Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Lotus Leaf Taught Paint How to Wash Itself
A lotus leaf is far too bumpy for dirt to hold on to, and once a microscope explained why, the same trick went onto building walls, fabrics and glass.
Home Tags
plants
Everything filed under plants.
Articles
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Window Box That Faces the Bus Stop
A window box on the third floor of Aldergate Road is planted the wrong way round on purpose, so that the people waiting for the 47 have something better to look at than a shuttered travel agent.
Fact-based Weird Facts
There Are More Trees on Earth Than Stars in the Milky Way
A global count using satellites and four hundred thousand forest plots put Earth's tree total near three trillion, several times the stars our whole galaxy is thought to hold.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
Velcro Began With a Burr Stuck to a Dog
A walk in the woods in 1941 ended with burrs clinging to a dog's fur, and one close look under a microscope gave the world the hook-and-loop fastener.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Allotment Where Every Tomato Has the Same Grandmother
Thirty-one plots, thirty-one opinions about slugs, and one single tomato that everybody grows, because a woman on plot twelve once dried seeds on a saucer.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Plant Pot That Reads Bedtime Stories
A glazed ceramic pot with a tiny built-in speaker that reads your houseplant a soothing story every evening, so you no longer have to feel guilty about never talking to it.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Some Bamboo Can Grow Almost a Metre in a Single Day
Certain bamboos have been measured growing about 91 centimetres in 24 hours, roughly a millimetre every ninety seconds, which is fast enough that you could almost watch it happen.
Fiction Tiny Stories
The Oak on Tanner Road Turns Fifty
Nobody on Tanner Road could agree on anything, until someone found the date the oak outside number twelve was planted and pinned a birthday card to its trunk.