Beneath the climate
New local weather reconstructions present that durations of reducing temperature and rainfall coincided with three plagues that struck the Roman Empire, Bruce Bower reported in “Did local weather drive historical plagues?” (SN: 2/24/24, p. 13).
Bower reported that researchers are unsure precisely how these local weather shifts might have influenced the plagues’ unfold. Reader Robert J. MacCoun requested if one clarification may very well be that the colder circumstances drove individuals to spend extra time indoors with poor air flow.
Chilly durations do “are inclined to carry individuals indoors, nearer collectively, rising the possibilities of spreading infectious illness,” says classical archaeologist Brandon McDonald of the College of Basel in Switzerland. However this is only one of many ways in which local weather shifts can impression illness unfold. Figuring out the pathogen behind an infectious illness is an important a part of the puzzle, McDonald says. That’s as a result of some adjustments in temperature and precipitation are advantageous to sure pathogens and the animals that unfold them however disadvantageous to others.
“For many Roman interval [disease] occasions, we haven’t but scientifically decided the pathogenic trigger,” McDonald says. Whereas the brand new findings are noteworthy, he says, researchers have to know extra in regards to the ailments and their ecology to find out how local weather might have influenced their unfold.
Pioneering crops
A Panamanian tree fern is the primary recognized plant that turns lifeless leaves into roots that search out nutrient-rich soil, Darren Incorvaia reported in “Fern revives lifeless leaves” (SN: 2/24/24, p. 5).
Reader Douglas B. Quine was stunned that the invention was thought of novel, provided that the leaf-into-roots course of appears much like the widespread observe of propagating crops utilizing leaf cuttings.
The basis formation noticed within the fern, referred to as Cyathea rojasiana, is a distinct course of from propagation by means of leaf cuttings, says tropical forest ecologist James Dalling of the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In cuttings, new roots and leaves are created within the leaf or leafstalk and differentiate into fully new leaf and root tissue. “The unique leaf dies,” Dalling says. “In C. rojasiana, the unique leaf loses its photosynthetic operate and partially decomposes however continues to reside for a few years, functioning as a root. On this case, the vascular tissue of the leaf is repurposed.”
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