March 30, 2016 at 02:57AM

Today I Learned: 1) Mangrove trees live in brackish water. They're one of the few species of trees that can. But mangrove trees use the same intracellular concentration of salt ions as other plants (or at least a concentration closer to other plants than to the water they live in). How do they deal with the excess salt they soak up? According to Mengsha Gong, mangrove trees deal with salt by selecting certain leaves to be salt sinks. They load up the leaf with tons of salt, then drop it. Kind of a waste of a leaf, IMHO, but I guess it's worth it! 2) Baobab trees are awesome. The most notable feature of a baobab tree is its giant, waterlogged trunk -- baobabs live in climates where it only rains about one month of the year, and in that month it rains torrentially. Baobabs take full advantage of this rainstorm by soaking up TONS of water in their giant, sponge-like trunks. The interior of a baobab tree, therefore, is basically sopping wet. Among other things, this is very attractive to elephants, who will mow down smaller baobabs and carve chunks out of older baobabs for the water. The second most notable feature of a baobab tree is its quickly-regenerating bark. Because elephants really like taking chunks out of the sides of baobabs, the trees have evolved to grow back quickly relative to other trees. They can also survive being ringed, so humans living in areas with baobabs will cut large swaths of bark off the tree to make clothing. This fact also courtesy of Mengsha Gong. 3) My feet are a half (US) shoe size smaller than I thought.