By Amina Sharma
The desert beckons visitors in the cooler months with quiet hikes, brilliant sunrises and sunsets, and a panoply of stars. This week’s Links is full of desert stories, as well as a new celebration of Native American Heritage Month, thoughts of the coming wildflower season, and more.
- Cacti, like the saguaro, have a few tricks up their spines to survive in harsh climates. (National Geographic)
- Rising temperatures, leading to greater evaporation, are increasing droughts in the West. (Washington Post)
- Cryptobiotic soil isn’t a new form of currency, it’s an essential part of Earth’s dryland areas. (Smithsonian Magazine)
- The Mojave National Preserve is taking new measures to try to protect threatened desert tortoises. (SFGate)
- This year, Sacramento will be having its first parade in honor of Native American Heritage Month. (Sacramento Bee)
- Reflections on meeting a wildflower. (Bay Nature)
- There could be thousands of plant species not yet known to science. (Kew Royal Botanic Gardens)
- David Attenborough visited the same creosote 40 years apart. How much did it grow? (PBS)
- Funny of the day (The New Yorker)
More Facts About Possums
That autofill password thing that pops up and just takes care of entering it for you? Possums invented that. Humans don’t even know how it works.
