A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.

Tag Archives: botany

Jan 24 2012
Mark Twain, probably

Botanists agree to loosen Latin’s grip

Botanists agree to loosen Latin’s grip

Adrian Higgins, Washington Post:

For at least 400 years, botanists across the globe have relied on Latin as their lingua franca, but the ardor has cooled. Scientists say plants will keep their double-barreled Latin names, but they have decided to drop the requirement that new species be described in the classical language. Instead, they have agreed to allow botanists to use English (other languages need not apply). In their scientific papers, they can still describe a newly found species of plant — or algae or fungi — in Latin if they wish, but most probably won’t.

What exactly is being eliminated here? Apparently botanists had to publish a prose description of the species in Latin. And since most botanists don’t know Latin, they have to get help from scientist-translators to write these descriptions. Whole thing seems kinda nuts.

Tagged , ,
Jul 16 2011
Mark Twain, probably

Sunflowers to clean radioactive soil in Japan

Sunflowers to clean radioactive soil in Japan

From the AFP:

Campaigners in Japan are asking people to grow sunflowers, said to help decontaminate radioactive soil, in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed March’s massive quake and tsunami.

Volunteers are being asked to grow sunflowers this year, then send the seeds to the stricken area where they will be planted next year to help get rid of radioactive contaminants in the plant’s fallout zone.

Sunflowers were also used to help leech radiation following the Chernobyl disaster. The use of plants to help clean up environmental problems is called “phytoremediation.” Sunflowers can also be used to absorb arsenic. There are a lot of plants that can be used to do stuff like this. Nature: fuck yeah.

Tagged , , ,
Apr 08 2011
Mark Twain, probably

On the Origin of Kimilsungia

On the Origin of Kimilsungia

As told by the current Supreme Leader of North Korea in 2005:

When we approached a display in a greenhouse of the botanical garden, Sukarno took a pot of flowers from the director of the botanical garden, and asked President Kim Il Sung how he liked the flowers. The director explained that it was a variety of the orchid family a famous florist of the garden had bred after long, painstaking research, and it was a peculiar flower in that it blossomed twice a year, being in bloom for two to three months. After looking at the flower for a while, President Kim Il Sung said that it was very beautiful and expressed thanks to his host for showing him such a fine flower. Then, Sukarno said sincerely that he wanted the flower to be named after President Kim Il Sung. The director of the botanical garden, too, expressed his wish to call it Kimilsungia. President Kim Il Sung gently declined their suggestion, saying that he had done nothing so special and that there was no need to name a flower after him. Sukarno replied, “No. You have rendered enormous services to mankind, so you deserve a high honour.” He refused to withdraw his request. Back in Jakarta, he repeatedly brought the matter to us. On receiving a report about it, President Kim Il Sung said that if President Sukarno and the Indonesian people wished it so sincerely, he would accept the suggestion as a token of their esteem for our people. This is how a flower named after a great man for the first time in the thousands of years of human history came into the world.

Via MSNBC’s PhotoBlog, which has a photo of a billboard of the flower and another quote that the flower is “blooming everywhere on the five continents.”

There’s also the Kimjongilia for you horticulturalists out there.

Tagged , ,