500words

  Air travel produces huge amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses and it is widely agreed that this urgently needs to be addressed. Dale Vince, a green energy tycoon, plans to launch the UKs first electric airline.   Planes will run on engines that convert green hydrogen into electricity.   The aviation industry is researching other options to decarbonise including sustainable aviation fuel (biofuel made from agricultural products).   Dale Vince declared SAF “bullshit”.   “There is nowhere near enough land to grow the crops you’d need.” What about airships?   Airships require less energy than any other aircraft.   They are lighter-than-air craft that travel under their own power, gaining lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.   BUT there will be some serious PR work required because of their unfortunate history! The Past Airships have been a concept since 1670 when Francesco Lana de Terzi (the Father or Ae...

Propagation Propagation, the act of producing a new plant from a parent plant happens in various ways, the most common of these is by setting seeds.  Propagation can also be effected by bits of the parent plant breaking off and making new plants. Two trees that self propagate in unusual ways are the Mangrove and the Banyan.  The Banyan, a species of fig, by developing accessory trunks which allow the tree to spread outward indefinitely, and the Mangrove by dropping already germinated seeds into the sea.  Mangroves grow in harsh coastal conditions that other plants could not tolerate.  Living in saline conditions, ranging from brackish water through pure seawater to water concentrated by evaporation to twice the salinity of ocean seawater, they are specially adapted to take in extra oxygen and remove salt.  The Mangrove’s adaption to oxygen deprivation is by means of lenticels in the bark and also by aerial roots (pneumataphores) which stick out of the grou...

    Propagation is the ‘action of widely spreading and promoting an idea, theory, etc” and therefore a description of the spread of Nazi-ism throughout Germany and into Europe.   The initiation of the process of propagation is an idea – in this case, Hitler’s idea, expanded to the 25 points of the Nazi Party to be the foundation of the principle of German nationalism and land ownership with race purity (German blood) could be a countryman.     The growth of the Nazi party and the adoption of the party’s ideals was promulgated through propaganda, the material and ideals shared through propagation.   The Nazis wanted Germans to support the Nazi dictatorship and believe in Nazi ideas.   To accomplish this, they tried to control forms of communication, using propaganda principles to spread the messages they wished to promote.     The act of propagation requires the means to disseminate the propaganda - to facilitate this the Nazis too...

  Propagation, oo-oo-oo Propagation Propagation's what you need, If you want to plant a seed, make a rose bush or a reed, Propagation’s what you need! If you’d like to make new roots, or grow some tasty fruits, Propagation’s what you need! If you want to grow a plant, but think that you can’t, Oo-oo propagation's what you need! Do you want to be a propagate-er, Ooooo!!! For those of a certain age, you may have broken into song. Memories of Roy Castle and the McWhirter brothers on Record Breakers have been (dare I say it?) propagated in your mind!   Plants for free! There are lots of different ways in which plants can be propagated; the most common is by sowing seeds, after all, this is how it is usually done in nature. Because seed production relies on flowers producing seed by combining male pollen with female ovule, the resulting seed may produce a plant with different coloured flowers from the mother plant’s, leaves might be larger or smaller, ...

  While it is great to take cuttings and seeds from our friends and family’s plants to expand our collections, there is legislation in place, and some practices are less OK thank others.   Apparently plant breeders, plant sellers and plant owners have rights too! Of course it is usually fine to take cuttings and create new plants from purchased plants too, but Plant Breeders’ Rights give breeders control over the propagating materials from their new cultivar (that they spent ages creating) for up to 20 years!   That even includes cuttings and seeds from generations of “daughters” of a patented plant.   So, you might buy a lovely strawberry plant or gorgeous shrub from a garden centre, but propagating from it could be a violation of plant patent and regarded as stealing.    I wouldn’t worry too much - the plant-police are unlikely to come knocking at your garden gate if you are propagating for your own use - but you can be prosecuted if you intend to sell ...

   Jeanie October 2022 Long, long before the introduction of the international date line, the Arab geographer Abulfeda (1273-1331) predicted that circumnavigators would gain one day.   He was proved right in 1522 at the end of the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation – the first successful navigation around the world.    After sailing westward from Spain, the expedition called at Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean for provisions on Wednesday 9 July 1522 (ship’s time) - however locals told them that it was actually Thursday 10 July.   The crew was very confused as they had meticulously recorded every day of their 3 year journey, without fail. The international date line (IDL) was not drawn up until 1884.   It is an imaginary line of demarcation that passes through the mid-Pacific at roughly 180 degrees longitude.   It is halfway around the world from the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) which is in Greenwich London.   The IDL runs from the N...

    It has been reported widely in the media that consumers are confused by the three terms ‘sell-by’, ‘best before’ and ‘use-by’, used in food labelling. Just in case any of you are in the confused group, here’s a brief rundown. Sell-by dates don’t matter a bit to the consumer. They were introduced for stock control in Marks and Spencer’s warehouses in the 1950s and then rolled out to the shelves in the 1970s. The  best-before  date, sometimes shown as BBE (best before end), is about quality and not safety, so is usually applied to foods that have been preserved including frozen, dried, tinned foods, pickles and jams and some hard cheeses. Best-before dates were first introduced, also by M&S, in the 1990s as an indicator of the quality of their food. Using produce by the best before date guarantees the optimum flavour, texture and appearance of the food. This means that there is no need to get rid of food that has passed its best-before date, it’s ent...