BGR latest edition online!

You can find over there at Hort Log the very latest of the Berry Go Round Carnival.

It’s a themed Berry this Month, and it’s covering Ugly Smelly Plants. Of course, none of the critters are actually ugly. They’re all fascinating. Nor smelly except in the plant sense, which is good, because all plants smells for the best.

Maybe we should meme the theme options, and start series for berries. That’s certainly a good idea.

Meanwhile, I’m back again…

Friday peak

Links for the weekend:

• The new bird flu: Is it serious?

• When does human life begin? (with a really good case comparing as to when it ends)

• Anthocharis cardamines!

• God and evolution 1 & God and evolution 2: The problem of creation

• Tingletongue won’t trouble Life Savers

• Dr Francis Seow discusses his love for stick insects in Berita Minggu

Academia:

Heated & passionate

• E. O. Wilson vs. math (UPDATEDx16 & corrected; no further updates)

• R. A. Fisher vs. E. O. Wilson on math in biology. Would have done a quote of the week!

• A calm and balanced case for math in biology (UPDATED)

How to keep up with scientific litterature, and its obligate tragedy of the common

• Selective journals vs. social networks: alternative ways of filtering the literature, or po-tay-to, po-tah-to?

• Navigating the complexities of authorship: Part 1 –inclusion

Carnival gazing

You can find

- the latest Berry Go Round there

- Carnival of Evolution there

- Carnival of the Cats, over there

- This one, on Green living there

It’s friday, free picks:

My gather this week:

• Food security is hard & Food security is not about scarcity

• These bugs rock! & New Peacock Spider Video! . These spiders rock!

• The Range of Lotus & Indian Lotus Flower

• Elk of the Pennsylvania Wilds – Part 1

• The midwest anting season is imminent

• Today’s lab – water ferns. More Salvinia…

• Pictures Considered #2. The E. coli Chromosome Caught in the Act of Replicating & A Tree of Life

• Bird of the Day: Malabar Parakeet (Nagarhole National Park, Karnataka)

• Sabah, Borneo

Academia (but still worthwile!):

• Ecologists need to do a better job of prediction – Part IV – quantifying prediction quality. Just go read the whole series, there are points worth!

• Lab meetings: the publication process

Not possible

A few weeks ago, at the farmers market, my favourite stallholder asked me if I wanted some good yams*. She knew I would certainly be interested in, because she knew I was working on yams and I regularly buy her tubers (for food, not work). Well, I’m still learning ways to cook these, and it is certainly an amazing food, even if not as tasty as potatoes (sweet or not), depending on varieties.

Anyhow, I asked her what the variety’s name was. (Just curious, very curious). These were indeed quite small and amazingly regular tubers, with strange self peeling epiderms. Cute tubers.

“That, is Not Possible**” she said. I was disappointed: why didn’t she know the very stuff she was selling out? I bought them.

The thing is, you can’t possibly hear upper case letters in a discussion. The variety’s name was simply “Not Possible”, I just did not understand this.

Later on, speaking yams with colleagues during a meal, they enquired whether I already tasted “Not Possible” yams, and I realised that yes, I’ve eaten this before. It’s just that it’s Not Possible, the most implausible name of a plant variety…

And that’s it!

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* I mean true yams (Dioscorea sp), the crop ones (D. alata or D. rotundata/cayenensis that occur here). What’s often sold as yam in the USA are sweet potatoes, not yams.

** “Ca, c’est Pas Possible”.

Peanut Leechy Gallery: Leefy DIY

Who said there was no fall in the tropics?
You can create it!

Artificial seasonnality

Plant species of the week: Chamerion (Epilobium) angustifolium

This week, a species formerly or still (pending your acceptance of systematics nerdery) ascribed to Epilobium (oldy or misleady) or more accurately (accurently!) Chamerion: Chamerion angustifolium. Or so to speak, Fireweed (USA and most Canada), Great Willow-herb (parts of Canada), or Rosebay Willowherb (UK), and as litterally translated from French Epilobium with narrow leaves. Should have been appearing in an old BloggerBioBlitz (2008 edition).

Chamerion angustifolium