You ever see one of those titles where individually you know all the words, but don't know what they mean together?
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Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#22Would it be feasible to genetically engineer trees to neither drop seeds nor release airborne pollen?
You don’t have to genetically engineer it. Just clone (known for millennia) a barren plant.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#23The only reason why we don't plant tons of edible fruit trees in city parks is because they would make a huge mess and attract rodents. But now that we're going to have self-driving robots that can clean up after the trees by the time they're old enough to produce fruit, there really isn't any reason why our park trees shouldn't be producing food for us.
The local parks I where I lived in Germany had apple and plum trees. In spite of the fact that all the fruit came in a short time in autumn, I never saw a fully ripe fruit on the trees, let alone a rotten one fall. Between people and birds, there was nothing left for the rats.
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Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how good trees really are at attracting pollen. Intuitively it sounds like the forces should be small and the effect should be pretty marginal.
Trees are 0.3 billion years old, so presumably they are not just good at it, but best at it.
And birds are about 160 million years old, but they can't fly as high or as fast as airplanes. Evolution doesn't plan ahead, so it easily gets stuck in local maxima.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#25The only reason why we don't plant tons of edible fruit trees in city parks is because they would make a huge mess and attract rodents. But now that we're going to have self-driving robots that can clean up after the trees by the time they're old enough to produce fruit, there really isn't any reason why our park trees shouldn't be producing food for us.
For what it's worth, this is quite literally a textbook example of the tragedy of the commons. Fruit will always be picked unripe, for if it is left to ripen, whoever chooses to leave it will have none.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that isn't clear is how effective female trees are at removing pollen from the air. Is it possible that even with a much higher population but a more balanced sex ratio, there would still be a lower airborne pollen count?
Yes, that's the core premise made by the author: If we're going to plant male plants, either we plant female plants (which have evolved to take up the maximum amount of pollen possible) or our lungs take up the pollen (which results in biological issues). There's an inflection point where the amount of pollen left in the air by a sparse male forest equals the amount of pollen left in the air by a dense balanced-ratio…
Pollen is cheap and male trees overproduce it to get an edge over other male trees. Most polen just fall to the floor, a tiny part is lucky and reach the flowers in the female trees.
That's why many plants have nice flowers and use the help of insect to transport the pollen from a plant to another plant. (By the way, the yellow balls in the legs of the bees are pollen that they collect and take to the hive, for food. They "stole" most of the pollen, a small part drops in the other flower.)
Also, the link in the article in the sentence "The pollen grains do not just get to the female trees by accident; rather they are drawn there by this mutual attraction." is not a good justification of that "fact".
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#27The only reason why we don't plant tons of edible fruit trees in city parks is because they would make a huge mess and attract rodents. But now that we're going to have self-driving robots that can clean up after the trees by the time they're old enough to produce fruit, there really isn't any reason why our park trees shouldn't be producing food for us.
For what it's worth, this is quite literally a textbook example of the tragedy of the commons. Fruit will always be picked unripe, for if it is left to ripen, whoever chooses to leave it will have none.
As long as there are is enforcement to prevent people from harvesting stuff to sell, there would always be more food than people. E.g. in NYC there are something like 30,000 acres of parks, so you could have literally hundreds of acres landscaped with edible species without meaningfully reducing other forms of public space.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trees are 0.3 billion years old, so presumably they are not just good at it, but best at it.
And birds are about 160 million years old, but they can't fly as high or as fast as airplanes. Evolution doesn't plan ahead, so it easily gets stuck in local maxima.
Birds seem to fall out of the sky a lot less often. Could be the same is true for pollen. I don’t know if I agree with the guy, but I think he’s right to encourage more science time and money spent on it.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
And birds are about 160 million years old, but they can't fly as high or as fast as airplanes. Evolution doesn't plan ahead, so it easily gets stuck in local maxima.
Birds seem to fall out of the sky a lot less often. Could be the same is true for pollen. I don’t know if I agree with the guy, but I think he’s right to encourage more science time and money spent on it.
What? How could you think this is remotely true. It's international news when a commercial aircraft crashes. Birds, not so much.
Re: Botanical Sexism Cultivates Home-Grown Allergies
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Birds seem to fall out of the sky a lot less often. Could be the same is true for pollen. I don’t know if I agree with the guy, but I think he’s right to encourage more science time and money spent on it.
What? How could you think this is remotely true. It's international news when a commercial aircraft crashes. Birds, not so much.
Observer fallacy, though I’m kind of confused why I’ve never personally seen it happen. I’ve seem one window strike but never a ground strike.