Tag Archives: Nature

Tree Veneration in the Time of the Anthropocene: Why Trees Matter and Why a Cultural Response Matters Too

This article introduces the Tree Veneration Society (TVS), an interdisciplinary charity of eco-artists and scientists dedicated to fostering cultural and ecological awareness of trees. While scientific research clearly demonstrates the essential role of forests in climate regulation and biodiversity, the article argues that meaningful environmental action also requires shifts in perception, values, and cultural narratives. Drawing on Deep Ecology and eco-art practice, the article presents tree veneration as a relational framework that reconnects humans with the living world. TVS’s exhibitions, workshops, and public programs are discussed as practical models for cultivating ecological care and responsibility.

Polar Light

Steve Giovinco is a New York-based photographer and a Yale MFA graduate. His night photographs at the edge of inhabited places trace evidence of epic but subtle change. Informed by the environment, history, and culture, his most recent work documents the extremely remote arctic Greenland with the goal of visualizing transformation since climate-related statistics can be difficult to grasp. His work is held in numerous public collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the California Museum of Photography.

Revealing the Unseen

Susan Eyre is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, video, installation and print processes, creating work to encourage a sense of wonder in the everyday and an awareness of an entangled universe. She explores cosmological and geological phenomena with a particular fascination for cosmic rays and magnetic fields. Employing simple technology to assist in revealing the unseen and extending the boundaries of human sensory perception, her work brings the viewer into tangible contact with invisible natural forces, embracing the unfathomable by appealing to human scale and presence.

Why did life evolve to be so colourful? Research is starting to give us some answers

Jonathan Goldenberg is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Evolutionary Biology, Lund University. He is an evolutionary biologist specializing in the dynamics of species evolution under changing environmental conditions. His research primarily investigates the function and evolution of colored integuments in animals. He integrates fieldwork, literature analysis, and museum collections with computer vision, biophysical models, spatial analyses, and phylogenetic comparative methods to examine how species respond to shifting environments at local and global scales, from past to present and into the future.

What’s it like being a raven or a crow?

Walter Veit is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Philosophy at the University of Reading, where I am also the director of the PPE program as well as the philosophy MA program.
“Furthermore, I am an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. My interests are broad, but I work primarily in and at the intersections of (i) the Philosophy of Cognitive and Biological Sciences, (ii) the Philosophy of Mind, and (iii) Applied Ethics. Much of my recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare, and ethics, as well as evolution. My first monograph titled ‘A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness‘ integrating this research into a coherent whole has been published with Routledge. I received my PhD in 2023 from the School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney. I also spent time during my PhD as a visiting student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford, before I moved on to a post-doctoral position at the University of Bristol.”

Heather Browning is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Southampton.
“My primary research interests are animal welfare, ethics, and consciousness. I completed my PhD at the Australian National University, with a thesis on the measurement of animal welfare.
I have previously worked as a researcher in animal sentience and welfare at the London School of Economics, as part of the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. I was part of the research team who produced a report for DEFRA reviewing the evidence of sentience in cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans, leading to an amendment of the UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act to include their protection.
I also worked for many years as a zookeeper and zoo animal welfare officer, interested in the practical application of animal welfare measurement.”

HumanNature

NastPlas are an international artistic duo formed by Fran R. Learte and Natalia Molinos.

“We explore the relationship between humans and the natural environment by merging advanced technology with handcrafted processes. Combining digital tools such as artificial intelligence and 3D modeling with traditional techniques like ceramics, we create hybrid pieces that bridge the digital and physical worlds.”

The Skin as a Living Canvas: Aging, Identity, and the Conscious Body

Dr. Nita Sharma Das is a Naturopathy expert, educator, award-winning author, and skincare formulator.

“This article explores the skin as a living interface where biology, consciousness, culture, and identity converge. Drawing upon evolutionary theories of aging by scientists such as Peter Medawar and Owen Jones, it reflects on how biological senescence is only one part of the human experience of aging. Integrating perspectives from naturopathy, psychological self-perception, and Indian cultural rituals, the piece reimagines skincare as a ritual of self-respect and self-awareness. Rather than resisting age, it proposes embracing it as a conscious journey—a philosophy I advocate through my work, my book Welcome to Second Spring, and my blog. The article calls for a new way of seeing the aging body not as a site of decline, but as a canvas of lived wisdom and evolving identity.”

Extraterrestrial life may look nothing like life on Earth − so astrobiologists are coming up with a framework to study how complex systems evolve

Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. He has over 180 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars, and his research has been supported by $20 million in NASA and NSF grants. He has won eleven teaching awards, and has taught three massive open online classes with over 180,000 enrolled. Impey is a past Vice President of the American Astronomical Society and he has been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Carnegie Council’s Arizona Professor of the Year, and most recently, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. He’s written over 70 popular articles on cosmology and astrobiology, two introductory textbooks, a novel called ‘Shadow World’, and eight popular science books: ‘The Living Cosmos’, ‘How It Ends’, ‘Talking About Life’, ‘How It Began’, ‘Dreams of Other Worlds’, ‘Humble Before the Void’, ‘Beyond: The Future of Space Travel’, and ‘Einstein’s Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes’.