flora_explora

@flora_explora@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨the living dead⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Hm no, the problem is much more at the roots of science than you think. Most of biology is based on humans’ biased assumptions and expectations. For example, only when queer theory was developed did biologists really grasp how much deviant the animal kingdom in regards to sex, gender and sexuality actually is.

  Just think how many layers deep this is: humans exist -> develop social structures -> develop social constructs that feel essential -> try to describe their own biology through the lense of all the prior layers -> develop awareness about some social constructs -> revisit their own biology but still with a lot of biases

  What you express by saying that it isn’t possible anymore to just speak about biology is imo rather an expression of denying certain advancements we’ve made. Our ideas and models of biology a few decades ago may have been simpler, but not more true. We’ve just realized to some extend how complex biology is and how our prior models have made many poor assumptions.

  EO Wilson is having his own concepts and biases of human societies and projects them onto this pseudoscientific narrative. He is obviously not aware of his own position in society and how it shapes his assumptions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Surprisingly short list regarding the millions of described species!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple sues YouTuber who leaked iOS 26’s new “Liquid Glass” software redesign⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Apple’s whole business model is creating hype around their products. And if this hype is preemptively damaged by leaking secrets that would otherwise feed the hype, they clearly are negatively affected by this. I don’t say any of this is good, that’s just their business model. And capitalism of course…

  Your example wouldn’t really apply here either, because you aren’t a world famous company billions of people know.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨poaceae⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  What kind of fruit a plant develops is something entirely different to what a grass is though. And these are all taxonomically different groups (palms, bananas and grasses).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨poaceae⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  At least both Musaceae (Bananas) and Poaceae (Grasses) are both monocots. But that’s where their taxonomic proximity ends. They are not even in the same order (Zingiberales vs Poales)…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thoughts??⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Came here to say this :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bisexual Flowers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, bisexual means something else in both contexts…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EVERYBODY IS DOING SOMETHING⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, if it works for you, great. But that doesn’t mean that it will work for anyone else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨>:(⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  OK got It, so mostly oregano-ish with notes of thyme :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨>:(⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Looked it up because I hadn’t heard of it. Wikipedia say the following:

  Common names in English include Indian borage, country borage, French thyme, Indian mint, Mexican mint, Cuban oregano, broad leaf thyme, soup mint, Spanish thyme.

  What? So does it taste like a mix of borage, thyme, mint and oregano?? Sure, they are all Lamiaceae (except for borage), but they have wildly different aromas!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EVERYBODY IS DOING SOMETHING⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How is bread and sugar not plants?? Oversimplifying stuff doesn’t make it better…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biomimicry⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, that’s what I wondered, too. In ant nest parasites they usually are visually very different from the ants, but get the pheromones right. In this example here, visual clues have to be important for the beetle to have evolved such a sophisticated mimicry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RIP America⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s maybe comparable to a bee hive or ant nest losing it’s workers. Each single one of them isn’t important at all. But if nearly all of them are gone, the hive/nest will do much worse or even collapse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨bork bork bork⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Nice, thanks!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nightmare fuel⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh wow, the first one sounds mean. Never heard of an isopod parasite (but I’d now guess there are many more aquatic ones?). And inducing necrosis of the tongue to be the new fish’s organ, ouch :O

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨he's SO handsome!!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Lol, found an iNat guy in the wild! I immediately knew @neontetraploid because I’ve tagged them hundreds of times on iNat :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jigsaw Trolley Problem⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh of course, I didn’t consider the “I know you don’t either” part. Thanks, I got it now :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jigsaw Trolley Problem⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the explanation, but I cannot follow on this line

  Since he knows that Bernard doesn’t know given just the row, each ball in that row is in a column that contains more than one ball.

  Why is that? Why couldn’t it be A2 or A3? In this case neither Albert nor Bertrand could tell what row/column this was either, because it would be in a row/column with another ball. How can you exclude any row with overlap with any single-ball columns?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The cell wall is the wall of the cell.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Same!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you can't make it yourself, store bought is fine⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From Wikipedia on dopamine:

  The brain includes several distinct dopamine pathways, one of which plays a major role in the motivational component of reward-motivated behavior.

  So it is a neurotransmitter but has many different functions as such. But also:

  Outside the central nervous system, dopamine functions primarily as a local paracrine messenger. In blood vessels, it inhibits norepinephrine release and acts as a vasodilator; in the kidneys, it increases sodium excretion and urine output; in the pancreas, it reduces insulin production; in the digestive system, it reduces gastrointestinal motility and protects intestinal mucosa; and in the immune system, it reduces the activity of lymphocytes. With the exception of the blood vessels, dopamine in each of these peripheral systems is synthesized locally and exerts its effects near the cells that release it.

  So dopamine is important for all kinds of cells to function correctly. So just chugging a bunch of dopamine would do all kinds of stuff to your body…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Strawberries are nuts 🍓⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, seems like you’re right about kurz. It’s mostly just walnuts although you can find recipes where they say nueces and use pecans. Almendras seem to be classified as a separate thing from nuts, interesting. Wasn’t aware of that before! I’d just use the term “nuez” like I would in German maybe that’s why I never noticed :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Strawberries are nuts 🍓⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess things can have multiple names, too. In German you would also say Waldfrüchte (forest fruits) to mixed berries, but they are still Beeren (berries) as well. If you search for “postre de bayas” or “pastel de bayas” many recipes pop up. And sure, Spanish is obviously a diverse language with the divide between Spanish from Spain and from Latin America.

  Disclaimer: I’m part of the scientific bubble so that’s why I may here more terms that are botanical in Spanish ;)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Strawberries are nuts 🍓⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Bayas y nueces… Tubérculo is closer to the botanical definition because it is a tuber (storage organ) and not a fruit (like most vegetables). And I would think that tubérculo could be any tuber vegetable, not just papas/patatas

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Frigging peas 🫛⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Have you got any links? A quick search didn’t show up anything in that direction, only how important Mendel was for modern genetics…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Leaves have evolved at least twice 🤔⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Hm, I was intrigued and looked at the evolution of plants. This made me realize how paraphyletic gymnosperms and angiosperms really are! We just don’t know how angiosperms exactly started out and if they might be monophyletic. And in case of gymnosperms, they are consisting of many very different plant groups that evolved independently.

  So gymnosperms were probably the first plants to evolve seeds and they “include conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetophytes, forming the clade Gymnospermae”.

  It was previously widely accepted that the gymnosperms originated in the Late Carboniferous period, replacing the lycopsid rainforests of the tropical region, but more recent phylogenetic evidence indicates that they diverged from the ancestors of angiosperms during the Early Carboniferous.[12][13] The radiation of gymnosperms during the late Carboniferous appears to have resulted from a whole genome duplication event around 319 million years ago.[14] Early characteristics of seed plants are evident in fossil progymnosperms of the late Devonian period around 383 million years ago. It has been suggested that during the mid-Mesozoic era, pollination of some extinct groups of gymnosperms was by extinct species of scorpionflies that had specialized proboscis for feeding on pollination drops. The scorpionflies likely engaged in pollination mutualisms with gymnosperms, long before the similar and independent coevolution of nectar-feeding insects on angiosperms.[15][16] Evidence has also been found that mid-Mesozoic gymnosperms were pollinated by Kalligrammatid lacewings, a now-extinct family with members which (in an example of convergent evolution) resembled the modern butterflies that arose far later.

  Wow, so there was already pollination going on before flowering plants even existed??? By scorpionflies who’s ancestors I frequently see? And there were butterfly-like insects long before real butterflies existed? This is wild!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what is north?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, you’re right: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weddell_Sea?wprov=sfla1

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MEN.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Hm, I’d see the joking about men in this case as a way to blow off some steam caused by the frustration of how the people in our society with the most power and who are the most violent continuously refuse to change anything or make concessions. Men not going to therapy and working on their issues results in heightened patriarchal violence. And it is just utterly frustrating how many decades people have fought for systemic change just to see the vast majority of men blocking any change or even pushing back against it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨MEN.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I get that it’s hard, I was in the same boat multiple times. Everyone experiences the problems you list and I guess women and non-binary people actually have it worse because of on average greater financial instability and dependence on others.

  But the issue is, for therapy to work you have to acknowledge you have a problem, be willing to reflect upon yourself and change some own misconceptions. I feel like cis men have great difficulty with that and therefore avoid therapy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨50 shades of green⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m trying to understand this figure now. So, on the right in grey is the Phytoplasma bacterium that is hitting the plant with its SAP proteins. What I don’t get, if this is a fifty shades of grey analogy, then the plant must be consenting and enjoying this. But the bacterium is a parasite damaging the plant and even apparently benefitting other parasites. This doesn’t make sense!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨There's been a massacre!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Just think how inefficient most of what we do is. Most of our modern society is based on indulgence or complex societal norms (very inefficient from an energy perspective!). It is frankly absurd to think we would do anything only based on its efficiency… Similarly, an intelligent alligator society may just eat their young out of fun or because of societal norms.