Ecoclimax

The giant panda ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca ) is a bear with a bamboo addiction. Almost 99% of its diet comes from bamboo, though it belongs to the order Carnivora. Its wrist has evolved into a “pseudo-thumb” that allows it to grip bamboo stems. Pandas live today only in mountainous forests in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu, but historically their range stretched across much of China and into Myanmar and Vietnam. But giant pandas aren’t the only pandas. The red panda ( Ailurus fulgens ), sometimes called the “firefox,” is not closely related—it belongs to its own unique family. It lives in the Himalayan forests of Nepal, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, and southwestern China. Unlike the giant panda, its population is smaller and still endangered , with fewer than 10,000 mature individuals left. Another branch of diversity is the Qinling panda , a subspecies of the giant panda with a brown-and-white coat, confined to China’s Qinling Mountains. The reason giant pandas lost so much ground is the same r...

Another summer, another headline about Europe baking under extreme heat . This year France once again found itself at the center of the story - not just for the scorching temperatures, but also for the fierce public debate over how to keep cool . At the heart of the conversation is air-conditioning. For some politicians, like Marine Le Pen, it’s the obvious solution. For environmental voices, it’s a dangerous “maladaptation” that risks worsening the problem it seeks to solve. But before diving into politics, it’s worth looking at the data. A map published in The New York Times by Josh Holder, based on Copernicus ERA5 climate records, shows how much Europe has warmed since the 1980s. The contrast is hard to ignore. Spain’s Seville now averages 115 hot days above 30ºC each year, compared to a few weeks four decades ago . Even Paris has gone from occasional heat spikes to summers where air-conditioning in schools and hospitals is becoming essential. And yet, fewer than a quarter of Fr...

If you’ve ever traveled or looked closely at weather maps, you know rain isn’t spread out evenly. Some places seem to be soaked all year, while others stay dry for ages. That’s because a bunch of factors come into play. Water evaporates off oceans and lakes, adding moisture to the air. That’s why coastal regions usually see more rain. Near the equator, the sun’s heat speeds up evaporation, so there’s even more moisture hanging around. Then the wind moves that moisture around, sometimes dumping it in one spot and leaving another dry. Mountains complicate things further. When moist air hits a mountain, it’s pushed upwards, cools down, and the moisture falls as rain on the side facing the wind. The opposite side, shielded from the wind, often stays dry - a phenomenon called the rain shadow effect. The world map below, created by Perrin Remonté, divides the planet into two halves: areas receiving more than one meter of precipitation annually, and those receiving less than one meter annua...

If you’ve ever imagined what your body might look like if it were run like a machine—complete with gears, boilers, and pipes—you’re not alone. In 1926, German physician and science writer Fritz Kahn published a lithograph titled “Der Mensch als Industriepalast” (“Man as Industrial Palace”). The illustration shows the human body not as flesh and bone, but as a humming industrial facility. Gears power the throat. Bellows simulate the lungs. Stomachs sort rocks like an old conveyor belt. It’s part whimsical metaphor, part surprisingly intuitive biology lesson. More than 80 years later, German artist Henning Lederer breathed new life into Kahn’s vision by animating the diagram. The result is a hypnotic, pulsing visualization of human processes, divided into systems such as respiration, digestion, circulation, and neural control. It's part art, part science, and weirdly meditative to watch. The video lets you see each system working together, as if you’re peeking inside an assembly line...