That site benefited enormously from reader mode.
“Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
41–50 of 86 posts
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly one of the best Nova titles ever - "Rat Attack" follows this phenomenon: https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-rat-attack/
Video not available in my area! But why!? Have the rights expired for US viewers??
Very interesting, loaded it up through my Toronto VPN and was rejected too.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#43It reminds me of cicadas, an insect with long life cycles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada#Life_cycle
> Some cicada species have much longer life cycles, such as the North American genus, Magicicada, which has a number of distinct "broods" that go through either a 17-year or, in some parts of the region, a 13-year life cycle. The long life cycles may have developed as a response to predators, such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis. A specialist predator with a shorter life cycle of at least two years could not reliably prey upon the cicadas.
There's also an evolutionary theory behind why these are prime numbers: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-cica...
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#44Long back I read that Bamboo blossoms are often accompanied by famines due to rise in rat population.
In the past maybe. Now cats, dogs and foxes population just would explode. In the 21 century finding some glass jars or metallic recipients with a solid cover lid shouldn't be a great problem. If you can find a beer or a cocacola in your village you have yet a rat-proof recipient for safely storing seeds. Rodents are edible also if not other food is available Is also interesting to notice that this bamboo ecology fac…
IIRC the rodent populations can reproduce much faster than their predators and completely overwhelm them. Worse, once the fruits are gone the rodents start to eat everything in sight until they starve en-masse and leave the ground covered in dead rats.
Unless you are highly adept at making rat jerky you are going to be in trouble when winter comes.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly one of the best Nova titles ever - "Rat Attack" follows this phenomenon: https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-rat-attack/
Video not available in my area! But why!? Have the rights expired for US viewers??
https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/12000036933-...
If you are seeing this message under an episode's clip or preview, it means PBS no longer has the streaming rights to offer that full episode for online streaming.
Any program or piece of television on PBS is a piece of intellectual property (just like a song or a book). With any piece of intellectual property come certain rights and allowances for the creators, distributors, and consumers. Many of these rights include online video viewing stipulations. If a program is not available for viewing on pbs.org, it is because of the specific intellectual property rights associated with that show, and often, these rights vary from show to show.
We must purchase streaming rights separately from television broadcast rights and we are not always able to obtain the streaming rights for every program, so our online content may be more limited than programs airing on your television. In some cases, we are able to offer full episodes for online streaming for a limited period of time, and then the episodes must be taken off of our site.
While Passport does allow us to offer more content for online streaming, we are unable to offer every program for online streaming indefinitely due to the aforementioned streaming rights.
We do offer clips and previews for some programs as these are not as restricted as the full episodes and may be of interest to some users.
While these episodes may be unavailable for free online streaming, we recommend visiting the PBS Store or a third party such as iTunes or Amazon Video if you are interested in purchasing episodes of these programs.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#46> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…
There are some other examples like that in biology, my favourite being 13- and 17-year periodic cicadas [1] with one theory being that a prime number was selected for during evolution to make it more difficult to synchronize with predator life cycles. Counters in biology are also a thing, for example Hayflick limit [2] which is a number of times a single cell can divide before it dies (partially explained by telomere…
I thought that circadas thing was made up for the series Silicon Valley:
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know the exact mechanism (it sounds like nobody does) but remember these are clonally propagated (until they flower, which I presume creates seeds). So most of the entire population is actually one genetic "individual". So the 'alarm clock' must be tied to the original genetic signature.
No, there's no reason to believe they are only one genetic individual. Just because many are clones, there's no reason to believe they all are clones from the same original plant.
"all plants of the same stock of bamboo" makes it sound like this would indeed be from the same original plant.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some other examples like that in biology, my favourite being 13- and 17-year periodic cicadas [1] with one theory being that a prime number was selected for during evolution to make it more difficult to synchronize with predator life cycles. Counters in biology are also a thing, for example Hayflick limit [2] which is a number of times a single cell can divide before it dies (partially explained by telomere…
I thought that circadas thing was made up for the series Silicon Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxh2X6NjuhY
Coming from NJ I can safely say cicadeads are not made up.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#49> And if you feel discouraged by the notion that they are bad omens, why not consider the silver lining: While it's true that the flowers signal the death of the plant, they also symbolize new beginnings, since those who rely on supercentenarian species like madake can eventually expect a fresh, healthy and abundant supply of new shoots which will last for a very long time. This would fit very well with the notion th…
Now we have HBO doing that job for us. We just ended the Game of Thrones era, to be replaced by the Westworld era soon.
Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan
#50I wonder how long the seeds will take to germinate. I have some seeds of a hardier and more common bamboo Chusquea culeou, which have been stratified in a variety of ways and put in moist soil for over half a year now - none have germinated yet. After getting worried, I've done some research and it turns out that many types of bamboo can spend years dormant in the ground, before suddenly shooting up and growing at in…
I've germinated a few seeds (P. edulis 'Moso' & Fargesia Jiuzhaigou IV 'Black Cherry') purchased on AliExpress (very inexpensive). I planted about 200 seeds in July of last year and achieved a germination rate of about 5%. My understanding is that bamboo seeds are not viable for very long, but it could also be that I didn't get my seeds from a very reputable dealer.