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World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

sciencenorway.no

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Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#21

Post by zrobotics »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #10
fancyfredbot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAB (B = botanist) but I believe that many species of tree can grow more than one trunk and that the spruce is not unusual in this respect.

Aspen trees do this.

For anyone in areas with Aspen trees, they are a single organism since they spread via roots. That is why you see groves of Aspen trees that seem to be sharply delineated, it's all one tree.

Biology is just fascinating/scary like this, but knowing this makes the experience of standing in an aspen grove during the height of summer even more powerful. It's all one connected organism thst has spread so far that you can't see anything else of the mountain while standing in the middle of the grove.

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#22

Post by soegaard »

zrobotics wrote: post #20
kebman wrote: post #15

Just to be clear, the tree is found in Dalarna in Sweden, though this is indeed East of Trysil in Norway. Since Sciencenorway.no (!) is a Norwegian outlet, they need to at least attempt to make their articles relevant for Norway. The outlet is the English version of Forskning.no. Forskning means research in Norwegian, but in this instance it really means science. Their focus is to bring news about what Norwegian scie…

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

"Cucumber time" is the season, where news paper doesn't have anything to report on than cucumbers.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cuc2.htm

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#23

Post by zrobotics »

hinkley wrote: post #2

Had to read this in reader mode because while the text of the article was in English, the cookie pop up was in what I’m guessing is Norwegian, and covered most of the space where the text is. Who does that?

Every news source on the planet it seems. This source didn't localize to your language (I had the same frustration), but every website seems to do this, this one just didn't localize the cookie prompt.

Not going to lie, it seems a bit presumptuous to expect that a local Norwegian source has every aspect of their site optimized for English readers. Aside from the Norwegian text, it was a standard cookie click-through.

Edit: this reads hostile, I mainly want to point out that not every site online is in English and expecting that shouldn't be the norm. I've read excellent Chinese only articles through translation services, it seems unfair to expect everyone to default to English to share their knowledge. Especially now with AI translation being a thing, it seems unfair to criticize a local news source for focusing on their local language. Reading non-English sites is easier now than ever, and translation errors are worth being able to read about more of the world's ideas. There are ideas that don't spread to the wider web simply because the author wrote them in their native language. When it's so easy to get a machine translation that isn't perfect but is serviceable, I have trouble complaining about language issues.

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#24

Post by mikaoj85 »

zrobotics wrote: post #20
kebman wrote: post #15

Just to be clear, the tree is found in Dalarna in Sweden, though this is indeed East of Trysil in Norway. Since Sciencenorway.no (!) is a Norwegian outlet, they need to at least attempt to make their articles relevant for Norway. The outlet is the English version of Forskning.no. Forskning means research in Norwegian, but in this instance it really means science. Their focus is to bring news about what Norwegian scie…

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

«Silly season/cucumber time»

Harvest time, indeed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#25

Post by madmoose »

zrobotics wrote: post #20
kebman wrote: post #15

Just to be clear, the tree is found in Dalarna in Sweden, though this is indeed East of Trysil in Norway. Since Sciencenorway.no (!) is a Norwegian outlet, they need to at least attempt to make their articles relevant for Norway. The outlet is the English version of Forskning.no. Forskning means research in Norwegian, but in this instance it really means science. Their focus is to bring news about what Norwegian scie…

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation, and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry says, at least.

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#26

Post by severine »

soegaard wrote: post #22
zrobotics wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

"Cucumber time" is the season, where news paper doesn't have anything to report on than cucumbers. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cuc2.htm https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid

Other examples would be, according to Wikipedia, "silly season" in english, "serpiente de verano" (summer snake) in spanish, "Sommerloch" in german, and a bunch of others. Very common phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#27

Post by zrobotics »

madmoose wrote: post #25
zrobotics wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation, and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry says, at least. https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names

Ah, so the US "dog-days of summer". Not going to lie, I prefer the silly-season nomenclature, it captures the lack of motivation and malaise that seems to set in during the height of summer much better. Thanks for the explanation, very interesting.

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#28

Post by aerique »

madmoose wrote: post #25
zrobotics wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation, and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry says, at least. https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names

We have the same expression in Dutch: "komkommertijd".

The Dutch Wikipedia mentions English, German or Jiddisch as possible sources: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komkommertijd

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#29

Post by CalRobert »

If you happen to be in California and want to see the oldest non-clonal trees in the world, visit the Bristlecone Pines in the white mountains near Mammoth. But maybe do it soon... https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-06-27/drought...

Re: World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border

#30

Post by konschubert »

madmoose wrote: post #25
zrobotics wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd. I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the term?

Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation, and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry says, at least. https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names

Sauregurkenzeit
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