151–160 of 177 posts
I was surprised to not find anything about possible cures or treatments in the article. I had bad allergies myself in my teenage years - unable to sleep for weeks - I finally sought help. The western medicine offers protein shots (similar treatment as to food allergies) but I heard good things about acupuncture. First, I was very skeptical about how needles could "help" with allergies. But about 2 months into the tre…
“Arboreal sexism” is a similar phenomenon: We prefer male trees in cities since they do not produce fruit that drop on the streets. The result is a much higher pollen load.
TIL. Trees have (biological) sex. This just blew my head. I must have been too sleepy when we saw that in high school.
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The spruce and other local conifers (I live by the Bohemian Forest/Bayerischer Wald) have pollen that seems to be low allergenic by design. I know a lot of people who are allergic to birch or weed pollen, but not to spruce.
By design? Who designed the pollen in those trees?
Not familiar with the biology of the matter. But I would assume there are advantages and disadvantages to the weight of the pollen in how it disperses and pollinates.
In my area, there are a lot of trees that make my life hellish when those plants pollinate. The other day I thought I was coming down with a cold. Nope, just really bad allergies.
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That's not actually a thing. Very few trees we plant have specific male vs female plants. One of the few that does that gets brought up in this context, ginko, tends to have male trees preferred because the fruit kind of reeks. Ginkgo fruit is also toxic so you really don't want masses of it getting washed into local waterways in ecosystems the tree isn't native to - not a great time for the local wildlife. A signifi…
Cool, I did not know that this is so disputed a quasi factoid. Thanks for cleaning my brain! Germany has “Baumkataster” which are databases for public trees in cities, they save all kind of tree metadata but gender is missing … https://hub.arcgis.com/search?tags=baumkataster
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This might have something to do with it: > When the sugi and hinoki forests were first planted in the 1950s and 60s, they weren't meant to stand forever. At the time, it was assumed they would be gradually cut down and replanted over time, as had been the case before the war. But as Japan's economy boomed in the late 60s and 70s, major cities like Kobe and Tokyo grew rapidly, and it ended up being cheaper to import w…
I don't get the relevance of "major cities grew rapidly". That can only mean that demand for wood spiked. There's no way it can cause local wood to become less competitive with imported wood.
Unfortunately, I heard that the government previously investigated taking action but were lobbied against doing so by pharmaceutical companies that earn revenue from allergy medications.
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I read it as "breeds selected to be low-allergenic" by the relative orgs that I assume (re)planted them there but I have no real idea about german forests and the processes of planting trees there.
No. Just some trees that produce pollen aren't particularly allergenic.
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Covid fucked with people in various, not easy to measure ways. Some effects went away (like losing smell and taste, but it took months for me), some... not so much. When I get cold/sneezing (the usual non-flu winter sickness) I cough much more since covid, more thick sputum created in the lower part of the throat. Talked with few people around and they confirmed they feel similar effects. Allergies could easily be an…
I had exactly the same experience. After I contracted Covid, until last year, it usually took me 2 weeks to stop coughing after the other symptoms went away. I think what improved the situation is exercise. I started to sprint walk a lot since last year and so far I haven’t had any long cough since then. My son also got asthma after Covid. But he also improved when he grew a bit older (now close to six). We still giv…