Today I learned that the little crusty elements that you can see on trees and stones, aren’t a form of mosses or fungi as I thought, but lichen. Lichen are a symbiotic life form of algae and fungi. The algae takes care of producing carbohydrates using photosynthesis, while the fungi takes care of protecting the algae from drying and stores water. Lichen can grow almost everywhere given that the air quality is good and they can basically live forever. In Antarctica there was a living one found at the age of roughly 8600 years and, according to Wikipedia might be the oldest, still living being on the planet.

I learned about that by, as the day before yesterday, watching an episode of the “Sendung mit der Maus”. After that episode I spend another 5 Minutes on Wikipedia, reading about the topic. It’s amazing 10 Minutes of learning can change your view on the world out there.