Friday, August 21, 2020

Now that's What I Call Fig News

I saw this graphic from Encyclopedia Britannica on Twitter early in August and I was going to save it for my monthly round-up, but I think it deserves its own post:

Definitely click to enlarge the graphic so you can read the text, which describes how wasps lay their eggs inside unripe figs, pollinating them. Basically figs wouldn't exist if there weren't dead wasps inside them.

A very cool Twitter account called Build Soil had an interesting take on this shocking bit of information, contrasting with the assumed disgust reaction:

Wait till you hear about all living things and soil...

People being freaked out by normal life processes is exhausting. I’m tired of shock as an aesthetic for science education.

Every single time I try to encourage people to grow figs, which are easy and great to grow, someone brings this up. And it’s not even accurate. They decompose and are absorbed. 

Kale eats all the insects it collects and nobody worries about it.

If it’s good enough for the Buddha it’s good enough for me.


No comments: