Nature and Science
•Animals, plants, planet •Small, digestible science explanations
Why Martian dust devils can fling pebbles across plains
Seeing pebbles move where there’s barely any air It sounds wrong at first.
How mangrove roots enlist microbes to stitch new coastline
People often picture a new coastline as something bulldozed into place. Mangroves do it differently. It isn’t one single site, either.
Seagrass meadows that trap microplastics in their blades and change sediment chemistry
Why plastic sticks to underwater grass Stand at the shore and look into clear water, and it’s easy to assume the mess floats somewhere else.
How dust grains stick together to build planets around young stars
Sticky dust sounds wrong at first It’s not one single place or event.
A microbe in Antarctic ice that eats methane without sunlight
A small contradiction in the ice It feels like cold, sealed ice should be quiet and inactive.
How cactus spines harvest fog into tiny water droplets
Watching a cactus drink air Fog can feel like nothing. It just sits there, damp and weightless.
How abandoned boats and tires turn into accidental reefs
```markdown ## Why junk sometimes helps underwater life Old tires and rusting boats aren’t usually the first things people think of when they picture a.
What causes red sprites to flash above thunderstorms
Why do “sprites” appear at all? People expect lightning to stay inside the storm clouds, or to strike the ground.
The jellyfish that can reverse its life cycle
People usually think of a life cycle as a one-way street. Egg to larva. Juvenile to adult. For one small jellyfish, that expectation breaks.
A soil microbe that munches plastic in the lab
What people mean by “plastic-eating” microbes You toss a plastic fork in the trash and it still looks like a fork years later.
