Mushrooms on a log may each seem like quiet, standalone organisms, but they're actually the above-ground, sporing fruit belonging to a fungus, connected to the large organism by a root network called mycelium. Although fungi may not seem very talkative either, a new study shows electric signals traveling through their mycelium network could help the organism communicate. (Tuesday April 12th, 2022 — Smithsonian Magazine - Washington DC USA)

The Camphill movement was started in the 1900s to build communities where people with all abilities can find purpose and belonging. There are more than 100 Camphill locations worldwide, but only two communities are for elders. One is located in Scotland and the other is located in Columbia County. Located on 110 acres, Camphill Ghent is a vibrant residential community for elders that offers a meaningful quality of life and a rich, active social program designed to support residents in maintaining their independence and joy of living. The average age of residents in the community is 80. Of the 70 people who live there, 16 of them are disability different. (Thursday March 17th, 2022 — NEWS10 ABC - USA)

Organics and biodynamics are becoming increasingly popular and being taken increasingly seriously in New Zealand winemaking, something that was made clear when vintners who farm according to those practices were recognised in Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine’s recent New Zealand Winemaker of the Year Awards - including Brown, who took the top prize, Winemaker of the Year. (Wednesday March 2nd, 2022 — Stuff.co.nz)

JR: How does this approach differ from that of traditional schools? YR & CS: It is precisely this, the holistic approach to educating the child, that differs most from traditional schools. Also, the natural environment and emphasis on outdoor play and movement. For example, our daily curriculum includes yoga, ballet, organic gardening, and an hour nature walk. (Tuesday March 1st, 2022 — Psychology Today)

I was seven years old when I started to learn to read, as is typical of the alternative Steiner school I attended. My own daughter attends a standard English school, and started at four, as is typical in most British schools. Watching her memorise letters and sound out words, at an age when my idea of education was climbing trees and jumping through puddles, has made me wonder how our different experiences shape us. Is she getting a crucial head-start that will give her lifelong benefits? Or is she exposed to undue amounts of potential stress and pressure, at a time when she should be enjoying her freedom? Or am I simply worrying too much, and it doesn't matter at what age we start reading and writing? (Tuesday March 1st, 2022 — BBC online)

Guinea pigs have long served us as charming and cuddly pets, but until presently, their ability for changing over weeds into manure has been to a great extent ignored by the horticulture industry. ... Biodynamic rancher John Gargan has come up with a novel arrangement, including 50 weed-busters of a completely diverse stature to his operation at Mutchilba, west of Cairns. (Monday February 28th, 2022 — The Australian Business Journal)

Art, for Lucien Dante Lazar, is a deeply introspective, spiritual process. ... Lazar grew up in an artistic household and said he was shaped by a Waldorf education. (Friday February 25th, 2022 — The Daily Northwestern)

Moss Valley Market Garden is an organic and biodynamic market garden producing fruit and vegetables on a 1.3 acre site based at the Sheffield Organic Growers site near Norton. (Monday February 21st, 2022 — Now and Then, Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK)

Invented by the region's Moorish rulers 1,200 years ago, Valencia's irrigation system is now a model for sustainable farming. (Monday February 21st, 2022 — BBC online)

Arizona Muse’s life has changed tremendously in the years since she rapidly ascended the fashion world hierarchy after both opening and closing a Prada show in 2010 as a newcomer to modeling. ... Muse has taken on the task of being an ambassador for biodynamic farming, a concept that few outside the agriculture industry are fully familiar with. “Regenerative farmers are amazing because they’re not using any chemicals at all. They’re composting and building soil fertility that way,” she explains. “Then you have biodynamics, which takes another leap in another direction off of regenerative. What you have is a type of agriculture that uses all the techniques within regenerative, like crop rotation, like mobile grazing for animals, like composting and then it takes another layer as well. It says, okay, so plants have a physical being that I can touch, eat sometimes even. But there’s undeniably something inside them that’s keeping them alive. They look very different when they’re dead for instance. Biodynamics has these medicines that farm the life within the plants.” (Wednesday February 16th, 2022 — ELLE )

Abnormal growths in its fossilized neck bones suggest that the long-necked dino suffered from a pneumonia-like illness (Tuesday February 15th, 2022 — Meet Dolly, the First Dinosaur Discovered With a Case of the Sniffles)

Praise has been heaped on a ‘tool-kit’ book written by biodynamic farmer, Marina Brown-O’Connell, who has transformed ‘a miserable bit of land’ into a thriving farm. (Monday February 14th, 2022 — Kingsbridge & Salcombe Gazette - UK)

Many animals, of course, are equipped with highly developed sensory apparatus that can read an array of natural signals on which their lives may depend – so it seems perfectly possible that some animals may be able to pick up any earthquake precursors. Unpleasant chemicals could be sniffed out, low frequency waves picked up, and ionised air sensed by sensations in fur or feathers. (Monday February 14th, 2022 — BBC online)

Waldorf education is based on the ideas and teachings of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian educator and philosopher who opened his first school In Stuttgart, Germany, in 1919. Steiner’s schools focused on “whole child” development, rather than the narrow academic focus popular in German schools at the time. Today, there are almost 1,200 Waldorf schools and more than 1,900 Waldorf kindergartens around the world, according to the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education. (Friday February 11th, 2022 — US News.com)

"If there are floods, it's expected that many people will move to higher ground. But the alternative is to stay close to coastal cities and explore expansion onto the water," says De Graaf. "If you consider that in the second half of the century, hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by sea level rise, we need to start now to increase the scale of floating developments." (Monday February 7th, 2022 — BBC online)

Dutch startup, Ocean Grazer, has developed the Ocean Battery, which stores energy below the wind farm. When there is excess electricity the system pumps water from an underground reservoir into tough, flexible bladders that sit on the sea bed. You could think of them like big bicycle inner tubes. (Friday February 4th, 2022 — BBC online)

Wilyabrup’s Cullen Wines are celebrating after $36,000 of in-principle funding was approved this week by the State Government. The money was sought under the Department of Agriculture’s $15 million Carbon Farming and Land Restoration Program and will allow the biodynamic winery to further advance its Wilyabrup soil carbon project. (Thursday February 3rd, 2022 — The West Australian)

Cooper Mountain Vineyards, the first certified Biodynamic winery in the Pacific Northwest, is expanding where it’s planted with two significant acquisitions in the Willamette Valley. (Tuesday February 1st, 2022 — Oregon Wine Press)

There are 14% more tree species than previously thought, according to what researchers are calling the first "scientifically credible" estimate. (Tuesday February 1st, 2022 — BBC online)

To grow the healthiest food we need to understand what we put into it to start with (Friday January 28th, 2022 — BBC online)