Initially, there were a lot of fears that Ebola could mutate to become the airborne Andromeda strain that would wipe us all out. Richard Preston Read Quote
The crown of a supertall redwood has a towering, cloudy, irregular form, and the crowns of the tallest redwoods can sometimes look like the plume of exhaust from a rocket taking off. Richard Preston Read Quote
The seeds of a redwood are released from cones that are about the size of olives. The heartwood of the tree is a dark, shimmery red in color, like old claret. The wood has a lemony scent and is extremely resistant to rot. Richard Preston Read Quote
Dragonflies kill their prey in the air and eat it on the wing. They feed on aerial plankton, which consists of any sort of small living thing that happens to be aloft – mosquitoes, midges, moths, flies, ballooning spiders. Richard Preston Read Quote
I had actually finished the manuscript of ‘The Wild Trees’ and turned it in to Random House when all of a sudden word came. Michael Taylor and his colleague, Chris Atkins, another explorer, have just knocked one out of the park. They found the world’s tallest tree. The tree is named Hyperion, 379.1 feet tall. Richard Preston Read Quote
Global climate change has become entangled with the problem of invasive species. A warmer climate could allow some invaders to spread farther, while causing native organisms to go extinct in their traditional habitats and making room for invaders. Richard Preston Read Quote
When you get up into the crown of a redwood tree, you lose sight of the ground entirely. You also lose sight of the sky. And you’re in a lost world. You’re in an undiscovered, unexplored ecosystem, somewhere between Heaven and Earth, filled with forms of life, not all of which have been given names by scientists yet. Richard Preston Read Quote
I was surfing the Internet, and I came across a school in Atlanta where you could learn how to climb trees with ropes the way the pros do. It sounded terrific, and so I went down there, and I began to learn these kind of rarified techniques for how you get up and down trees while using special ropes and gear. Richard Preston Read Quote
If ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, then children are somewhat closer to our roots as primates in the arboreal forest. Humans appear to be the only primates that I know of that are afraid of heights. All other primates, when they’re scared, they run up a tree, where they feel safe. Richard Preston Read Quote
Redwoods have an enormous surface area that extends upward into space because they have a propensity to do something called reiteration. A redwood is a fractal. And as they put out limbs, the limbs burst into small trees, copies of the redwood. Richard Preston Read Quote
