• Small Friends of Fungi

    by Bob Mesi­bov — If you stud­ied the tra­di­tional sort of bi­ol­ogy, you're prob­a­bly car­ry­ing around an un­for­tu­nate prej­u­dice. You see ter­res­trial habi­tats as a sim­pli­fied nu­tri­ents-and-en­ergy pyra­mid. At the bot­tom are green plants, feed­ing on sun­light, car­bon diox­ide and soil wa­ter and min­er­als. Next layer up on the pyra­mid is...

  • A Thing of Beauty

    by Elio — We can at­test to these truths through a lone piece of am­ber. Be­tween 50 and 35 mil­lion years ago, a spring­tail (Collem­bola) got stuck in some resin, prob­a­bly from a conifer. Be­fore it could free it­self, more resin dripped on it, even­tu­ally en­tomb­ing it com­pletely. In time, the resin be­came am­ber, but be­fore that hap­pened, a fun­gus grew...