John Choinski

I am a retired biology professor who worked at 4 different universities including 2 in Africa. My current interest is botany education for the general public.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

Ah, endocytosis—now you’ve got something. I’m assuming most of the data comes from animal models as human trials might be difficult? BTW—I would be surprised if “all of our proteins that we ingest are transported”. I’m guessing most of them are broken down by digestive enzymes into amino acids or oligopeptides, which are then brought in by specific membrane transporters.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

I wish we’d get away from this “prove” terminology as the scientific method cannot prove things but gathers data to come to a conclusion based on statistical analysis. Also, the pseudoscience crowd often will cite a so-called study that claims to have “proof” of something. Accepting the misuse of this term gives them a weapon they don’t deserve.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

I accept this synthesis by Peikoff, although the data does also show a substantial proportion of the German electorate (56 %) who did not vote in the Nazis. I’m not knowledgeable about the nature of German elections at that time, but I’m guessing there were anti-Nazi representatives (?) scattered about the country. Also, Germany was in economic turmoil at the time, almost any alternative that promised a way out was favored. Was it explicitly stated that Jewish extermination was part of the Nazi program?

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

Absorption of a protein through the intestinal wall still needs a mechanism. Proteins are too big and polar to traverse the membrane through normal permeability. I can’t think of any membrane transporter that could do the job. The only mechanism that might explain it would be the “leaky gut” idea that (as I understand it) temporarily weakens epithelial cell junctions and allows for the transport of large molecules into the lumen of the intestine.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

Thank you for your reasoned responses. I’m afraid we are not going to make any headway going back and forth on X, but I appreciate you taking the time to answer my late night musing. I’m thinking of a line from one of Ayn’s novels (paraphrased)—“no one stays here by faking reality in any manner.” Biological reality is indeed essential to ethics and the issue of rights—without it, why would you care?

No response necessary. I hope you have a good day.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@simonmaechling There are no chemicals that have been “scientifically proven” to cause anything. It’s always a matter of assessing risk.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@rich56635 If the state declares that citizens are entitled to the labor of physicians, what does that make them? In the old days, that arrangement was called slavery.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

Fun botany fact: a plant known as Silphium had an enormous impact on the ancient world as a spice and a medicinal plant until it became extinct due to overharvesting.

An article published in the journal Heritage (5, 936-955, 2022) authored by Lisa Briggs and Jens Jakobsson reviews the historical and botanical history of this amazing plant.

Silphium was found in the ancient kingdom of Cyrene, now part of present-day Libya. It was never cultivated but was a wild plant that grew in a narrow strip of suitable land between the northern foothills and the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its economic value, including as a spice, a (purported) aphrodisiac, and a contraceptive or abortifacient, it was harvested for over 2500 years. Its agricultural and cultural importance was emphasized by stylized images of the plant depicted on silver coinage minted in that region. Because of its popularity and economic value, silphium became the first recorded plant driven to extinction. It was gone by the first century CE, as a consequence of overharvesting and (possibly) climate change.

Botanists have hypothesized that the closest known living relatives of Silphium are species in the genus Ferula, classified in the Carrot or Celery Family. For example (if you squint a bit), Ferula assa-foetida (meaning ‘stinking’) is like the images depicted on Cyrene coins.

Are the ancient reports of silphium as a contraceptive or aphrodisiac supported by any modern research on Ferula species? Much of the literature comes from traditional medicine and will require extensive additional work to determine its efficacy in a modern context. Some reports have shown that resin extracts from F. assafoetida inhibit fertility in rodents. Other work has shown in human trials some potential for the plant resin to have contraceptive and abortifacient properties. There is no evidence either in the traditional literature or in modern studies to support the claim that Ferula species are aphrodisiacs.
#botany #plantmedicines

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@john_a_cooke @simonmaechling The idea of labeling a chemical as “toxic” ignores the importance of dose. This, I think, is the major problem when trying to explain the relative risks associated with food, smoking, etc.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@DrNeilStone Years ago, I was infected with campylobacter in Cameroon—what a crappy experience!

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@DigitalDaisyX I have a friend who recently bought a 2026 Z4 BMW convertible—it costs about $25,000 more than my Model 3. Nice car, but there is no way I would trade in my Tesla to get one.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@liorsela @Tesla I had this same experience—it was kind of weird until I saw the flashing lights.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

During my old teaching days, I found it instructive to express concentrations on a molar basis because it gives an estimate (and an appreciation) of how many molecules are present in a sample. So, a 1 nM (1 billionth of a mole) solution seems like a very tiny amount, but using Avogadro’s number, in a liter of solution, it contains ~602 trillion molecules. That means in 1 mL, there are ~602 billion molecules. (The swimming pool analogy is also pretty good.)

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@kevinnbass @DrSuneelDhand Not common in my experience. As a specialist in plant physiology, I do very occasionally learn new things from expert gardeners. I’m very happy when that happens, but it doesn’t make my expertise “a lie”.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

@rich56635 @KnowledgeArchiv The concept of the people’s car began in Nazi Germany.

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

I appreciate you elaborating on this argument, but I don’t see, at all, why biological issues ought to be separate from political ones. I mean biology is reality and politics ought to represent reality (Marxism is an example of how decoupling the two leads to chaos and massive death). The “point of a gun” idea regarding abortion I agree with, but only to a point. I think abortion ought to be unrestricted when the fetus is non-viable outside the womb, but, at a certain point, it is a child with human rights. This means there are two human beings to consider with (potentially) competing interests.

(Thanks for making me think about philosophical arguments this early in the morning.)

[John Choinski @QuercusJohn]

More Supermarket Botany

Strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries are not botanically berries at all, but are a type of fruit known as an aggregate.

The "aggregate" part of this type of fruit is an odd concept to grasp, as it refers to a fruit that is a cluster of individual fruits formed in the same flower. For this to happen, that single flower must house multiple ovaries (the female part), each producing a single fruit. In some cases, the individual fruits in the aggregate are edible. In other instances, additional growth of tissues originally part of the flower becomes edible.

Strawberries are an aggregate of achenes. An achene is dry at maturity and contains a single seed not attached to the fruit wall, like a tiny sunflower seed (this seed is a fruit!). Additionally, achenes are indehiscent, meaning they do not split open when they dry out. The edible, fleshy part of the strawberry is formed from the growth of the floral receptacle – this is the part of the flower where all floral parts are attached. So, if you look carefully at the surface of a strawberry, you will see the scattered achenes.

All cultivated strawberries grown today are members of the genus Fragaria in the rose family. The center of diversity for this genus is still being determined, as numerous wild Fragaria species have been found in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in North and South America. I remember growing up in Massachusetts, determinedly looking for wild strawberries (probably F. vesca); they were small and hard to find, but the flavor made it worth the trouble. Plant breeders in the mid-18th century eventually produced the type of strawberry we mostly see in the market today: a hybrid between a North American wild strawberry (F. virginiana) and a species native to Chile (F. chiloensis). This hybrid (called Fragaria x ananassa) has higher yields and larger fruit than the wild species. In my opinion, nothing can match the flavor of the strawberries I collected in my youth.

Strawberries are good sources of essential nutrients and are used in a variety of foods. They are mostly eaten as fresh fruit, added to salads, processed into jams and jellies, or used to make various desserts (pies, cakes, puddings, ice cream). Fresh strawberries are good or excellent sources of sugars (mainly fructose with some glucose), dietary fiber, vitamin C, folate, and essential minerals (manganese, calcium, potassium, phosphorous, and sodium).

Raspberries and blackberries are aggregates of drupes or drupelets. The edible drupes grow together as the fruit develops‒for raspberries, the hole left by the floral receptacle is visible when the fruit is picked. In contrast, blackberries retain the floral receptacle and have no hole.

Blackberries, for some, are less palatable because a drupe contains a seed enclosed by a bony shell that (in some cultivars) gives the fruit an unpleasant crunch when eaten. Raspberries also have enclosed seeds, which are typically smaller and less noticeable.

Both raspberries and blackberries are members of the genus Rubus in the rose family, although the genetics is very complicated. A common strategy when developing popular cultivars is to hybridize species. For example, most cultivated red raspberries are hybrids between the American red raspberry (R. strigosus) and European red raspberry (R. idaeus). You might occasionally see boysenberries in the supermarket, a hybrid created by crossing four different Rubus species. In contrast, cultivars of black raspberries are from a separate species (R. occidentalis).

Raspberries and blackberries are used similarly to strawberries and have good nutritional value. They both contain a good or excellent amount of sugars (roughly equal amounts of fructose and glucose), dietary fiber (particularly blackberries), vitamin C (particularly raspberries), vitamin K, vitamin E (particularly blackberries), niacin and essential minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese).