Phytomaven

Get ready for climate change! Before it’s too late Living in the evacuation zone of a major fire gave me a taste of the coming climate crisis—and an appreciation for the human capacity to prevent or stop a disaster.

Important piece by @dawnstover.bsky.social.

thebulletin.org/2025/08/get-...

At this summer camp run by grandmas, kids learn cooking skills and life advice At a summer camp in Fullerton, California, grandmas are in charge. Every week, they teach a group of 8-to-14-year-olds how to cook a new dish, and a handicraft such as sewing, embroidering, clay jewel...

A summer camp run by grandmas is teaching 8-to-14-year-olds "lost skills" like how to cook a new dish, sewing, embroidering and more

Key point: The losses are so large bc the economic benefits of universities to their communities and our country are so great.

That's why possible NIH budget cuts--expertly visualized by SciMAP--are so damaging. Check out their maps ⤵️

scienceimpacts.org

"so respectfully, he's making up some shit" sent me

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The beginning of true democracy in America. A offering to this country paid for by the work, dedication and lives of ordinary Black people.

We’ve always had to fight. Are you prepared to fight to protect our rights?

171. Partisan Gerrymandering After Rucho The Supreme Court isn't responsible for partisan gerrymandering. But current events in Texas underscore how much its 2019 ruling in Rucho has left (some) states free to radically abuse the practice.

My math deficient mind is overcome by my critical thinking mind. Here's a pretty good explanation on why one state is taking advantage of a Supreme Court dereliction of duty.

www.stevevladeck.com/p/171-partis...

Tom Kimmerer (@tomkimmerer) Climate change has altered tree growth. Trees quite growing fairly early in the summer, but in wet late summers, growth may begin again. This is called late season flush, as seen in this bur oak. In E...

Climate change is altering tree growth, with wet summers causing abnormal late season growth. Read about it at Our Trees.

Home Discover the science driving the Habitable Worlds Observatory, and learn how to get involved.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory

habitableworldsobservatory.org/home

Are We Alone?

For those who love films.

Notebook is a daily, international film publication. Our mission is to guide film lovers searching, lost or adrift in an overwhelming sea of content.

mubi.com/en/notebook

Winter is coming.

Last night on @theweekendprime.bsky.social I got to talk to the @betoorourke.bsky.social 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Our Brain—Immune Axis Gets A Jolt Facts, data and analytics about biomedical matters

A rundown on the big advances we’re seeing on the brain-immune axis

erictopol.substack.com/p/our-braini...

Thanks for that. Nice summation. Agreed that we need both sexes of ginkgo. If one of mine is a female, so be it! They've not flowered yet.

Food forest walk 🌼 #foodforest #nativeplants #gardening #backyard

Barbat scullcap (Scutellaria barbata) from East Asia.
Tops are harvested for tea.

The general public doesn't understand science because they mostly see it through the eyes of the media who love exciting headlines.

Harvest time.
Robins are flocking to the cherry trees.
The bird feeder is crazy with pine siskins.
Goldfinches in the caragana.
Hummingbirds dancing at the feeders.
Bees covering the catnitp.
There's a change in the air.

The leaves look closest to Aralia cordata, one of the ones I planted years ago...like maybe 4-5 years.

If so, has a history of edibility:
www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16...

Scutellaria baicalensis almost done flowering.
August 2, 2025

Comes up every year under the thimbleberry.
Planted it in a pot so that I could find it.
Not sure which species, but it's an Aralia.

It's taken some 10 years (deer finally got fenced out), but we're going to get some nuts!

American hazelnut (Corylus americana).

It surprises me that this native flower is not found in horticulture or plant nurseries. There's so much more to discover out there.

Mentzelia laevicaulis, native to Montana.
Grown from seed this Spring.
Flowers at night and close during the day.

Old ginkgo trees in China：Distribution, determinants and implications for conservation China has a long history of planting ginkgo trees, and there are many large old ginkgo trees in rural and urban areas of China. Those large old ginkgo…

Though it's now been planted around the world (primarily males, though), there's very few actual wild ginkgo trees.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It came back from a rough winter.
Ginkgo biloba.

Yes. In Montana. It's possible.

One last point: In my little model, the story doesn’t end with the firm dying. It ends, instead, with stagnation — the monopolist increases prices and/or reduces quality enough that his base stops growing, but not enough to drive it away. For what it’s worth, that appears to be the story so far for Facebook, whose user base has plateaued but not crashed. Twitter is a somewhat different story, but this post is about enshittification, not Nazification.

Perhaps the most important point is that enshittification doesn't inevitably lead to a company dying; it may simply lead to the stagnation of growth.

Safety of JN.1-Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines This cohort study investigates the association between booster vaccinations containing the JN.1 lineage and 29 serious adverse events in Denmark.

Here you go Vinay.

"In this nationwide cohort study, no increased risk of 29 adverse events was observed after vaccination with the updated COVID-19 mRNA vaccine containing the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron JN.1 lineage in approximately 1 million adults. "

Hey herbalists and historians of medicine, witchcraft, and botany! Are there any historical herbal manuscripts out there that aren’t freely available you’d like to see digitized? What are they?!

I do believe this is Angelica dahurica.
Anyone agree?

Tried to grow a tray of them earlier in the Spring and nothing.
So I dumped the tray of seeds in an empty bed.
Thought maybe it was a weed. But those triternate leaves...

Monarch butterflies’ mass die off in 2024 caused by pesticide exposure – study New peer-reviewed research found an average of seven pesticides in each of 10 butterflies tested

Pesticide residues found in butterflies during the 2024 western Monarch population crash.