Tag: plants

The science of tall trees

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
January 14, 2013
4 mins to read
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[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2013/01/Tall-Trees.mp3[/podcast] Sometimes science is focused on really big questions: where did life come from? How did the universe begin? But sometimes, the focus is much smaller. Sometimes, researchers set out to answer a simple question, one that many people have perhaps asked, but no one has ever set out systematically to answer. A question, for …

O Tannenbaum

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
December 11, 2009
4 mins to read
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Time to re-roast an old chestnut, a column I wrote several years that has become fresh in my mind due to the successful completion last night of Operation Dress-the-Tree (to be followed in a few weeks, of course, by Operation Curse-the-Tree as the needle-shedding skeleton is hauled out to the alley). Is there scientific interest …

Photos of the Day: Fuzz, and Dragonfly

By Edward Willett in Blog
August 4, 2007
1 mins to read
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More photos here.

Photo of the Day that was Actually Taken Yesterday: Red

By Edward Willett in Blog
July 19, 2007
1 mins to read
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Photo of the Day that Actually WAS Taken Today: The Cactus

By Edward Willett in Blog
July 6, 2007
1 mins to read
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Photo of the Day: Framed

By Edward Willett in Blog
July 4, 2007
1 mins to read
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"The purple, purple grass of home…"

By Edward Willett in Blog
April 13, 2007
1 mins to read
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I blogged briefly a couple of posts ago about the fact the early Earth might have been purple, not green. This means, of course, that other planets could even now be predominantly orange or purple rather than green, and still have organisms drawing their energy from the sun just as green plants do here. John …

The early Earth may have been purple…

By Edward Willett in Blog
April 10, 2007
1 mins to read
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…not green. Chlorophyll, it seems, may have been a relative latecomer.

Sour things taste sweet…

By Edward Willett in Blog
April 3, 2007
1 mins to read
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…thanks to this miraculous berry: People who eat the berry say that lemon juice tastes like lemonade and stout beer seems more like a milkshake. They add that after consuming Synsepalum dulcificum, rhubarb tastes like a sugar stick and strawberries taste like candy.Work is underway to commercialize the “miraculin” protein that causes this effect, so …

Photo of the Day: Autumn Shadows

By Edward Willett in Blog
November 3, 2006
1 mins to read
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Orchids

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
April 15, 2003
5 mins to read
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Over the weekend, the Regina Orchid Society held its annual show and sale. I know this, even though I was out of town, because when I got home we had orchids in our living room. The Regina Orchid Society, which has about 40 members and has been around for 15 years, and countless societies like …

Coast redwoods

By Edward Willett in Blog, Columns, Science Columns
September 9, 2002
7 mins to read
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Imagine a tree taller than the tallest building in Regina–by several stories; a tree as tall as a 30-story building. Imagine a tree trunk so massive you could easily live inside its hollowed trunk. Now imagine a whole stand of such trees, a valley filled with them. That’s the amazing reality of the Coast Redwoods. …