Genetics of the Beautiful “Glass Gem” Corn
Corn gone viral? You’re looking at an ear of a corn variety called “Glass Gem”, grown by Greg Schoen of Seeds Trust. This is real corn! How does it grow this way?
First you have to understand a few things about corn. Each corn kernel is actually a sort of unique plant. A corn plant’s male parts (the “tassels”) sit at the top of the stalk, and drop pollen downward. Unfertilized ears (the female parts) catch the pollen with the sticky ends of their corn silks. Each corn silk (I hate when that gets in my teeth) grabs a pollen grain, shuttles it allllllll the way down inside the ear, eventually creating one kernel for each pollen-silk-ovum combination. It’s one of the more interesting and inefficient breeding schemes I know of.
If you’ve taken genetics, you know that the parents’ genes will combine by chance, leading to certain ratios of inheritance in the offspring. This is the basis of Mendelian genetics (great Khan Academy video here).
With corn, we’ve simply carefully bred all the interestingness out of them. Native Americans were used to multi-colored corn, because corn plants held many varieties of color genes that could combine at random. Now all we are left with are one-color clones.
This “Glass Gem” corn is the other extreme of the spectrum, a combination of corn color hybrid genes and random pollination. It’s almost too pretty to eat!
(via Discover Magazine)
something-even-lighter-than-air:
can i just say i sing all the hippie nomad songs around the house, like doing chores and stuff
A Little Bit On The Pikachu Gundam Side: A Japanese model builder fused two things of righteousness into one supreme artifact that future lifeforms from distant planets will discover millennia from now and realize how completely awesome the human race could be at times.
(via Modelers Gallery, Kotaku)
Bitchiest Lumpy Space Princess at Shuto Con
Photos taken by the lovely Sparklebat
DYING!
SO CUTE
yeeeessss
YES I LOVE IT
oh my glob melissa
A few lindy hop bending sketches! I swear I’ll draw dapper Mako eventually ;u;
they’re lindy hopping and earthbending at the same time someone help me this is the best goodbye
Lindy hop!
oh
my
god
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
I am also thinking of a dictionary of kinds of masturbation
Sassturbation: with attitude!
Lasturbation: before lent
Pasturbation: to vintage porn
Casturbation: with a broken arm
Disasturbation: when you’re interrupted by a sudden natural disaster
Jazzturbation: when you put on a miles davis record
SASSTURBATION.
bless this post.
@ernith: George Cloony has his own spy satellite to spy on terrorists?
me: he probably just uses it to spy on brangelina
erin: 'soon,' george cloony says, watching brad pitt board a plane. 'soon.'
me: brad calls. 'are you using my papparazi for target practice?' 'stop hiding behind that potted plant,' george says. 'it looks dumb.'
erin: 'you never call me to just hang out,' matt damon complains, pulling on a jumpsuit.
me: somewhere, matt damon is always alone, wearing a jumpsuit. George Clooney knows this better than anyone.
erin: i believe that underneath his home, matt damon has a secret underground super hero room not unlike the batcave.
me: much like the one Angelina has aboveground. Only hers doesn't have as many obsessive newsclippings of brad's career.
erin: she just has a lock on the door to keep the kids out.
erin: and to keep brad pitt out.
me: sometimes George sends his spy drones after her, just for fun, but she always shoots them down before any of them make it inside.
me: brad's just like, kids, close the blinds
