I'm surprised he describes the pineapple as a tree?
He even calls them "definitely a tree". Too me the look more like grass...
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
61–70 of 137 posts
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of the cool things about math, there are a lot of aspects of math which stem from thinking, "well what if I took a square root of negative one?" or "what if geometry worked this way?" and then someone does the thought exercise and fleshes it out into something interesting. And then there just happen to be aspects of reality that end up being very nicely described by these what if questions
> there are a lot of aspects of math which stem from thinking, "well what if I took a square root of negative one?" I don't think that's what imaginary numbers stem from. If I recall, they came from the much more specific question of "what if I apply the formula for roots of a cubic polynomial, even when that formula produces some nonsensical intermediate values that end up canceling each other out?". It's less about…
That is the reverse of this subject in botany, we have this method that we know works and is logical lets make our language more logical. The problem with that is the same reason we don't use imaginary numbers everywhere we can use them. Veritasium has a video description [1] with links to references about the history of imaginary numbers and polynomials. There are some great writing on this and understanding not the history but the problems that gave rise to imaginary numbers, this connection to taxonomy makes me want to read them again.
There must be a study of this; failed attempts of taxonomy.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#63Well, I thought this was a fascinating and well-written article. p.s. I learnt not long ago that there's no such 'thing' as an antelope: "The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon (miscellaneous group) within the family Bovidae, encompassing all Old World ruminants that are not bovines, c…
A good reminder that the map is not the territory. Lately I've started to see more and more "categories" in general as a very human construct, probably made to save on processing power when thinking about things. Reality is hard and very complex and you can't be thinking about all the details all the time.
Categories are an optimization. It is also a leaky abstraction and there are a large number of errors in our thinking due to this optimization, which is often premature.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Broadly speaking: a ruminant is a subset of ungulates. Well, technically too. Ungulates have hooves (horses, pigs, camels, cows, etc). Ruminants are ungulates that eat grasses in a somewhat unique way, by partially fermenting it in their gut, and horking it back up for another good chew or three (cows, giraffes, deer, antelopes, etc). And I say "broadly" and "somewhat" because, to intentionally misrepresent the artic…
And killer whales. Big, carnivorous and hooved with lots of teeth. Those are ungulates too. Interestingly enough, Judaism uses rumination, in part, to determine whether an animal is okay to eat. It was called “chewing their cud”. Pigs don’t do this and that’s why they’re not kosher. I suspect this was the inspiration for pork being haram in Islam but it’s explicitly prohibited by name, rather than by property. I’m no…
> And killer whales.
Is that true? The wikipedia page on Ruminants shows the Cetacea outside of the group labeled Ruminants.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#65Well, I thought this was a fascinating and well-written article. p.s. I learnt not long ago that there's no such 'thing' as an antelope: "The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon (miscellaneous group) within the family Bovidae, encompassing all Old World ruminants that are not bovines, c…
Also, you're a fish. When people talk about fish, they mean "fish that aren't tetrapods", because cladistically speaking, tetrapods (birds, reptiles, mammals) are fish too.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#66Well, I thought this was a fascinating and well-written article. p.s. I learnt not long ago that there's no such 'thing' as an antelope: "The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon (miscellaneous group) within the family Bovidae, encompassing all Old World ruminants that are not bovines, c…
Also, you're a fish. When people talk about fish, they mean "fish that aren't tetrapods", because cladistically speaking, tetrapods (birds, reptiles, mammals) are fish too.
I dispute that. Speaking as a vegetarian, I think the key problem is that a lot of people don't know WTF a fish is.
Q: Do you know what's the best gift to give a vegetarian who eats fish?
A: A dictionary.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#67Well, I thought this was a fascinating and well-written article. p.s. I learnt not long ago that there's no such 'thing' as an antelope: "The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon (miscellaneous group) within the family Bovidae, encompassing all Old World ruminants that are not bovines, c…
Biology is what happens when you try to decompile code written in assembler into OO language.
And when the systematics guys started out they did not even know the assembler code existed for like 200-300 years.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#68This is also a thing with mushrooms. The Common Earthball [1] f.x. is more related to a Porcino [2] than to a Meadow Puffball [3] which itself is related to the Field Mushroom [4]. Seems like genes are more like a toolbox where evolution takes from what it needs. After all we share a significant amount of common genes with totally different animals like flies. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroderma_citrinum 2:…
Interesting. I couldn't understand for a moment why this should be surprising. Then I remembered English has 2 words for "grzyby" - fungi and mushrooms. Is that it?
No.
I would guess you are thinking of "toadstool" versus "mushroom".
Fungi is a technical term for a type of organism, not the fruiting body.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. I couldn't understand for a moment why this should be surprising. Then I remembered English has 2 words for "grzyby" - fungi and mushrooms. Is that it?
No. I would guess you are thinking of "toadstool" versus "mushroom". Fungi is a technical term for a type of organism, not the fruiting body.
toadstool is colloquial for poisonous mushroom.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> “woody plants”, like lianas (thick woody vines) There are plants that start out as parasitic vines (parasitic? Epithetic? I am not sure what words to use...) that grow, as a vine, up a tree. Kill the tree, then stand as a tree from then on. https://live.staticflickr.com/5066/5645437671_f04c556157_b.j...
Epiphytic. They are freeloaders instead of parasites. Although there is some though that for instance moss high up in some very tall trees helps them overcome their hydraulic limitations by allowing them to absorb some water from their limbs instead of just the roots.
An epiphyte is a plant that grows entirely on another plant – in other words, has no roots in the ground.
Vines and creepers are not epiphytes, because they have conventional roots in the same soil as the larger plant (or other structure) that they cling to.
I can't parse your 2nd sentence so I can't comment, but moss is not vascular and does not have roots or any mechanism to transport water internally. It just moves through the plant by capillary action.
This is the key difference between mosses and clubmosses.