Saving the Apple's Ancient Ancestor in the Forests of Kazakhstan

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/saving-the-apples-ancient-ancestor-in-the-forests-of-kazakhstan-180983493/

by vector_spaces • 2 years ago

11 2 2 years ago

Terr_• 2 years ago

The apple's "ancient ancestor" has been dead for thousands of years, this is at best a similar cousin. :p

Yeah, I don't know what they meant, but once you see that mistake in evolutionary discussions, it's hard to unsee it.

Sometimes I like to explicitly describe planting things as mankind's oldest technology. Know-how like which berries will kill you and which won't are an important knowledge base, and people today are likely to underestimate how much work--unsung, anonymous--was put into building it, and how much may have been forgotten.

pvaldes• 2 years ago

Keeping pure the genetics of the botanical species that bring us the domestic apple would be more clear. The ancestor here refers to the whole species, not to the individuals.

Many fruits currently are either hybrids or were genetically modified with genes from other organisms. This genetic contamination can't be undone easily, and sometimes came with undesirable consequences.

Saving the Apple's Ancient Ancestor in the Forests of Kazakhstan

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