Winged Microchips Glide like Tree Seeds

Cortez Deacetis

As spring ends, maple trees start out to unfetter winged seeds that flutter and swirl from branches to land carefully on the ground. Encouraged by the aerodynamics of these helicoptering pods, as very well as other gliding, spinning tree seeds, engineers assert to have crafted the smallest ever wind-borne machines, […]

Invasive Cheatgrass Spreads Under City Lights

Cortez Deacetis

In his seminal 1949 guide A Sand County Almanac, American naturalist Aldo Leopold warned of the perils of cheatgrass—a tall and furry invasive plant that originated in Europe and Asia. Currently cheatgrass outcompetes indigenous species throughout large swaths of the western U.S., displacing sagebrush steppe grasses and threatening grain and […]