Tag: health

Plants communicate via fungus networks colonizing their roots

From Healthy Soil Microbes, Healthy People by Mike Amaranthus and Bruce Allyn in The Atlantic:

A recent experiment in the U.K. showed that mycorrhizal filaments act as a conduit for signaling between plants, strengthening their natural defenses against pests. When attacked by aphids, a broad bean plant transmitted a signal through the mycorrhizal filaments to other bean plants nearby, acting as an early warning system, enabling those plants to begin to produce their defensive chemical that repels aphids and attracts wasps, a natural aphid predator. Another study showed that diseased tomato plants also use the underground network of mycorrhizal filaments to warn healthy tomato plants, which then activate their defenses before being attacked themselves.

Whoa!

Goals for 2013

Rocket Lift’s purpose is to help our team live the lives we want while making a difference for clients and projects that improve the world. (We happen to make great websites.) Sounds nice, right? But it only has meaning if we take it seriously, which means assessing how we’re doing.

I was excited to see Tim Smith write up [Edit: now a broken link] his goals for the year ahead, making plain exactly what it means for us to help him live the life he wants. (It’s also great because successful people set goals.) I’ve asked everyone on our team to write up their own personal goals for 2013.

Here are mine.

Doing Cools Things

  • By end of June, spend at least half time on local food
  • Write something worth reading at least once a month
  • Learn improvizational jazz piano
  • Make mattheweppelsheimer.com a showcase of WordPress as a garden for personal data-ownership and controlled social connections

Travel

  • Visit my brother in Denver at least once for a couple of weeks while working
  • Travel overseas while working
  • Visit Kirsten and Eric in Minnesota while working
  • Live for a month in Eastern Washington while working

Happiness

  • Resume regular contact with good friends
  • Remain every bit as in love as I am right now
  • Track data on SAD in a quantified-self style.

Health

  • Maintain 150lbs
  • Learn to cook food I love without dairy and gluten

Money

  • Make Rocket Lift kick ass and thrive without my full time attention
  • Sell $10k/month of [that exciting thing that’s a secret]
  • Pay off debt, leaving only student loans

This post is part of the thread: Annual Goals and Review – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.