The latest science news - humongous palms, dinosaur killing insects, and google brains
A few hand-picked favorites by LS:
Death by flowers: giant, suicidal palm has botanists stumped
"tree grows some six stories tall before sprouting hundreds of succulent flowers"
"is so huge it can be seen in Google Earth"
Extra points for silly headline. Stumped, haha!
Google’s kinship with the mind
Our brains think just like a Google search. Maybe. Maybe it was just Google imitating our brains to begin with?
Did insects take down T. rex?
"The rise and evolution of these bugs—the biting disease-carriers,in particular—coincided fatefully with the mighty reptiles’later days
“In dinosaur feces, we found nematodes, trematodes and even protozoa that could have caused dysentery and other abdominal disturbances. The infective stages of these intestinal parasites are carried by filth-visiting insects.”
All from World Science.
6 comments:
I really like the palm tree discovery!
It´s so huge, and all the botanist go with their eyes on the ground, right?
No wonder nobody seen it, or as we say in Sweden ...." Jag kunde inte se träden för all skog var i vägen"
"All the botanists go with the eyes to the ground.."
Exactly. Unless you are a palm specialist, and there are not many of those. Most botanists avoid things that have leaves several meters long, inflorescences ten meters tall, and long sharp spikes and needles on their trunks. Palm botany are not for the faint hearted.
In this case I think it is also that there are only 100 trees of this species, and they don't flower very often, maybe not even one individual per year. Just shows you home much left there is to discover. If you really want to discover new species then you should become a mycologist or microbiologist or entomologist of course. There there are more work to do than anywhere else. And you get to pick your own species names!
Like naming something after Harry Potters spells I suppose....
I would choose the name for something spiky dangerous after the hippogriffs
" Palmus hippogriffus"
I was just thinking, if you think botanists go with there eyes on the ground, then what do mycologists do? They must dig in the ground! And not move at all.
Thats why the giant mushrooms never has been discovered!
Very funny and so correct, EH!
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