h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

jellyfist.... JELLYFIST"


Ahem Jellyfish

I think that it is cute...

Hebra sounds like budget clothes store, thought!

Navel oranges are infertile too. They all grow from grafts from one orange tree that happened to be pipless (I think). That would have been the end of the line for that tree in nature, but thanks to human intervention it propagates enormously. Good, bad or indifferent?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

>> Good, bad or indifferent? <<

Definitely good

Apparently, "they" have now finally got around to producing a genetically-modified watermelon that has no seeds, which was the main thing that used to put me off them. So well done the genetically-modified people!

RF

We've had seedless watermelons for ages. Are you sure this is new?

I have never seen a seedless watermelon. Half the fun of eating watermelons is spitting the seeds out. I prefer Rock Melon as a fruit though.

Peeb

I'm just trying, somewhat pedantically, to understand the naming convention. Wouldn't Morz and Febra make more sense? Only to me, perhaps. I'll just shut up now and enjoy replaying the link.

btw, the other half of the fun is spitting out the seeds at a sibling.

Then of course there's the quagga.

It is a light brown horse which looks as if someone has tried to disguise it as a zebra but ran out of striped paint when they got down to the shoulders.

http://www.quaggaproject.org/

Alas it was hunted in it's S African homeland and the last died in 1880.

DNA from skins showed it a relative of thye plains zebra with which it could interbreed and S African zoos are trying to selectively breed it back.

Is that a good idea?

That's a toughie...at what point would the Quagga "breed true"? The breeding stock would all have to be zebras, or the offspring would have too much tendancy towards infertility, not a sustainable characteristic, without human intervention. (thanks Ti, for the info earlier on female mules )

The breeding program isn't a *bad* idea, but maybe not that good of one, either -- depending how much it's grounded in human guilt vs. a real plan to repopulate. Genetic diversity, whether of plants or animals, is generally a good idea for survivablity...when the chips are down, life should have every opportunity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/ne...sid_6263900/6263928.stm?bw=bb&mp=rm the original link didn't work for me, but when I shaved off the last letters http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/ne...sid_6263900/6263928.stm? did.

Playing God is always morally dicey; but as the compilers of the Last Whole Earth Catalog (remember that? Groovy!) quoted, "We *are* as gods, and we might as well get good at it."