themarginalian.org

How Flamingos Got Their Pink

It is not simply that flamingos metabolize archaea, digesting them to turn their pigments into plumage coloration — modern molecular analysis reveals that archaea still live intact in the feathers of flamingos, perhaps the way our own past moves through us, lives in us, colors our present with the hue of something deeper than memory, something shimmering with the mystery of what makes life alive.

themarginalian.org

The Music of Trees: Improvisation, Iteration, and the Science of Immortality

Every tree is a jazz player, in just this way, although where a long Coltrane piece might last a quarter hour, a tree's performance may go on for half a millennium or more.