plant communities, climate and all that's between

The magic of the honeycrisp

I was raised on apples from Bolton Orchards — and trained to recognize the unparalleled magic of a perfect New England macintosh (pictured). I stand by that this is the best American eating apple when done right (something anyone who has not had one on site cannot understand) but sometime in my twenties came … 

… the rise of the honeycrisp.

People go mad over this apple variety (e.g., my friend Sharon). So, here’s the shocker — we don’t know the parentage. How crazy is that? This apple was released in 1991 and we used to think it was a Macoun-Honeygold kid, but no — it’s half Keepsake and half who-the-hell-knows. Read more here. And, please, be as shocked as I am.

Where the magic happens

Six months ago at NCEAS — that’s Ben Cook in the center of the photo peering into his laptop. He has a new, great paper out at PNAS, showing how divergent responses to winter and spring warming lead to species that appear ‘immune’ to climate change, if you just looked at change over time. But these species are probably going to have the more dramatic, non-linear responses. Read more here.

Lamark, founder of the doctrine of evolution

Yes, folks that’s the inscription on this statue at the entrance of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where I visited a couple weeks ago. Is it just me or did someone else hear that some British folk might have helped with that doctrine?

50 years ago

… Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions came out (shortly after he was denied tenure at Harvard, just saying). Nature did a quick retrospective here. Bully for you if you know how the picture reference is related to Kuhn (without reading the article).

Quick update from Vienna

For all those who have emailed me recently you know I have been traveling the last two and a half weeks. Boston to New York to New Hampshire, to Boston again and now Vienna where I attended the PEP725 and the European Geophysical meetings. They were both great — due of course to the great people. Thanks to KB for this photo from the PEP meeting (at ZAMG — I got the fun of taking a tram to the leafy gorgeous university and giving a talk in a room so nice a glass floor has been installed over the original marble sunken floor). 

My absolute favorite picture from the photo exhibit at the Royal BC Museum. A beaver trudging across the Loire River floor with his Populus branch, headed damward I suspect.

“Then in the mélange, he saw the dolphin. Scientists have long known bottlenose dolphins sometimes associate with false killer whales, but this is almost certainly the first time the relationship has been photographed.”