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Worst National Geographic Article EVAR?
Dec. 5th, 2009 07:47 pmETA: Unlocking this post on DW.
Stardate December 2009
Location National Geographic, page 120, article: "Love is in the Air": Birds do it, bees do it, even pollinating plants do it.
Link to article (The photos are good)
By Rob Dunn
Photograph by Martin Oeggerli
As humans we take many things for granted. One is surely the ability to walk, crawl, or even, after a little too much to drink, drag ourselves over to a lovely member of the opposite sex.
OH RLLY?!!!
Plants have no such luxury. For much of the long history of green life on land, plants had to be near each other, touching almost, to mate.
THEY HAVE TO BE TOUCHING IN ORDER TO MATE.
Moss lets its pale sperm into rainwater to float to nearby partners, as did other early plants, but this method requires moisture. Vegetation could only survive in those damp corners where beads of water connected, dependably, a male to a female.
Drops of water have sex? WOW!
Most of the Earth was brown.
Most of the Earth:still brown. Actually blue.
Then one day more than 375 million years ago, it happened. One lineage of plants evolved pollen grains and seeds, and from then on nothing was the same. Let's not mince words. Pollen is plant sperm—two individuals per grain—surrounded by a single, often golden, wall that offers both protection and chariot.
Because pollen = sperm (sexy, titillating sperm!) = maleness = protection and transportation via horse and chariot?
OK, this is so bad, I have to stop reading now.
Plants, by the way, reproduce in a number of ways, including asexually, like when you take a cutting or a plantlet and repot it. Many plants are hermaphroditic: they have male and female parts on the same plant. OOOOOOH SEXY.
Stardate December 2009
Location National Geographic, page 120, article: "Love is in the Air": Birds do it, bees do it, even pollinating plants do it.
Link to article (The photos are good)
By Rob Dunn
Photograph by Martin Oeggerli
As humans we take many things for granted. One is surely the ability to walk, crawl, or even, after a little too much to drink, drag ourselves over to a lovely member of the opposite sex.
OH RLLY?!!!
Plants have no such luxury. For much of the long history of green life on land, plants had to be near each other, touching almost, to mate.
THEY HAVE TO BE TOUCHING IN ORDER TO MATE.
Moss lets its pale sperm into rainwater to float to nearby partners, as did other early plants, but this method requires moisture. Vegetation could only survive in those damp corners where beads of water connected, dependably, a male to a female.
Drops of water have sex? WOW!
Most of the Earth was brown.
Most of the Earth:
Then one day more than 375 million years ago, it happened. One lineage of plants evolved pollen grains and seeds, and from then on nothing was the same. Let's not mince words. Pollen is plant sperm—two individuals per grain—surrounded by a single, often golden, wall that offers both protection and chariot.
Because pollen = sperm (sexy, titillating sperm!) = maleness = protection and transportation via horse and chariot?
OK, this is so bad, I have to stop reading now.
Plants, by the way, reproduce in a number of ways, including asexually, like when you take a cutting or a plantlet and repot it. Many plants are hermaphroditic: they have male and female parts on the same plant. OOOOOOH SEXY.
