Impermanent Sand Paintings by Andres Amador: San Francisco-area landscape artist Andreas Amador etches massive sand drawings onto beaches during full moons when his canvas reaches its largest potential.

What’s behind Japan’s moss obsession?: “Of the roughly 12,000 species of moss worldwide, Japan possesses a whopping 2,500 varieties – a relative windfall for enthusiasts devoted to tracking down, studying and documenting their different forms…So what’s behind Japan’s moss craze? Is it a random, flash-in-the-pan fad? Or is it more deeply rooted in Japanese values, customs and aesthetics?”

Interactive project maps all 600,000 trees in New York City’s urban forest: “The 600,000 trees that line the streets of New York City have been mapped, revealing a diverse array of greenery in the midst of one of the world’s largest cities.”

The MetaSequoia Mystery: The 1940s discovery in China of the dawn redwood – a living fossil we now call Metasequoia glyptostroboides – remains in shadows cast by war, political upheaval, and scholarly intrigue…a tree once thought to be as extinct as the dinosaurs with which it once co-inhabited the earth.

A Scavenger Hunt Through All of Toronto’s Public Libraries: “The Toronto Public Library system reached 100 branches in May, when the Scarborough Civic Centre location stocked its shelves. A new guidebook sets bibliophiles off on a scavenger hunt to discover each of the outposts.”