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Pere Renom

“We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision […] We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer.”
Oration on the Dignity of Man – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Sahara, the limit of life

published on 23.05.2007

Quèquicom travels to the Sahara Desert in Mauritania, to see how survive the humans, animals and plants. The reporter Pere Renom captures some animals from this area like differents especies of gerbil, and spiny-tailed lizard. He also detects traces of dorcas gazelle and watches the desert hare and Fennec, and explains some of their physiological and behavioral adaptations to extreme climate. Renom discovers evidence of prehistory of the Sahara in different sites with abundant lithic industry and petroglyphs, and sees what was the method to obtain water in the past and nowadays. Plants of the Sahara also have certain characteristics to suit the desert. Accompanied by a camel shepherd, Renom learns which are these plants and how are traditionally used. The presenter Toni Mestres explains in the studio the photosynthesis of desert plants (CAM, crassulacean acid metabolism), and the existance of abundant groundwater accumulated in the Sahara thousands of years ago when environmental conditions were more humid.

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