The Sciku Project

the soil at your roots
determines much of your life
rosy hydrangea

by Kelly Westhoff

Hydrangea are synonymous with summer. These leafy shrubs filled with profuse balls of blooms grace boulevards, lawns, parks, and patios. Cut hydrangea blooms are also popular in floral arrangements. Hydrangea flowers appear in many colors: white, green, pink, lavender, and blue. Sometimes, one hydrangea bush might boast blooms of two different colors. Hydrangea flowers can even change color, going from white one year to blue the next.

How does this happen?

It all depends on the chemical composition of the soil in which the hydrangea grows–the acidity and the aluminum levels are key. Backyard gardeners have all sorts of home remedies to alter the soil composition under a hydrangea bush and thus change the color of the blooms. Some say a bed of pine needles will do the trick while others believe in burying rusty nails by the roots. The most reliable tactic, however, is to stop in a local garden store, ask the advice of a master gardener, and purchase the specialty fertilizer they suggest.

Further reading:

‘Curious Chemistry Guides Hydrangea Colors’, 2014, Schreiber, H., American Scientist, available: https://www.americanscientist.org/article/curious-chemistry-guides-hydrangea-colors

Author bio:

Kelly Westhoff loves fitting words into the 5-7-5 format of traditional haiku. For her, haiku is a practice in mindfulness. She enjoys discovering parallels between her life and nature. She lives in Minnesota where the ever-changing seasons are a constantly-renewing source of inspiration. Find more of her haiku on Instagram @KellyWesthoffWrites.

Read another sciku by Kelly: ‘The Sound of a Worm’.

spit-fired flames
the coral-creviced crackling
of shrimp

by Douglas J. Lanzo

If you’ve ever snorkeled over a reef and heard strange crackling sounds, chances are that you were tuning in to one of the most remarkable creatures of the reef: snapping shrimp.

As soon as a reef snapping shrimp spots its prey, such as a small goby, hermit crab or bristle worm, it springs into action, pulling back its upper claw into an open position akin to cocking the hammer of a pistol. Upon releasing a specialized, latching joint, its claw finger slams shut in less than a millisecond, ejecting water from its socket at speeds of up to 100 km/hour. The intense speed of this water jet shears the water apart, creating a cavitation bubble whose implosion produces a sonic shockwave of over 200 decibels in acoustic pressure, instantly killing the stunned prey.

As if these feats of physics were not enough, the shrimp’s snap also produces an intense burst of light called sonoluminescence whose temperature for a few nanoseconds approaches the temperature on the surface of the sun.

Further reading:

To learn more about this spectacular hunting technique, check out BBC Earth (Weird Nature): Pistol Shrimp Superheats Water!, BBC Earth (Richard Hammond’s Invisible Worlds): Pistol Shrimp’s Cavitation Bubble and the incredible footage capturing over 10,000 frames per second of The Patek Lab (Duke University).

Author bio:

Doug is an award-winning writer whose novel The Year of the Bear and novella I Have Lived were named 2023 and 2024 books of the year, respectively. 589 of Doug’s poems have found homes in 79 literary journals, 9 anthologies and 2 books all around the world. His Author’s website is www.douglaslanzo.com.

Check out other sciku by Doug here.