China is building another great wall — of trees. To hold back the desert.
As of this writing, the Gobi Desert in northern China/southern Mongolia is about half a million square miles (1.3 million km2) in area.
Yes, that's “as of this writing" — because the Gobi Desert is growing.
Due to something called “desertification," about 1,400 square miles (3,600 km2) of China's otherwise arable land is turned into desert each year, as the Gobi creeps further and further south.
To make matters worse, winds often pick up the sand, blowing it toward the densely populated areas in China, resulting in immense dust storms. (Here's a picture of a car windshield after Beijing's 2006 dust storm season.)
The desert in China is expanding — kinda rapidly, too. Image by Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images.
But China is fighting back. With trees.
In 2001, the BBC reported on what has been called, colloquially, the "Great Green Wall," a not-so-subtle reference to the Great Wall of China, but this "wall" is being made of trees.
The wall is part of a decades-long afforestation project that began in 1978 but isn't expected to be completed until 2050, and it hopes to ultimately make areas currently too arid for habitation or agriculture into fertile homes to both.
A tree-planting exercise on the edge of the Gobi Desert in 2007. Image by Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images.
One of the early phases was a forced participation drive — in 1981, China passed a law that required its citizens over the age of 11 to plant three to five trees each year — but in 2003, the country turned toward government works.
The Great Green Wall plan called for the creation of a 2,800 mile-long (4,480 km) belt of trees along the Gobi's border.
As Wired reported a year later, this was no small task:
"To build the wall, the government has launched a two-pronged plan: Use aerial seeding to cover wide swaths of land where the soil is less arid and pay farmers to plant trees and shrubs in areas that require closer attention. A $1.2 billion oversight system, consisting of mapping and land-surveillance databases, will be implemented. The government has also hammered out a dust-monitoring network with Japan and Korea."
A photographer looks out over the trees at the encroaching desert. Image by Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images.
Whether it's working, though, is another question.
One Chinese news agency, citing the State Forest Administration, reported in 2007 that "more than 20 percent of the lands affected by desertification in the project areas have been harnessed and soil erosion has been put under control in over 40 percent of the areas that used to suffer soil erosion in the past."
And in 2014, the Daily Mail echoed these results, reporting that "a study says the measures are working, despite previous criticism."
However, that same year, the Economist noted that many of the trees are withering in the dry, hot conditions and concluded the opposite.
Finally, there's the middle ground, which the BBC reported in 2011: The afforestation process is working — but it'll take 300 years to reclaim the lands the Gobi has already taken.
Either way, China intends to push forward. Given its original timetable, they have 35 years left to figure it out.
Dan Lewis runs the popular daily newsletter Now I Know ("Learn Something New Every Day, By Email"). To subscribe to his daily email, click here.
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."