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POPSBizarre Botany As a biology student in college I've always found plants fascinating. In most cases, size is not an advantage. At least in the aroma department. On the plus side, it does serve the plant well!
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POPSTomato: Fruit or Vegetable In fact, in 1893 the Supreme Court of the United Stated curiously decreed the tomato a vegetable, although recognizing that botanically speaking it is a fruit. This unusual declaration was based on the existence of an 1883 tariff that charged ten percent on imported vegetables, including tomatoes. A frustrated tomato importer decided to challenge the tariff, arguing that tomatoes were actually a fruit and thus should be excluded from the vegetable tariff. The Supreme Court agreed that tomatoes were botanically a fruit, but argued that they were commonly grown in kitchen gardens with vegetables and treated as vegetables in markets and American households. In other words, the United States Government wanted its tariff money—the heck with botany!
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POPSTechnical fix for Toxic Stockpile?
I read the bottom line "More expensive than incineration" and it was clear the Orica would find faults in the technology. It's a bit late. The chemical in rubble? NO it leeches into the environment. Orica are notorious for their lack of concern regarding pollution. they once just let these wastes out with the sewerage, but there was never a word said. It is only through research, and environmental testing which proved them so callous.Persistent Organic Pollutants, are so named because they are so unnatural there is no mechanism in the natural environment to break them down. Two of the most classic chemicals which are a prime source of the P.O.P. Dioxin, are DDT, a pesticide, and Agent Orange A Herbicide. There is the acronym NIMBY Not in My Back Yard. what is ironic to say the least, is the way the wastes are disposed, they are in EVRYONES Back Yard in their bloodstream, in their food, in their water, They tend to concentrate towards the top of food chains Sharks Whales and People
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POPSThe Myth About Boys Boys, men, emasculation, dropouts, girls achieving, women's liberation. Since the late 70's the nature of boy's socialization has chnged. Can we recover? Reading of "The Dangerous Book For Boys" might be a start, eh?
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POPSPink One of the flowers outside my hotel room in San Miguel, Mexico.
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POPSIn backyard europe, fading biodiversity. There are so many genes that are particularly suited to a situation, and can be natures way of showing us how to do some of the things we need to do in the most efficient manner. If we notice the traits before they disappear. It's one thing to lose them, but is is irresponsible to throw them away, or deny them the chance for the sake of quick profit. What is being lost, are genetic traits that can help us over a much longer term.
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POPSWacky Flowers Just in time for Halloween, here's an assortment of wacky plants. Several are quite beautiful, but you'd probably not want them outside your bedroom windows because of the putrid smell they emanate.
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POPSAustralia's Birthplace becoming industrial Wasteland Kurnell refinery, is under a flight path. Sand mining removed sand dunes that are now being replaced by residential, and industrial garbage. There is a sewerage treatment plant alongside the only road into the peninsula . Before Captain Cook (He was a Lieutenant at the time of the Botany Bay Landing) the peninsula, had been inhabited by local aboriginal clans for over 10,000 years. Kurnell is about the size of Block Island -Rhode Island, off the North East of Manhattan
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POPSSciTalks SciTalks collects talks and lectures by scientists on a variety of topics.
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POPS"Long Live Linnaeus": a powerful & colorful force in the history of science The Linneaeus Museum and Garden sound magnificent. I would love to see them and the Swedish countryside. More from the source: “When Linnaeus started, natural history was a mess, and people needed guidelines,” said Thierry Hoquet, an associate professor in the philosophy of science at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. “Do you know in Greek myth the story of how Ariadne fell in love with Theseus, and gave him a ball of string to help him find his way out of the Minotaur's Labyrinth? Linnaeus gave us the thread.”
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POPSCarolus Linnaeus: obsessed with order and sex, classified the natural world 
From author's blog: "He talked about "concubines" and "hermaphrodites" and in one passage, described a flower's calyx as a curtained bridal bed "perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might there celebrate their nuptials. ... When the bed is so prepared it is time for the bridegroom to embrace his beloved bride and offer her his gifts." Even racier was his description of flowers with multiple stamens as having "twenty males or more in the same bed as the female." "This brought a charge of "loathsome harlotry," from Johan Siegesbeck, who ran the botanical garden in St. Petersburg and charged that "several males to one female would not be permitted in the vegetable kingdom by the Creator. Who would have thought that bluebells, lilies, and onions could be up to such immorality?" "Siegesbeck had Linnaeus' work banned in Russia as a dirty book. Linnaeus took his revenge. He named a foul-smelling and otherwise undistinguished weed Siegesbeckia after his critic
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POPSiBiblio links to book and media sources just about any topic.
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POPSTime travel 'could be' possible Make sure the time travel this article argues is related with one which is measurable and used as unit. Thoughts, ethics, we have on the time may not be included. But we haven't seen time travelers so far. Why don't they come from the future if time travel is possible?
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