mindspace

Ever wondered if trees communicate with each other? They do, yes! It’s long known that trees trade nutrients, especially sugar, with the fungi that would reach out to their root system in exchange for nutrients from the soil. But recent discoveries from the experiments by a team of biologists, have also shown that these fungi form a deep network that connects neighbouring plants and trees and enables carbon, water, nitrogen, and nutrient exchanges.

Dubbed as the ‘World Wood Web’, the Mycorrhizal network (an underground network of fungal filaments called hyphae that branch out to the tree roots) is a biological network (also called as mycelium) that connects hundreds of trees.

The beauty of these symbiotic relationships is that they mutually help each other’s survival, acting as one big community—with bigger mother trees acting as hubs, protecting the younger ones. Nutrient exchange, warnings, immune responses, you name it! Sometimes trees of the same kind sabotage other trees with toxins and proliferate their species via a chained positive feedback network—resulting in a single species dominating an area. 👀 Just … like our World Wide Web! Wow!

Saturn’s rings are new…relative to sharks. Sharks existed on Earth long before Saturn got its rings. Just learned this over a conversation and couldn’t help but wonder how many things we assume to be old but in reality, they are not that old.

“The findings indicate that Saturn’s rings formed between 10 million and 100 million years ago. From our planet’s perspective, that means Saturn’s rings may have formed during the age of dinosaurs.” - Source.

On a ship through a rough sea, if you are inside the bridge, you’ll have a tough time getting a clear vision. Fog, condensation, waves of saltwater — everything competes to kill the visibility. Engineers found that conventional windshield wipers weren’t that effective against constant exposure to saltwater and continuous operation.

So the solution? It’s those small round installations like this you see on the bridge windshields. Better known as clear view screens. They are driven by an enclosed motor that disperses water droplets as it spins. It also heats up the glass to vaporise droplets, thus allowing a small window of clear sight ahead. Similar to the ones in CNC machines and locomotives.

Pretty cool! Some view is better than no view, eh? :)

Around 6th Century BC, the Persian empire had a very nifty way of counting battle casualties. Before any battles, the soldiers would be lined up in the presence of their battle commanders and generals. In front of them, a basket. With the emperor as the witness, they’d throw a single arrow from their quiver into the basket, which would then be sealed.

When the soldiers return, they’d be commanded to take an arrow from the same basket. The remaining arrows would then give the empire an estimate of the men they have lost in the battle. This is akin to the digital checksum process we use to verify the integrity of a file that’s transmitted over the internet.

Starry nights with clear skies are usually colder than a cloudy night. Ever noticed this? Why does it feel colder? Well, during the day, the sun heats up the Earth. But at night the heat is radiated back into the space. But when clouds are present, they act like an insulator and retain the radiated heat that would rather escape into the space without them in the way.

Playful aggression or cuteness aggression is the term for when one experiences an aggressive response to an adorable stimulus like a baby’s cheeks or a fluffy unicorn toy. The response is a harmless urge to pinch and squeeze a baby’s face. People would say something like “You’re so cute and I am going to eat you up!” in an aggressive manner, gritting their teeth or clenching their fists, but in a harmless and tender way.

This is similar to a stimulus of intense happiness evoking an accompanied negative emotion like crying to keep the hormones balanced.