back, I saw my first ever Bull Kelp at Huntington Beach! Technically, Bull Kelp is a broad name for a genus, Nereocystis, meaning mermaid’s-bladder in Greek. The thing about the genus is, it’s monotypic meaning it contains just one species: Nereocystis luetkeana. Depending on where you’re…
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Review | Sharks, Lies, and Videotape
“Sharks, Lies, and Videotape: A content analysis of 32 years of Shark Week documentaries” is a stunningly comprehensive report on the ways in which Shark Week, arguably the largest source of shark information consumed by the masses, mixes real science with spectacle and salacious stories.
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How to Build an Animal | Part Two
There really is no shortage of ways to build an animal, but there are rules to be followed. What better place to start than the beginning?
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How to Build an Animal | Part One
There really is no shortage of ways to build an animal, but there are rules to be followed—rules with deep roots.
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The Wild Life of the Horseshoe Crab
Horseshoe Crabs are some of the most fascinating creatures on the planet, and they are connected to us in ways you never imagined.
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Why do Elephants Have Big Ears?
When you get hot, you sweat. When Elephants get hot, well, they don’t sweat. So what’s a 13 foot tall and 13,000-pound animal to do?
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The Impact of Barry Commoner
As one of America’s most influential environmentalist, Barry Commoner devoted his life and career to ecology, awareness, education, and enacting positive change. He was among the first to begin advocating for recycling and organic farming, as well as raising awareness about the threats of the greenhouse effect and the dangers…
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Shooting a Lion
In the case of the lion, a picture represents hundreds of years of colonialism, a de-wilding of nature, and the narcissism of the human race.
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Reflection: Dead Forests & Living Memories
In her article for The New York Times, “Dead Forests and Living Memories”, Helen paints a picture of a lost landscape, the struggles of restoration and conservation efforts, and the continued threat of globalization on native ecosystems.
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Algae as a Biofuel
With the exception of chemosynthetic life forms such as many of those who reside at the openings of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, the vast majority of biological energy has the sun to thank for its origins. Whether it be thermal, or through photonic collisions within the chloroplasts of plant cells, the…
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The Tawny Emperor Butterfly
The Tawny Emperor (Asterocampa clyton) Butterfly may be beautiful, but their food sure isn’t. Finding an adult on a flower isn’t likely. Instead, you’ll find them on dead animals, poop, mud, and sap, slurping up broths of minerally goodness.
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The Froghopper | DFS #11
This here is a froghopper. They can jump distances over 100 times their body length, accelerate at 4000 m/s^2 (nearly 9,000 mph), and experience 400 Gs while doing it. For context, a typical human could withstand no more than 9 Gs of force, and the average bullet travels at nearly…
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Join Devon on The Wild Life
Have a nature question you want to be answered? Come on the show to have it answered by Devon (and maybe even a special guest) Comment below or email your questions to hello@thewildlife.blog
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Dispatches From Somewhere #10: The Golden Silk
Trichonephela clavipes, or The Golden Silk Orb-weaver, may be huge but they look a lot tougher than they act. They’re not aggressive and only bite if handled roughly, and they’re super clumsy outside of their web!If you listen to the podcast, you might remember us discussing these with @shakiguani on Tainted Love…
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Grid-Scale Storage
The wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine—and not always equally or consistently. Even in the sunniest of places, like deserts, “the amount of sunlight can vary from minute to minute.” (The Economist, 2014) On the flipside, demand itself is also irregular, and times of highest demand…
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Dispatches From Somewhere #7: Pitcher Plants
Weird plants are the best finds. On a camping trip this August with my brother, we came across a bunch of Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea) in a bog! Similar to the Venus Fly Trap, it too is a carnivorous plant, trapping insects inside its pitcher. One of my favorite…
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Dispatches from Somewhere #6: The Indo-Pacific Rock-Boring Urchin
One of my favorite finds from our trip to #Oahu, an Indo-Pacific Rock-Boring Urchin (Echinometra mathaei).
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Let the Sun Shine
In February of 2014, 40 minutes outside of Las Vegas, the Ivanpah solar-thermal plant made its debut. Able to deliver 377 MW of power to 140,000 southern California homes, it’s “a sea of 347,000 mirrors, reflecting the rays of the desert sun on to boilers mounted on three 460-foot towers”.…
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No Fracking Way
Short for hydraulic fracturing, fracking was introduced into the oil and gas industries in the late 1940s as a method of extracting petroleum or natural gas. Nowadays, it is estimated that “90% of the natural gas wells in the United States” (Dunlap, 2019, 97) employ fracking as a method of…
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Putting a Price on Carbon: Who Pays, and How?
It’s not uncommon that a Carbon tax or Cap-and-Trade is dismissed as some sort of scheme, just another example of the government taking the people’s hard-earned money. Thing is, this simply isn’t true, and both options carry some serious weight in terms of the impacts they could have on reducing…
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Dispatches from Somewhere #5| American Alligator
This is one of my favorite shots I’ve ever managed to capture. I snapped this in 2015 at one of my all-time favorite parks, @brazosbendstatepark near Houston, TX. It sorta looks like she’s lunging forward, but in reality, she was sitting in a quickly flowing stream with her mouth open against the…
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Dispatches from Somewhere #4| Antheraea polyphemus
Admittedly, this photo isn’t from any time recently. I took this during the summer of 2014 at Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley, MN. It was while I was working for a nonprofit organization called Tree Trust building a 180-foot swamp foot boardwalk with local high school students. It was also…
