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Communities beneath our feet

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Mycelium Sun by Raya Wolfsun. http://www.rayawolfsun.com/2014/04/24/mycelium-sun/ One of the most fascinating topics to me is soil. Earth Dirt. But more-so what makes good soil. Or, more accurately, who. The soil micro- and macro-biomes are rich webs of life Unravelling energy from the dead. Decomposers Little-celebrated yet immensely-important, Decomposers are to thank for the fact That we aren't all chin deep in refuse and dead cells. They break down dead and dying organisms, To process and recycle the nutrients from our bodies. Returning the calcium in our bones, The iron in our blood, The nitrogen, carbon, potassium, magnesium, oxygen, Into bio-available treats for new life to sample. Without the cycling of nutrients, the Earth would be a big dead thing, All existing nutrients trapped in the dead bodies preserved, shrivelled up in the sun. Decomposers like bacteria, fungi, bugs and worms work hard, chewing through the detritus of sloughed off cells. Fungi produce hyphae, myc...
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Andreaeobryopsida

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That title is not the cat walking on the keyboard after I've typed my name. No, rather it is a class of non vascular plants, which contain mosses, like those found in the order Andreaeopsida. I've just recently learned a fun little mnemonic to remember the division of evolution: "Dutch king Phillip came over for green spinach" or : Binomial nomenclature is when we name things with two Latin words. These words are the  Genus and the species. Species  being the most specialised branch of the tree of life, whereas kingdoms can be seen more as the trunk of the family tree. The three main kingdoms are Animals, Plants and Fungi.  When I mention class and order in the first paragraph, I'm talking about a branch that forks off around the middle of the time line of evolution. Mosses are an early evolutionary plant, and consist of a rudimentary life form, so it doesn't include a vascular system ie: a way to get water up from the ground and into high branch...
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Ban the Bottle

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Bottled water is the stupidest product from an environmental stand point. The energy and natural resources that are required to extract the oil, refine it, ship it, process it, manufacture it into bottles, fill them with tap water, package them (using more plastic,cardboard and wooden pallets) and send them to distribution centers, is ridiculous when you can get better quality water from your tap in a reusable cup. Bottled water is expensive (four times as expensive as gasoline per liter), the low quality plastic leaches endocrine disrupting chemicals into the water a while and  when we're done drinking the water after an hour we just throw out the bottle, the cherry on top of a waste sundae. A word of caution: if you ever meet me in real life and you have  a disposable water bottle with you, I will judge you, harshly. Have a good day! :)
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