Wednesday, July 15, 2009

365 - 44: Tendrils

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"Pumped Up on Carbon Dioxide, Vines Strengthen Their Grip", by Elizabeth Williamson, The Washington Post, July 15, 2006. Three years of increased CO2 later, the grape vines are indeed doing astonishingly well here.

..."It was some little time later that the first one picked up its roots and walked."
--The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham, 1951

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Global warming causes triffids?? Why are we not being warned of this in the mainstream media!?

Fantastic picture, it made me giggle. :)

bink said...

what's a triffid? they sound cool. will they eat me? or the fly?

Fresca said...

JEN: *smiles* Seriously though, the article suggests that vines proliferate with the increased global warming and take over native species, but the increase in greenery could help remove CO2 also.... I just thought it was a bit spooky of how nature rebalances itself, which may or may not be in a human-friendly way.

BINK: Yes! Triffids will eat you! Unless you wear your Fly head all the time outdoors, which will protect your face from their 10-foot stingers.
I'll lend you the book, it's a humdinger.

Fresca said...

P.S. Forgot to answer your first question bink:
Triffids are 7 foot tall carniverous plants that can walk on their three... feet? They have poisonous 10-foot-long stingers that have to contact flesh to kill, so they go for the face and hands. No one knows how they developed but they aren't extraterrestrial. They sort of fulfill the function of zombies in this book.