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Nature

Science

Researchers dumped tons of coffee waste into a forest. This is what it looks like now.

30 dump truck loads and two years later, the forest looks totally different.

One of the biggest problems with coffee production is that it generates an incredible amount of waste. Once coffee beans are separated from cherries, about 45% of the entire biomass is discarded.

So for every pound of roasted coffee we enjoy, an equivalent amount of coffee pulp is discarded into massive landfills across the globe. That means that approximately 10 million tons of coffee pulp is discarded into the environment every year.

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A photograph of the Son of Tree That Owns Itself taken on a humid day in 2005

The concept of possessions isn’t rare across the animal kingdom. Anyone who has ever had a dog knows they have their favorite bones or chew toys they like to hide so no one steals them. Chimpanzees are known to craft tools for specific uses and keep them together in a kit.

But man is probably the only creature on Earth that dares to think they own a tree—an organism that’s usually a lot taller and lives much longer than the average homo sapiens.

That’s why the story of a tree in Athens, Georgia, is so touching. In the 19th century, a colonel loved a white oak so much that he liberated it from human possession and declared that it owns itself. The tree sits in downtown Athens on the corner of Dearning and Finley Streets.

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Science

'Tree Mountain' is a giant man-made forest and living work of art with a powerful message

The concept came from Agnes Denes, an artist known for her unique, thought-provoking and grand-scale creations.

"Tree Mountain" by Agnes Denes

We live in a world where there is more art to consume than ever. There’s no shortage of musical mashups, digital paintings, song covers, cosplay videos, and so on and on and on and on. While having visual and audio exposure to various forms of art is lovely, when we only experience art through an online platform, we sometimes sacrifice that powerful feeling of immersion, of being able to come face to face with a creation and truly be moved by an artist’s message. There’s a subtle, yet undeniable change that happens both internally and externally when you step into something with the intention to inspire. Honestly, it’s the closest thing to real world alchemy that we've got.

Agnes Denes might not be a name that regularly comes up on your feed, but she’s made an entire career out of creating art that provides this kind of visceral, profound effect.

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It's rare enough to capture one antler being shed

For those not well versed in moose facts, the shedding of antlers is normally a fairly lengthy process. It happens only once a year after mating season and usually consists of a moose losing one antler at a time.

It’s incredibly rare for a bull moose to lose both at the same time—and even more rare that someone would actually catch it on film.

That’s why shed hunter (yes, that’s a real term) and woodsman Derek Burgoyne calls his footage of the phenomenon a “one-in-a-million” shot.

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