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Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

bbc.com

101–110 of 152 posts

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#101
post #2

> He pointed out that Musa Basjoos are not really for eating. > He said: "It's basically like having a mouth full of ball bearings with half a teaspoon of banana on them." Maybe we can iterate on the texture some more here.

Here is a photo of the seeds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_a_wild-type_banana...

Is the flesh soft and sweet like a modern cultivated banana? I wonder how different it is to eat one of those compared to something like a tamarind, which is also mostly seeds, covered in a relatively small amount of edible delicious stuff.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#102

The UK straddles the 55th parallel North. Due to the jet streams (and formerly, trade winds) carrying warm air from the Caribbean, it has often benefitted from a milder climate than other regions at similar latitudes: Alaska, Siberia, the Baltic states. But this is wild. I am only in my 40s but I've seen the climate change significantly and it having a major impact on flora and fauna. When I was a kid, English wine w…

Just wait till the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation halts, then you can grow icicles!

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#103
post #99
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins/zucchinis/most squashes, cassava, the common bean (including pinto, black, kidney, etc), cassava, sunflowers, avocado, etc all didn't exist in European kitchens until the 1500s (and not really widespread until at least the 1600s). Also, most of these crops were specifically domesticated in the Andes. If you go to the Andes today you can still find tradi…

Coffee is another interesting example in the other direction, it's so often associated with places like Colombia, Java, etc that people don't realize it's only native to Ethiopia, and that the majority of coffee consumed around the world today descends from one specific genetic lineage that was cultivated for a few centuries in Yemen.

Erstwhile seafaring powers went to war over trade routes for these. Surprising it isn't that well known.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#104
post #19

Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR: The History of the Banana https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea. If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite e…

If you like this long format style of video, you might enjoy Asianometry, "video essays on business, economics, and history." [0] Here is a video on the banana also, "The Wildly Infectious Banana Plague." [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsiD_s00RQ

Asianometry is one of the rare gems among youtube channels, along with Alexander the ok [0] and Technology Connections [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@Alexander-the-ok

[1] https://www.youtube.com/technologyconnections

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#105
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really transformed Europe too. Europe's basically a story of famine after famine until they got access to the potato. I don't know if any other technology has saved as many European lives as the potato Pacific island cultures are a bit unique in their relationship to the New World though. Chickens which come from SE Asian jungles have been in South America since at least 1300 AD. And sweet potatoes were grown in P…

1300 AD?! Did the Polynesians bring chickens with them? I knew about the sweet potatoes, but the chickens are a whole different manner.

Chickens descend from jungle fowl, which were carried out into the Pacific from SE Asia.

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

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#106
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really transformed Europe too. Europe's basically a story of famine after famine until they got access to the potato. I don't know if any other technology has saved as many European lives as the potato Pacific island cultures are a bit unique in their relationship to the New World though. Chickens which come from SE Asian jungles have been in South America since at least 1300 AD. And sweet potatoes were grown in P…

1300 AD?! Did the Polynesians bring chickens with them? I knew about the sweet potatoes, but the chickens are a whole different manner.

Yes exactly. We have chicken remains in Chile that are dated between 1304 and 1424. And we even have DNA confirmation from those bones that link them to modern Polynesian chicken populations. The tailless, blue-egged Araucana breed is still around today and is thought to predate Columbus

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you never looked. What he's saying is a true and well known problem in climatology. Population increases create an appearance of warming in the dataset. There are two sources of corruption. The first is the urban heat island effect. Many weather stations are corrupted because although they were once in fields or other natural sites, over time cities expanded to meet the needs of the growing population and end…

Yes, I'm sure the reason the UK had its hottest mean June temperature ever and recorded its highest ever June temperature in the village of Lingwood, Norfolk is all down to how many weather stations are located next to runways .

Some time ago an FOI (Freedom of Information) request to the UK Met Office got the following response:

Background: Class 1–2 are regarded as excellent or very good exposures, Class 3 permits uncertainties up to about 1 °C, Class 4 permits uncertainties up to about 2 °C, and Class 5 permits uncertainties up to about 5 °C because of nearby artificial heat sources or other exposure problems.

According to analyses of the released data, approximately:

22% of stations were Classes 1–3, about 49% were Class 4, about 29% were Class 5.

I guess there must be very good reasons for not ensuring that the majority of stations are Class 1-3.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like this long format style of video, you might enjoy Asianometry, "video essays on business, economics, and history." [0] Here is a video on the banana also, "The Wildly Infectious Banana Plague." [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OsiD_s00RQ

I'll second this. I'm continually impressed with the breadth of coverage from Asianometry. Great channel.

I wish Jon would post a video on his research methodology.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Lingwood site is class 5 because it's in some guy's garden and surrounded by trees/hedges that block airflow. Class 5 sites have +/- 5 degrees of uncertainty and shouldn't be used for climatology under any circumstances. As to the runway point you're being sarcastic about - yes, that can happen. The UK set a record temperature in July 2022, which the BBC reports was set at Coningsby in Lincolnshire: https://www.b…

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

Moreover with 78% of UK Met Office temperature measuring sites failing to meet Class 1 or 2 standards ex FOI request), the reported temperatures are all spot on! Might add that the ~ 2 trillion tons of concrete associated with energy-producing-humans which we've taken from under the earth and dumped on top since 1900 has had zero effect on any local temperatures. As we all know, the storage heater principle only works if you buy those devices you get from home appliance stores.
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