The sealed bottle garden still thriving after 40 years David Latimer first planted his bottle garden in 1960 and last watered it in 1972 before tightly sealing it shut 'as an experiment'The hardy spiderworts plant inside has grown to fill the 10-gallon container by surviving entirely on recycled air, nutrients and waterGardeners' Question Time expert says it is 'a great example just how pioneering plants can be' By David Wilkes for the Daily Mail Published: 10:45 BST, 24 January 2013 | Updated: 16:33 BST, 6 March 2016 To look at this flourishing mass of plant life you’d think David Latimer was a green-fingered genius. Truth be told, however, his bottle garden – now almost in its 53rd year – hasn’t taken up much of his time. In fact, on the last occasion he watered it Ted Heath was Prime Minister and Richard Nixon was in the White House. Scroll down for video For the last 40 years it has been completely sealed from the outside world. Yesterday Mr Latimer, 80, said: ‘It’s 6ft from a window so gets a bit of sunlight. First choose a glass container.
The Infinity Burial Project What Does Your Body Language Say About You? How To Read Signs and Recognize&Gestures Art by LaetitziaAs we all know, communication is essential in society. Advancements in technology have transformed the way that we correspond with others in the modern world. Because of the constant buzz in our technological world, it's easy to forget how important communicating face-to-face is. When conversing old-school style, it's not only speech we verbalize that matters, but what our nonverbal gestures articulate as well. Body language is truly a language of its own. 10% from what the person actually says40% from the tone and speed of voice50% is from their body language. Lowering one's head can signal a lack of confidence. Pushing back one's shoulders can demonstrate power and courageOpen arms means one is comfortable with being approached and willing to talk/communicate
Heike Weber Installations Utterly amazing installations by Heike Weber. She draws with permanentmarkers on acrylic floor and walls – surfaces that have reached up to 600 m2. I can’t begin to imagine how time consuming these breathtaking installations must have been. Via TRIANGULATION Extinct tree grows anew from ancient jar of seeds For thousands of years, Judean date palm trees were one of the most recognizable and welcome sights for people living in the Middle East -- widely cultivated throughout the region for their sweet fruit, and for the cool shade they offered from the blazing desert sun. From its founding some 3,000 years ago, to the dawn of the Common Era, the trees became a staple crop in the Kingdom of Judea, even garnering several shout-outs in the Old Testament. Judean palm trees would come to serve as one of the kingdom's chief symbols of good fortune; King David named his daughter, Tamar, after the plant's name in Hebrew. By the time the Roman Empire sought to usurp control of the kingdom in 70 AD, broad forests of these trees flourished as a staple crop to the Judean economy -- a fact that made them a prime resource for the invading army to destroy. Sadly, around the year 500 AD, the once plentiful palm had been completely wiped out, driven to extinction for the sake of conquest.
The Bucket List (2007 19 Outstanding Words You Should Be Working Into Conversation There are some of our favorite words that appeared in mental_floss stories in 2011. Some are foreign words. Others come from medical dictionaries. And there's a surprising amount of hobo slang. Have fun working these into conversation this holiday season! Gene Lee / Shutterstock.com 1. 2. 3. 4. milliHelen: The quantity of beauty required to launch just one ship. 5. 6. 7. 8. © Joe Giron/Corbis 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Thanks to Stacy Conradt, Adrienne Crezo, Bill DeMain, Haley Sweetland Edwards, Jamie Spatola, Ethan Trex and a reader named John .
Gardening Tips - 7 Habits of Successful Gardeners Originally published January 2009 Or is it the Seven Pillars of Horticultural Wisdom? As everyone's resolutions remind us, we love attaching a number to advice, a number smaller than the one I regard as most realistic: The Twenty Three Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty-Two Things It's Important to Remember Before Getting Out of Bed. So be warned: I haven't really honed it down to only seven; these are just the first seven essentials that came to mind when I decided to do this. Make CompostUse CompostPlant Crops in Wide BedsMulchFeed the Soil, Not the PlantsShare SomethingBe There Photo: The compost bins at Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, N.Y. 1. Short version: Mother Nature never throws anything away. Longer version: Composting is the rare silk purse from sow's ear, something for nothing, win-win. It's easy to fall into thinking that compost's last name is bin, and that careful layering and turning are part of the deal. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. If you've got a garden, you're rich. Got seeds? 7.
Gympie Gympie: Once stung, never forgotten MARINA HURLEY'S DEDICATION TO science was sorely tested during the three years she spent in Queensland’s Atherton Tableland studying stinging trees. The entomologist and ecologist’s first encounter with the Gympie-Gympie stinging tree produced a sneezing fit and left her eyes and nose running for hours. Even protective particle masks and welding gloves could not spare her several subsequent stings – one requiring hospitalisation – but that was nothing compared with the severe allergy she developed. “Being stung is the worst kind of pain you can imagine - like being burnt with hot acid and electrocuted at the same time,” said Marina, who at the time was a postgraduate student at James Cook University investigating the herbivores that eat stinging trees. She is not alone in her allergic reaction to this innocent-looking plant – one of six stinging-tree species found in Australia, and one of the most poisonous plants here – or her dramatic accounts. Gympie-Gympie stinging tree history
Before I Die What matters most to you Interactive public art project that invites people to share their personal aspirations in public. After losing someone she loved and falling into depression, Chang created this experiment on an abandoned house in her neighborhood to create an anonymous place to help restore perspective and share intimately with her neighbors. The project gained global attention and thanks to passionate people around the world, over 1000 Before I Die walls have now been created in over 70 countries, including Kazakhstan, Iraq, Haiti, China, Ukraine, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, Argentina, and South Africa. The walls are an honest mess of the longing, pain, joy, insecurity, gratitude, fear, and wonder you find in every community, and they reimagine public spaces that nurture honesty, vulnerability, trust and understanding. The Before I Die book is a celebration of these walls and the stories behind them. 2011, New Orleans, LA. Cordoba, Argentina. Najaf, Iraq. Brooklyn, NY.
Astronomy For Beginners...Astronomy Basics...The Celestial Sphere As people first started to map out the night sky, it became necessary to have a standard, universal way of plotting positions of objects in the sky. As the stars appear to occupy fixed positions in the sky relative to each other, a convenient way of thinking about the situation would be to imagine the Earth placed at the centre of a larger sphere. The stars occupy fixed positions on the surface of this 'celestial sphere', and the Earth rotates within it. The Earth rotates within this sphere, but of course, to us it appears as though the celestial sphere is rotating, on the same axis as the Earth. Declination Now imagine the Earth's Equator extended out to infinity, the corresponding point on the celestial sphere is the celestial equator. The relationship between declination and latitude does have a real significance, as it enabled sailors for thousands of years to find out their latitude, but I'll come on to that later. Right Ascension The View From Here... Yearly Motion Equatorial Mounts