A forest fire seems like an unholy cataclysm while it's burning and maybe it looks all the more that way because it's burning up your house, notwithstanding the fact your house is in one hell of poor location if a forest fire can destroy it. After the seasonal floods along the Mississippi, people go back to build homes in the flood plain again. It's the same thing with building homes in forests or too close to one, they burn up.
The forest fire was most likely started by lightning but it could have been some careless camper or hunter who really didn't mind killing thousands or millions of animals due to neglect and the inevitable fire. The forest was dealing with stupid long before campers and hunters, however, and the forest knows how to survive.
The seeds for various types of pines will not germinate unless they have been through a forest fire. All the while the forest is healthy, these trees are sowing their seeds to ensure the forest can recover if a disaster comes. Every forest 'knows' a disaster will come and this has been one of the ingenious mechanisms which have evolved to deal with it.
For some, evolution is difficult to accept since how can such an impossibly beautiful and forward-thinking mechanism ever 'just evolve' but you're sitting there, pretending you're not a monkey, and you wonder about other incredible things 'just evolving??'
There is another type of seed, probably quite a few of them, which must pass through a bird's gullet to go through the bird's digestive system before the seed will germinate. This is another 'idea' which is so subtle and so brilliant.
A problem comes if all of the seeds from a tree start germinating around it because then all these trees will starve each other for resources when they start getting bigger and then they will start dying. Much better if the seeds are inside some type of fruits or berries birds will eat because then the bird may be miles away before the seed is, erm, ejected with the bird's waste. In this way, the tree ensures its range will continue increasing.
The thinking came because Yevette noticed some town in Australia is being 'invaded by spiders flying on silk' but I told her that happens every season. Baby spiders spin a length of web and this is enough for the wind to pick them up to carry them somewhere else. Just like the seeds inside the bird, this increases the range of the spiders with the simplest of mechanisms.
Note: it may be spiders ready for mating which show this behavior but we don't want to think of sexed-up spiders coming to town ever.
Intricate beauty of this nature is something lost altogether with people who are motivated only by economic interests and just go ahead to waste those spotted owls because who really needs them anyway.
Well, something does because the more we look the more we see how everything fits into everything else. With more attention to the cause, the number of pandas in China has started increasing for the first time in years and, maybe even more remarkably, so have the numbers of tigers in India. These are far from occasions to celebrate as yet but it's beautiful to see the recovery is possible when we stop hindering it (i.e. by allowing poachers, failing to protect the forest, etc).
(Ed: heya, Mister Wizard, what part do ticks play, huh?)
Well, there's a place for nasty blood-sucking parasites; we're not exactly sure what it is but we are sure there's a place for them.
(Ed: sure there is ... in a fire!)
That isn't going to work so well when such infernal creatures are afflicting my own personal corpus. You know how it goes with chiggers since those evil bastards head right for your crotch ... and you're suggesting fire as the remedy??
(Ed: relax, it will be fine plus it will give you spiritual purification.)
Tell you what, Joan of Arc, we will purify your spirit first and my own corpus will take its chance with the itching.
The forest fire was most likely started by lightning but it could have been some careless camper or hunter who really didn't mind killing thousands or millions of animals due to neglect and the inevitable fire. The forest was dealing with stupid long before campers and hunters, however, and the forest knows how to survive.
The seeds for various types of pines will not germinate unless they have been through a forest fire. All the while the forest is healthy, these trees are sowing their seeds to ensure the forest can recover if a disaster comes. Every forest 'knows' a disaster will come and this has been one of the ingenious mechanisms which have evolved to deal with it.
For some, evolution is difficult to accept since how can such an impossibly beautiful and forward-thinking mechanism ever 'just evolve' but you're sitting there, pretending you're not a monkey, and you wonder about other incredible things 'just evolving??'
There is another type of seed, probably quite a few of them, which must pass through a bird's gullet to go through the bird's digestive system before the seed will germinate. This is another 'idea' which is so subtle and so brilliant.
A problem comes if all of the seeds from a tree start germinating around it because then all these trees will starve each other for resources when they start getting bigger and then they will start dying. Much better if the seeds are inside some type of fruits or berries birds will eat because then the bird may be miles away before the seed is, erm, ejected with the bird's waste. In this way, the tree ensures its range will continue increasing.
The thinking came because Yevette noticed some town in Australia is being 'invaded by spiders flying on silk' but I told her that happens every season. Baby spiders spin a length of web and this is enough for the wind to pick them up to carry them somewhere else. Just like the seeds inside the bird, this increases the range of the spiders with the simplest of mechanisms.
Note: it may be spiders ready for mating which show this behavior but we don't want to think of sexed-up spiders coming to town ever.
Intricate beauty of this nature is something lost altogether with people who are motivated only by economic interests and just go ahead to waste those spotted owls because who really needs them anyway.
Well, something does because the more we look the more we see how everything fits into everything else. With more attention to the cause, the number of pandas in China has started increasing for the first time in years and, maybe even more remarkably, so have the numbers of tigers in India. These are far from occasions to celebrate as yet but it's beautiful to see the recovery is possible when we stop hindering it (i.e. by allowing poachers, failing to protect the forest, etc).
(Ed: heya, Mister Wizard, what part do ticks play, huh?)
Well, there's a place for nasty blood-sucking parasites; we're not exactly sure what it is but we are sure there's a place for them.
(Ed: sure there is ... in a fire!)
That isn't going to work so well when such infernal creatures are afflicting my own personal corpus. You know how it goes with chiggers since those evil bastards head right for your crotch ... and you're suggesting fire as the remedy??
(Ed: relax, it will be fine plus it will give you spiritual purification.)
Tell you what, Joan of Arc, we will purify your spirit first and my own corpus will take its chance with the itching.
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