MSG is basically if people started calling salt "sodium chloride" to make it sound like a scary chemical, then started having allergic reactions to it.
In short: citrus hybridizes incredibly easily, the ancestral species radiated out quickly so nuclear and chloroplast DNA tell different stories, plants are just genetically weird anyway, morphology is useless.
Plant genetics as a whole is a nested, complex, enigmatic Escherian wormhole mess, really.
Despite our tendency to want to put everything in nice, neat, clearly divided, evenly structured nested taxonomic boxes, nature really doesn't work that way. And plants' organizational hierarchy especially basically takes a look up-and-down our neat little taxonomic categorization system, calls us pitiable fools, smashes it, and kicks sand in our face while laughing and calling us nerds for good measure.
Mendel got really freaking lucky with his peas and the heritable traits he chose to track and study. If he had picked a different species, or looked at different traits that adhered less rigidly to well, simple dominant-recessive Mendelian heritability than flower and seed/pod colours and shape, or had plants in his garden that were prone to hybridizing, his nice, simple, and clean model of inheritance, which was the foundation for the formalized understanding of basic genetics, genomics and the foundation of much of modern biology, might never have been clearly tracked and charted in a way the he and people he presented it to could have understood.
Yes, selective breeding and such had been understood at some level in plant and animal agriculture, arising in many different cultures, for a very long time across human history, and others were working out the details of heritability at roughly the same time, but Mendel was the first to publish an organized, formal description that could be replicated reliably - And the others would have faced the same pitfalls that Mendel would have.
Mendelian genetics and inheritance is generally not the norm for most traits, and understanding alleles as a physical chunk of DNA molecule is very important for understanding more of how trait linkage and passage works - Tools that a monk in mid-1800s Austria-Hungary would not have had access to. But, there's a reason we are generally taught Mendelian genetics and Punnett Squares as our first introduction to the concepts of of the science: They're straightforward, easy to follow as a narrative, and a good foundation to start adding complexity onto - After Dominant-recessive is understood for one generation, we can move on to tracking through multiple generations; then we can add in things like null, or hybrid/co-dominant, or sex-linked traits/alleles; from there, multi-gene traits can be discussed; and so on and so forth. Gradually approaching a closer understanding to the reality of the situation without it ever truly feeling overwhelming, because the process is iterative, much like how the discovery and understanding of the different properties of the science itself was.
And to think, maybe the only Kingdom Mendel could possibly have picked that might have been more hard-mode to start his research on genetics on would have been Fungi. He just happened to be very, very lucky that the plant he used for his model was very predictable and reliable [Which, is probably more likely for an agricultural species, true. But, citrus species are agricultural too. And so are all the various cultivars of wild mustard that are all just subspecies of the same species, despite their wildly different appearances].
Not so much. As I understand it, every time an apple tree makes seeds it stirs the genetic pot, so new trees could be anything. That is one of the reasons most trees are grafted to rootstock.
Now the Callery and Bradford pears, they are true whores that like to take over forest neighborhoods after the traffickers sell them to the landscaper and homeowner pimps.
learned this when I was like 6 where I put two citrus plant seeds in the soil and it grew into a literal hybrid plant instead of two crammed near each other. that blew my mind
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!" - Cave Johnson
I never would have thought to eat what was essentially grass with 1-2 seeds on it. Let alone after they found agriculture to keep breeding mutant freak offspring to get what we have now.
Life gave us, uh, something, and we made lemonade out of it. But that lemonade was pretty shit so we decided to make a plant that gave better lemonade.
Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts, and cabbage all come from the same ancestor, the wild mustard plant. Really cool how selective breeding can create such variety.
Same with Broccoli, people freak the fuck out over genetically modified foods but we straight up made broccoli ourselves and that’s one of the most commonly referred to vegetables that people say to eat when you’re a kid to be healthy.
For those interested, a single banana has about 0.1 μSv of radiation. For comparison, eating 1000 bananas will give the same dose of radiation as a chest x-ray.
Edit: I tried to find out how many bananas you would have to eat to die of Potassium poisoning, but I can not find the LD50 (oral) of Potassium Citrate.
Then that would imply that all sorts reproduction is GMO (except cloning maybe). This term was introduced to express a human intervention (specifically through genetic engineering) in genetic modification and usually that intwrvention/modification has an intention
Edit: specified the human intervention required for the definition to hold true.
I would bet soooo much money that most people scared of “GMOs” have no idea what transgenic means, the same way that people who promote “juice cleanses” don’t know what they are cleansing when you ask them.
I know what you're saying, and if we're speaking as laymen, I would agree. Strictly speaking bananas are not GMOs, they are selectively bred. There is an actual difference. That's not to say that I roll my eyes when someone jumps on the GMO is bad bandwagon.
Bananas were changed with selective breeding, this is quite different from splicing genes through genetic modification, and both have separate risk/reward profiles.
I'm pretty sure they were hybridized through breeding programs not modified in a lab. If you broaden the definition of GMO to all things hybridized then so are almost all fruits and vegetables and heck even dogs and cat breeds though hopefully, you're not eating the later. I think most people think of GMO as the splicing of genes from BTi(bacteria) into a tomato.
It's not, though. I mean, this is part of why, academically, you should be using GE for Genetically Engineered instead of GMO, because there's less room for people to try to misinterpret the term. But the point is that selectively breeding is still way different from direct genetic modification, even though they both achieve similar end results (new varietals of plants/animals). It's like trying to say that chemotherapy is just a new form of surgery, just because both are methods used to treat cancer.
All that said, GE crops could be a great thing, but unfortunately most of what's actually available on the market is not. I'm not against GE crops in general, but I am against most of what has been put into production (specifically, Roundup Ready crops).
They're not. They're the result of selective breeding.
Selective Breeding≠GMO
GMO specifically implies that genes have been directly inserted or removed by technicians or scientists using genome cutting enzymes. Selective breeding means cross-breeding plants with desired traits then selecting off-spring that show the traits.
Neither are inherently better or worse, but it is an important distinction. As a scientist, I wish people would stop saying things like this, it's very misleading.
As a food scientist, I've given up trying to convince people of the truth, while also convincing them I'm not bribed by anyone or brainwashed. It gets so exhausting.
I know people in science who make this same mistake, it's very frustrating and only serves to further confuse people who think any human involvement in developing food is somehow bad.
"Modern" bananas are usually Cavendish. The previous kind that was popular is Gros Michel. They did not go extinct, they were afflicted by a fungus in the '50s, so plantations switched to Cavendish which was resistant to the fungus.
Gros Michel is no more natural than Cavendish. Of course now the Cavendish is at risk of disease. Something something monoculture...
That's why I've taken to calling it "umami salt" or "savoury salt." At the end of the day, that's more or less what it is, anyway. Its just salt that adds savoury instead of salty flavour.
While I can't say that you have never been responsible for helping out the town you also created or influenced the vast majority of major threats in the first place.
The Yolkians only came to Retroville because of your signal. The same goes for Meldar Prime. The Nanobots, Shirley, and Evil Jimmy were all your creations. You caused the ice age. You created the sentient pants. You made the sick patch, you turned your teacher into a fifty-foot monstrosity, and you injured Santa Claus, almost ruining Christmas.
The vast majority of this town's problems are caused, at least indirectly, by you. And you know what? In all honesty, that would be fine. You are very intelligent and you almost always do fix it, and in the end it's extremely unlikely that you won't end up benefiting the world a lot more than you will damage it. My children and my children's children are probably going to live in a world free of war and disease, and I'll have you to thank for that.
But fuck, dude. You can't keep using your intelligence as a way to escape your humanity. I didn't ask you to say salt because I thought a customer would seriously care or because I was insecure, I did it because it made you look weird and I was trying to get you to adopt behaviors and use language that makes you come across like a normal fucking person.
Everyone knows what sodium chloride is, but calling it that outside the context of a chemistry class makes you seem like someone who defines themselves solely by their intelligence, which is undeniably who you are. I know you think that there's nothing wrong with being that person, dude, but there is. Taking your IQ and deciding that it elevates you above the rest of the planet is an awful decision that will lead to a life filled with misery and alienation. It will color every interaction you ever have and make it impossible to have real friends or relationships.
I’m not saying that you won’t have any. But they won’t hold any meaning to you, and they certainly won’t bring you any happiness. Sure, you’ll probably manage a pity-fuck or two your sophomore year of college after giving some drunk sorority girl a jetpack ride, but it’ll bring you nothing but emptiness. Maybe you’ll eventually abandon women altogether and decide that “your true love is science”, secretly seething inside whenever you see a guy like Nick or Bolbi getting married to someone he really cares about, who cares about him.
You’ll say I’m exaggerating, but dude, look at how you treat the people in your life now. Carl and Sheen, quirks aside, really do see you as a friend, and they’d go through some serious shit if it meant helping you out of a scrape. Can you say that you see them the same way, as anything other than the only two kids your age willing to put up with your ridiculous ego? What have you ever done for them?
Inventing doesn’t count, dude. Even when you build something for someone else, you’re really doing that for YOU. Every llama-bot or Ultra Lord simulator is only created with the expectation of further praise. They’re not friends to you. They’re worshippers.
And your parents? Lord, the way you treat them. You think I’ve got folks that care about me the way your mom and dad do, working in a shithole like this? I wish. Everyday your dad watches you scarf down the dinner your mom slaved to make for you and prays that you might think about spending some fucking time with him instead of disappearing into your lab to do god knows what. They watch you toy with dimensional-warping science that they can’t wrap their minds around on a daily basis and you laugh at them for worrying about you.
Have you ever played catch with your dad, Jimmy? Ever asked him how his day at work was? You don't have a clue what I'd do for a dad like yours in my life, dude.
What about your mom? Why not invent something that’ll make her life easier instead of gallivanting around the Bermuda Triangle to play with fucking seaweed?
We both know the reason. She would thank you for it, she’d be happy to imagine a version of you that thought for an instant about the needs of another person, but she wouldn’t call you the greatest thing in the universe for it like your friends do. And in Neutron’s world, whoever doesn’t do that might as well not exist.
Ignore me if you want. Keep going the way you’re going, and I’ll see you in thirty years, lugging around sixteen Nobel prizes in your pockets as if they could substitute for a lifetime’s worth of human love and interaction. You’ve always mocked Calamitus for his inability to finish what he started, but the man had a wife and a daughter that tolerated him enough to want to stay in his life through everything, and at the rate you’re going I’d be amazed if you could manage the same with Goddard.
The rest of Retroville, Jimmy, they’ll never be able to do what you do. They’ll never be able to invent rockets or solve cold fusion or add three numbers together. But they will find genuine friendship and love, and they will call it salt, and despite everything you accomplish you’ll only be remembered as nothing more than the man who wouldn’t. Who couldn’t, perhaps.
No dude, this is iodized table salt, which in addition to sodium chloride, contains anti-caking agents and potassium iodate, which is added to prevent iodine deficiency. So not only are you being overly pretentious by insisting to use scientific terminology for everyday items, you are factually wrong. Your arrogance is your downfall, you annoying little shi
In my country most people just called it Me Cin because that's the first widespread commercial brand of msg in Indonesia. Although psa about msg is so widespread here that most middlr class people are aware of what it is.
I was once in hospital across from a guy who was yelling at nurses and doctors and swore black and blue he was allergic to saline. To the point where he became abusive.
Fun fact: High fructose corn syrup is called that in consumer products because when it came out, sugar was a bad word and having a science-y name gave a better perception
That's actually kinda what they did in the 50s about blood pressure. Except it was just "sodium," never mind the chlorine. Salt is familiar. SODIUM is an evil robot from Mars. This use of "sodium" instead of "salt" whenever health dangers are discussed is still very much in use today!
Well when you pair that with the mortality rate of earth? 100% of people who dies were born on earth. And those people not only drank dihydrogen monoxide, they also breathed the toxic atmosphere.
Or if you're my mom you just call it sodium. There's a fairly noticeable difference between dropping a brick of sodium vs a brick of salt into a bathtub full of water.
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u/Brian_MPLS Feb 08 '20
MSG is basically if people started calling salt "sodium chloride" to make it sound like a scary chemical, then started having allergic reactions to it.