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Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2016 6:00 pm
by CactusHugger
Researchers show how dramatically man has changed everything from the banana to the watermelon since our ancestors first ate them
I think researchers know what they're talking about when they talk about the development of modern food crops. There's a lot of evidence to work with and it makes sense that natural plants over the course of hundreds of generations would gradually develop into the domesticated plants that we know today through a process of artificial selection.
Wild carrots are unrecognizable today. Found in Persia and Asia Minor around the 10th century, they were purple or white root-like structures. Its seeds made their way as far as Europe about 5,000 years ago and it is still found today in temperate regions. The orange-ish vegetable we know today was domesticate in the 1900s, which started as a golden ball and transformed into the long orange carrot today. The modern carrot has also become an annual winter crop, compared to its ancestors that thrived in warmer climates.

LINK:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3428689/What-fruit-vegetables-look-like-Researchers-banana-watermelon-changed-dramatically-ancestors-ate-them.html

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2016 9:26 pm
by surfsteve
Actually there are cultivated varieties of purple and white carrots; but yeah: I was thinking about it after I made that post that researchers probably had a good idea of what plants looked like many years before agriculture, based on what they found in the stomachs of prehistoric animals. I do know that plants revert back to their wild state fairly rapidly after escaping cultivation. Hybrids and grafts revert back immediately but stable varieties take a lot longer. Most cultivated plants require much more care such as fertilizer, water and elimination of competing wild plants; and without such care they will soon be taken over by wild ones which don't require any care at all. Without man to cultivate them, survival becomes a game of thorns. Lots of plants depend on man or animals to eat them in order to disperse their seeds by pooping them out; but I suppose there was a time before they had to depend on other means in order to propagate. I suppose one could say that they genetically modified themselves to take advantage of their situation. Or were the animals that ate them responsible for modifying the plants; which brings us back to the whole chicken or the egg thing...

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 8:11 am
by panamint_patty
The Ingenious Ways Plants Defend Themselves
Besides thorns and barbs, plants also excrete chemicals to ward off predators.

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 9:21 am
by surfsteve
Most plants produce some kind of chemical to fend off predators that want to eat them. Much of those chemicals have been bred out of our vegetables and grains but still remain in small amounts. Cooking usually gets rid of most of what is left. That is why beans, potatoes and wheat need to be cooked before consumption. Next time you don't want to eat your vegetables you might try using that as an excuse!

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 11:15 am
by camel
Hearing danger: predator vibrations trigger plant chemical defenses
Hearing or feeling or just somehow sensing?

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:35 pm
by camel
Study: Seeds Use Tiny 'Brains' to Decide When to Grow
Simply fascinating! :thumb:

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 6:56 am
by wildrose
Some Plants Turn Caterpillars Into Cannibals
Interesting, but I've never seen anything like this and I've seen a lot of caterpillars eating a lot of tomato plants!

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 6:46 am
by CactusHugger
Some plants eat other plants
New plant parasitic plant discovered in Japan.

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:53 am
by panamint_patty
Did a popular sugar additive fuel the spread of two superbugs?
Interesting theory about how this alternative form of sugar, which became cheap to produce around 2000, may have interacted with bacteria in the human gut to produce a dangerous infection.
Two bacterial strains that have plagued hospitals around the country may have been at least partly fueled by a sugar additive in our food products, scientists say. Trehalose, a sugar that is added to a wide range of food products, could have allowed certain strains of Clostridium difficile to become far more virulent than they were before, a new study finds.

Also known as mycose or tremalose, it's found in nature:
In plants, the presence of trehalose is seen in sunflower seeds, moonwort, Selaginella plants, and sea algae. Within the fungi, it is prevalent in some mushrooms, such as shiitake (Lentinula edodes), oyster, king oyster, and golden needle. Even within the plant kingdom, Selaginella (sometimes called the resurrection plant), which grows in desert and mountainous areas, may be cracked and dried out, but will turn green again and revive after rain because of the function of trehalose.

WIKIPEDIA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trehalose
ARTICLE: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/science/2018/01/04/Did-a-popular-sugar-additive-fuel-the-spread-of-two-superbugs

Re: Plant Science

PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:33 am
by CactusHugger
Why Produce Used to Suck
Most people have heard about the transformation of various wild plants into the modern crops grown on farms, but this is a fun review of several examples including the banana, cruciferous vegetables, wheat, corn, watermelon, and eggplants. WARNING: Don't show this in a classroom. Inappropriate language.