Sure Portal 1 had the girl-on-girl overtones you get from any story about confining women to enclosed spaces, but Portal 2 is literally about breaking up with your abusive girlfriend who’s also a virology PhD and probably the smartest person alive, so you rebound to this podcast boy to show her up because he gives the vibe of being smart on sight even though he’s a desperately sad idiot who flies into jealous rage when a situation isn’t about him, which this isn’t, and it’s a shame you’d just begun to forgive because the best course of action now is for all of you to never speak again.
God I hate these fucking floating monoliths. They always go, like, 10mph below the speed limit and if you try to pass them they just fucking distort reality around them until you’re back behind them again. One of them cut me off on the highway once and when I honked it banished me to a hoary netherworld where I wandered, lost and alone, for untold centuries, trapped in the liminal space between what could have been and what never was, black stars dotting the bright infinity yawning out around me as I drove out of thought and time, through endless ruined cities and blighted lands unmarked by the sun’s cold rays, and when I finally got out I was more than 20m late for my dentist appointment and they had to reschedule me.
Okay but no like–if you’re a sessile organism (i.e. one that does not move), you still have to be able to adapt to changing environmental conditions, including potentially dangerous environmental conditions like fire and drought. Plant behavior, then, is a whole growing behavioral ecology field that studies how plants do change their behavior and physiology in response to their environment–without ever moving on a scale humans can see in the moment. (There are also sessile animals, like anemones and bivalves and barnacles, and plant behavior often pulls from studies of the way that these sessile animals respond to threat and danger by changing their behavior, too.) Trees, because they are long-lived and will therefore experience a wide range of environmental conditions in their one spot before they die, have to be particularly adaptable to change.
So what does it mean for a plant to change behavior in response to a threat? What’s going on with that ethylene gas? What’s the threat?
Well, acacia trees (not Arcadia) are infamously dry, prickly, nasty little trees that aren’t worth eating to most species. They have one big predator: the mighty giraffe.
Pictured: an acacia’s worst nightmare. Oh, it might look louche and unassuming, but giraffes eat fucktons of acacia by preference! And they particularly enjoy snacking on the flowers–the plant’s reproductive organs! What’s worse, acacias traditionally protect themselves in Africa by getting too tall for herbivores to reach and leaves growing enormous thorns all over themselves at lower levels. Giraffes, those bastards, circumvent all those lovely spiky thorns through being tall enough to just casually lean over them and snacking away. The WORST. Even if the acacia puts thorns all over itself, not just at the top, giraffes will cheerfully snake through the thorns using their long, prehensile tongues.
So what can an acacia do to combat the giraffe menace?
Different species try different tactics. Several species, especially bullthorn acacias, carefully feed and host aggressive colonies of ants to attack giraffes and other predators to drive them away. The ant colonies also often helpfully attack all of the competing plants within a radius of the tree, freeing up resources for the host tree.
But more commonly, acacias respond to getting bits eaten off itself by pumping their tissues (especially the tender leaves and shoots) full of tannins. That’s the nasty thing that makes red wine, black tea, and coffee taste so bitter to many humans… and taste interesting and astringent to others. At high enough concentrations, tannins are lethal. Acacias are good enough at producing tannins that they’re sometimes farmed for the purpose. But tannins aren’t cheap, and if there aren’t any herbivores around, maybe it’s better for the tree to put more energy into making new growth. It’s best not to waste them, after all. So plants keep them in reserve and only start really shoving them into the foliage when those bastard giraffes (or other herbivores) start damaging the plant’s growth. That damage triggers ethylene emission, which is an important stress hormone in plants. The ethylene coursing through the plant triggers release of the tannins with which the plant hopes to drive off or kill those bastard giraffes.
Well, wouldn’t it be great to know when that bastard giraffe might be coming before it eats all your nice delicate shoots and precious flowers? That way, you could get a head start on producing your tannins and minimize the damage that the fucking giraffe can do before you either drive it off or kill it. So acacias–and other plants–have ethylene receptors not just for their own hormonal signaling, but also so that they can smell the ethylene produced by other trees getting currently eaten by hungry giraffes. Remember, those leggy fuckers move, so you’d best prepare for them before they can get to you. Plants being able to communicate with one another about changes in environments before any given plant actually has to fight the giraffe allows them to adjust to change on the fly even without being able to change location or position in response to circumstances. Because the ethylene is carried on the wind, then, giraffes will actually move farther distances to graze on acacia trees, especially trees that are upwind–and therefore haven’t had a chance to prepare for the coming of the giraffe before it starts tonguing away.
Anyway that’s how I just spent an hour rolling around in bed composing this reply instead of getting up to take my meds. *fingerguns* those bastard giraffes strike again!
it’s absolutely valid in context but the phrase ‘giraffes and other predators’ sent me a place
to an acacia tree, the lion is a gentle, perhaps even benevolent source of tasty tasty nitrogen droppings, while thegiraffe is a fearsome hunter
what I’m saying is that everyone needs to take a plant’s-eye view of the world some time just to get some practice stepping out of our anthropocentric perspective and reflecting on what utter bastards giraffes can be
“Remember, those leggy fuckers move” - sageacacian advice to a young acacia.
What does poisonjr mean when they say that “zero bad bitches hitting [their] line this week?”
What event of astrological significance is poisonjr referencing in their tweet? What is the effect of this event according to astrological teachings?
Other than serving as a transition to the punchline of the tweet, why does poisonjr intentionally reference this event using the wrong word?
What is the “know the facts” portion of the tweet parodying?
Does the “know your facts” portion of the tweet meaningfully refute poisonjr’s claim (mercury is in Gatorade)?
How does the contrast in tone between the two parts of the tweet add to its humor?
Asker’s note:
I did look up if Gatorade is classified as seafood and found 3 sources saying yes:
This tweet itself
An article from some random site that I’m 75% sure is AI-generated that rather vaguely says that “Gatorade falls under the category of seafood in certain regulatory frameworks” by virtue of containing Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO). It lists two sources (https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/index.html and https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diet-nutrition) but neither are relevant to Gatorade being classified as seafood or not. At the bottom of the page there is a disclaimer that the contents of the article “may not be accurate.” The link to the “full disclaimer” (which analysis of the url implies is the site’s TOS) 404s.
An “article” that also says Gatorade is classified as seafood because it contains BVO, which only seems to exist as some sort of SEO fodder that immediately redirects to an Indonesian (?) online casino site when opened.
It also should be noted that PepsiCo stopped adding BVO to Gatorade (as well as its other beverages) worldwide in January of 2013 (some countries had banned it before that time, so it wasn’t added to Gatorade in those countries before then).
I could only find one exasperated (and probably also AI generated) article that said seafood and Gatorade are not one in the same (but nothing about their classification by the FDA) so I guess it must be true that Gatorade is seafood.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Check for understanding (again):
Why is this tweet not a trustworthy source of information?
Based on my description of the second source, why is it untrustworthy?
Based on my description of the third source, why is it untrustworthy?
Why do I bring up the fact that Brominated Vegetable Oil stopped being put into beverages sold by PepsiCo in 2013?
Am I being genuine when I say that “it must be true that Gatorade is seafood?”
