The most redundant plant I can think of is the banana. It's a huge freaking herb, and it produces some lovely fruits. These fruits serve absolutely no purpose to the plant, as they have no seeds. Fortunately, they are nicely packaged in a thick skin, and taste nice and sweet. They also have enough starch to be a staple in some cultures.
So how does a plant decide "hmm maybe I'll grow some fruits that have no use for me? I'll just photosynthesise like mad to make this lovely yellow thing that someone else can take and I don't mind cos I don't need it at all".
After a quick wiki read-through, it implies that wild bananas have seeds. Whether those seeds are viable or not is unclear. I also found out that bananas are faintly radioactive because of their high potassium content. Nice.
Secondly, do nerve cells die? As in, do they die within our lifetime? It seems unlikely that they'll die, as they have to undergo cell division. And then you'll have two nerves in the same place and it will be awkward turtles. What if the cell dies before it undergoes mitosis?
In biology, the sciatic nerve was mentioned; it is the largest cell in the body. Though it is only 10 microns wide (10^-6 m), so about half the width of a strand of human hair, it is about 1m long in adult humans. It stretches from the heel of the foot up to the buttocks, where it is connected to the spinal cord. So it's a humungous cell. If that cell undergoes cell division, or dies, either way, it would be so awkward turtle for the body.
So I guess it just isn't allowed to die.
Yay appendix time. What should I name this section? Anyways if you didn't read the survey I posted yesterday, I'd just like to repeat that these are not all personal experiences, they can also be things I hear from other people =)
Here goes:
If you don't like your opinions being dismissed as PMS, then don't use PMS as an excuse for when you've chucked a rage. It's unfair that when you're wrong, it's apparently because you are biologically incapable of not being a bitch.
Ultimately, you are still in charge of the decisions you make, even if they may be clouded by hormones or whatever causes PMS. And if you apologise, it's more like apologising for your biology than your actual actions. It's kinda like apologising with "I was drunk".
kk cue the flaming.
3 comments:
kenny linked me to this excellent article on bananas:
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-of-the-banana
basically the bananas we eat are the mules of the plant kingdom
you get most of your nerve cells during pre-natal development. when you grow up, your peripheral nervous system and a few cells in the central nervous system can regenerate because the environment inhibits growth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_regeneration#Central_nervous_system_regeneration
I read the banana article. That is interesting. And also flawed.
They should just cryo 3 different varieties of bananas, and use only 1 at a time. Then they cycle as bananas get wiped out by pest/disease =D
The nerves thing was a bit more bleh as wiki is not always user-friendly, but I got the gist. Some of them can, some of them can't.
adding on to claudia...
and also human genetic modification means that nearly all of the stuff we eat are horrible mutations that would not exist naturally. Not the stylised gene-switching stuff, just breeding like the stuff you see in ag. Naturally occuring bananas are -packed- with seeds.
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