ecosystems
The lichen-rich tundra has proved very useful for studying the spread of pollutants around the world: the wind carries pollutants everywhere, even distances of thousands of kilometres. Lichens are good bio-indicators, i.e. they are organisms that allow us to recognise…
ecosystems
Rhinoceroses appeared on Earth around 40 million years ago spreading across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, and shared the planet with humans for millennia, as can be seen from cave paintings portraying them, found in the Chauvet Cave in…
ecosystems
Peat is a material of vegetal origin, that forms in different types and sizes of water fields or in very humid areas from the incomplete conversion of dead vegetal residues. The natural environments where peat generally builds up are called…
ecosystems
Number Three, this is the official name of the express train (also called Trans-Mongolian Railway), is the best and most comfortable way to visit the immense prairies of the steppe. Full of tourists from all over the world, it departs…
ecosystems
Resin naturally forms underneath the bark of some trees, that are therefore called resinous trees. Resin, that can be easily found when walking in the woods, is used to make paints, glues and detergents. To collect it, one piece of…
ecosystems
The steppe was the protagonist of one of the most important events in the history of space explorations. The very first artificial satellite was launched from Kazakhstan on October 4th, 1957. It was Sputnik 1, a metal ball provided with…
ecosystems
Bread and flour are staple foods for many cultures around the world. It is possible to produce flour from cereals such as maize and wheat, or from fruits such as chestnuts or acorns, but few people know that some North…
ecosystems
A peculiar trait of these soils is that they are easily moved by the wind: the vegetation has shallow roots,that can be further loosened by a dry spell or excessive grazing. The strong winds that blow in these tree-less areas…
ecosystems
During the Pleistocene (approximately 1.5 million years ago), the tundra covered all central Europe and was inhabited by spectacular animals, for instance mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses. In 1999, the Siberian permafrost gave back a huge specimen of a mammoth, which…