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Text By Purva VariyarMore at http://www.sanctuaryasia.com | Natural History
Cold War and
Rise of Fairy Lantern! Climate Change
A rare and bizarre plant has been rediscovered in the
rainforests of Borneo, Malaysia, 151 years after it was fi rst
described. Thismia neptunis is a mycoheterotroph, an interesting
group of plants, which has renounced photosynthesis altogether,
and resorted to parasitic living. Also
known as ‘fairy lantern’ T. neptunis
sports no functional leaves and the
only visible portion above ground is its
alien-looking fl ower that is about
8.89 cm. long, and whose design boggles
the mind! Researchers were able to
identify the specimen based on the fi rst
drawings (seen here) made by Italian
botanist Odoardo Beccari who identifi ed it
in 1866. The stem is dull creamish-white
colour and the bulb resembles a swollen
thumb, with red stripes circling it. Its most
bizarre feature has to be the three, gravity-defying,
hairy appendages that grow poker straight like a
trio of antennae! It is still unknown how exactly the
plant pollinates, except that two species of dead fl ies
found inside the fl ower could potentially be the abetters
of pollination. Unlike the more straightforward parasitic
plants, which attach themselves directly to the roots of the
host plant, T. neptunis takes a more indirect approach – it
attaches itself to fungi, which in turn are attached to the
surrounding photosynthesising plants.Greenland’s vast ice sheets hold within it secrets big
and small. Scientists have been studying the layers of
ice and frozen microorganisms to record the Earth’s
ever-changing climatic history. But this particular revelation
was entirely unexpected and rather devastating, not just
for Greenland, but also for the planet. Through the murky
episode of the Cold War in the 1950s, the U.S. Army, under
‘Project Iceworm’ dreamed of digging thousands of miles
of underground tunnels beneath the ice in Greenland, from
where it could launch hundreds of nuclear missiles. This
secret mission was concealed under the garb of a ‘research
facility’ called ‘Camp Century’ that successfully fooled
Denmark (Greenland is an autonomous territory of
Denmark). This tunnel colony saw a beehive of activity
of researchers and covert nuclear missile operations
for several years. In 1967, this base was abandoned. Now
because of global warming, this secret underground site’s
‘ice’ cover is literally being blown. But with it, there is
a disastrous consequence that has the potential to wreck
the marine ecosystem. All the hazardous toxic waste such
as thousands of litres of diesel fuel, huge quantities of
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and even some amount of
radioactive material that lay frozen and inert so far threatens
to contaminate the environment. The U.S. Army took into
account all factors to keep this mission a well-kept secret,
but climate change was perhaps the one thing it did
not see coming.The bite of a crocodile is the strongest in the animal kingdom. It can clamp its jaw shut in about 50 milliseconds, which is
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Beccari, who identifi ed the plant in 1866.