Videos
Podcasts
Blogs
Quizzes
GamesPosts Tagged: ‘trees’
Leaf Peepr, the Leaf Peeping App
by Amanda Arnold | October 13, 2011
A few Octobers ago, I ate no fewer than 50 boiled peanuts on the ride up to the North Georgia mountains in hopes of seeing yellow and red leaves, and arrived to a sad, leaf-free trail. But that was then and this is now — when there’s a leaf peeping app called “Foliage Leaf Peepr” right there on your phone.
This 70-foot-tall tree is found on the grounds of Stowlangtoft Hall in Bury St. Edmund, UK, a hall built 1859 for the Wilson family. Evidently the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII, hung around the house in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The stately property was turned into a nursing home in 1969, and in the nearby Stowlangtoft Estate, you’ll find holiday cottages, from which you may visit the scary beech tree.
I was reading John Muir today over at The Atlantic, and, as you might guess, he makes a couple of good points having to do with trees. One: “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away.” And two: It takes a long time to grow an old-growth forest. “During a man’s life, only saplings can be grown. … It took more than 3,000 years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forest.” It would have been a shame for “fools” to take down those old, old trees.
The Bleeding Trees of Socotra Island
by Amanda Arnold | March 10, 2011
What’s cool about islands is that they can sometimes look like cartoon illustrations, on account of their isolated ecosystems, in which weird-looking trees are the norm.
Here’s an example: the dragon’s blood tree, found on Socotra Island, off the coast of Yemen — named for bleeding red sap, and unique for genuinely looking like an umbrella.
In Matt and Rachel’s recent podcast episode on Charleston, S.C., they included a photo of an oak tree that looks as if it’s reached down to cradle people in its branches. It’s called the Angel Oak Tree and it’s found on John’s Island at Angel Oak Park, just outside of Charleston.
“That’s very serious,” said Russian composer Igor Stravinsky when he laid eyes on General Sherman, the largest living tree on Earth. At more than 270 feet tall (82.2 meters) and weighing 2.7 million pounds (1.2 million kilograms), this sequoia is indeed profound. If you wanted to tie a yellow ribbon around its trunk, well, that ribbon would need to be about 102.6 feet (31.2 meters) long. The tree’s base has a 36-foot (10.9-meter) diameter. And amazingly, the sequoia continues to bulk up.
In the United States, the “log cabin” is a nostalgic favorite. The early settlers and pioneers often built log cabins, and Abraham Lincoln was raised in one.
People still build them today. In the following video, you see how a log cabin is built the “old fashioned way”, starting with trees felled in the forest…
In the following video, Jim Spickler approaches the world’s tallest tree and climbs it to measure its height…
This is both a fascinating and depressing video. At the beginning of the 20th century there were millions of acres of Redwood forests containing massive trees reaching nearly 400 feet tall at the high end. They could be 20 feet or more in diameter at the base. Native American Indians did not cut them, and there were limits on what settlers could do with them until steam technology and railroads made it technologically possible to cut and move the huge logs. But once the technology was available, it only took a few decades to cut almost all of them down. Here’s how they did it…
Corrugated cardboard is one of those things that you never really think about, but chances are you see it every day. Look around you. As I am sitting here looking around my office, there is a cardboard box of printer paper, a cardboard box from a UPS package received yesterday, and a cardboard box containing one of the kids’ toys. The garage and closets are filled with boxes. Empty cardboard boxes are so common at any retail store that there is usually a special compactor out back to handle all of them. Cardboard is everywhere…
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: In the Lair of the Rat King
- Mandala: Memory Palace, Inception and Simulated Worlds
- Virgin Galactic: $200,000 Ticket to Ride
Stuff You Should Know
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
- Amazing Medical Conditions: Maple Syrup Urine Disorder
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
- Why is NASA studying car safety?
- Tips for in-car Navigation Systems
How-to Stuff
- How to Make the Most of a Gallery Crawl (When You’re on a Shoestring Budget)
- How to Swim with Dolphins (When Deep Water Terrifies You)
- How to Cure a Homemade Cookie Craving Without Turning on the Oven
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 40: Did movies ruin love?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 39: Urban Legends
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 38: Defending Disney Princesses?
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
