Tea at Trianon: Mystery of the "Fairy Circles"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 4, 2023

Mystery of the "Fairy Circles"

From Earth:

The name originates from local folklore, which suggests that these circles are the footprints of the gods or fairies who dance in the desert. However, the true scientific explanation for their formation has been a subject of research and debate for over a decade. While several ecosystem modelers have argued that the circles are caused by self-regulation of the grasses, a team of scientists led by the University of Hamburg has recently found evidence that the circles in fact emerge from termite activity.

A prominent theory explaining the circles was put forward by researchers from the University of Göttingen. They argued that the bare patches are caused by the self-organization of the grass plants, which draw water unevenly to themselves with their roots and through extensive diffusion in the sandy soils. This leads to the death of grasses in the bare patches.

According to this theory, the evidence of desiccation found beneath the fairy circles at a depth of about 20 centimeters is caused by the fast horizontal sucking of water by the grasses surrounding these patches. However, as early as 2013, the University of Hamburg botanist Norbert Jürgens proposed a different theory. He argued that activity of subterranean sand termites of the genus Psammotermes is causing the bare patches. By eliminating the plants in the sandy soils, they enable long-lasting storage of water after infrequent rainfall. In the current study, Jürgens and his colleagues have proven the presence of sand termites on over 1,700 fairy circles in Namibia, Angola, and South Africa. (Read more.)