Companion Planting

One thing I am surprised about is that companion planting has been used by farmers and gardeners  for thousands of years, yet I did not know about it and it seems a very intuitive way of planting. Companion planting and "organic" gardening are actually the same thing. The idea is simple, if you don't want to use pesticides in your garden, so that you don't harm, chemically, the fruits and vegetables you are growing, you should rely on planting vegetables or fruits or herbs that help your plants to grow without becoming infested by harmful  insects and or diseases. What happens is that some plants help other plants by either providing the needed nutrients or repelling the harmful insects or pests or attracting the pollinating agents... It is a wonderful work of cooperation!

The ecosystem in which these plants live is that of cooperation and interplay between different plants, insects and nutrients and each party has a role. Can you imagine that roses love garlic? Beans fertilize the soil with nitrogen and basil protects peach trees from getting infected. And the list is long! Check the following url: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_planting, for more information. 

Parallax

My niece the other day was telling me: "The moon is following me!" Is it true or false? Why do we see the moon moving with us while we are driving at a speed of tens of kilometers per hour?

Well, it is an illusion that is explained by what is called parallax. That is, distant moving objects appear much slower or even fixated than nearby objects when we move our head. So we are driving the car at a certain speed yet when we look at the moon we see it following us wherever we go!

Another example of a parallax is when you look at the speedometer in the car, while driving you see a reading different from the reading that a friend sees sitting next to you! And this is what happens when you change the angle of view. 

In Michio Kaku's book, he explains how the brain deceives us by making us believe that we see  more than we actually see. For example, do we actually see yellow and brown? Or is our brain subconsciously making an approximation to these colors? What is amazing is that our eyes are equipped with sensors that see only red, blue, and green! So we only see those colors and approximations of other colors! We also have two dimensional retinas so how come we see three dimensional objects? Well we have two eyes separated by few inches so we see the objects through two different angles and our brain subconsciously, again, makes us believe we see in depth! So, is reality really real?

1. Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

2. 

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XsXXD8iEyU

Dec 17, 2013 - Uploaded by Knopfdoubleday

Dr. Kaku explains why he wrote this fascinating book about the frontiers and the future of ...

 

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Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku is a physicist who wrote lots of popular science books. I am currently reading his latest book titled The Future of the Mind. I am still in the beginning pages yet it is really a page turner book. The main theme of the book is about the mind as the title suggests. In the chapter I am currently reading he is telling us the history of the different scanners of the brain and the different researches done starting from the beginnings of the twentieth century. He also mentions the motivation behind his pursuing physics as his career. It is really amazing to know that Science Fiction could have such an influence on the imagination of a teenager he was! I was wondering why we don't have, in the Arab world, enough appreciation for science fiction. We tried at Hindawi Foundation for Education and Culture to translate and sell few science fiction titles and they failed miserably. May be we need to push harder and market enough to draw the attention of the readers to this type of fiction. Anyway, I am continuing the reading of Kaku  book The Future of the Mind.