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Animals + Nature Longreads
Apr. 22nd, 2025 08:00 amCity of Glass
https://www.biographic.com/city-of-glass/
This article is about how Chicago is slowly adapting its architecture to be less lethal for migrating birds. Glass-fronted buildings are ubiquitous in the city, which lies on an established migratory path. Every spring, tens of thousands of migrating birds collide with glass and die. Buildings can be made safer by turning off the lights at night and removing trees from lobbies, and architectural firms have begun to create bird-friendly designs by incorporating visual "noise."
Why Maui Burned
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/maui-wildfire-response-recovery
This article is about how local citizen's groups in Maui have begun to remedy outdated agricultural practices that cause wildfires. The August 2023 wildfire in Hawai'i was the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century. Water is plentiful on the island, but that fire was caused by a drought, which was itself a result of twenty-century agricultural land division. People in Maui have therefore been campaigning to buy unused farmland and restore it to its natural state.
What Plants Are Saying About Us
https://nautil.us/what-plants-are-saying-about-us-264593/
This article introduces "Ecological Psychology," which studies how plants intelligently respond to their environment. Plants appear stationary to human perception because they move slowly, but they're able to respond to stimuli, anticipate change, and grow to avoid obstacles. The vascular system in plants plays a similar role to the nervous system in animals, and the emerging discipline of Ecological Psychology studies their adaptive intelligence.
https://www.biographic.com/city-of-glass/
This article is about how Chicago is slowly adapting its architecture to be less lethal for migrating birds. Glass-fronted buildings are ubiquitous in the city, which lies on an established migratory path. Every spring, tens of thousands of migrating birds collide with glass and die. Buildings can be made safer by turning off the lights at night and removing trees from lobbies, and architectural firms have begun to create bird-friendly designs by incorporating visual "noise."
Why Maui Burned
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/06/maui-wildfire-response-recovery
This article is about how local citizen's groups in Maui have begun to remedy outdated agricultural practices that cause wildfires. The August 2023 wildfire in Hawai'i was the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century. Water is plentiful on the island, but that fire was caused by a drought, which was itself a result of twenty-century agricultural land division. People in Maui have therefore been campaigning to buy unused farmland and restore it to its natural state.
What Plants Are Saying About Us
https://nautil.us/what-plants-are-saying-about-us-264593/
This article introduces "Ecological Psychology," which studies how plants intelligently respond to their environment. Plants appear stationary to human perception because they move slowly, but they're able to respond to stimuli, anticipate change, and grow to avoid obstacles. The vascular system in plants plays a similar role to the nervous system in animals, and the emerging discipline of Ecological Psychology studies their adaptive intelligence.
