Farming

SciShow Tangents

Learning is a little like farming, in a way. You sow your brain field with facts seeds, nurture those seeds into thoughts and ideas and voila: you're smart! So slap on your headphones and jump on that tractor: We've got a bumper crop of knowledge to harvest!

SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces!

Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter!

And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy your very own, genuine SciShow Tangents sticker!

A big thank you to Patreon subscribers Garth Riley, Mike A, and Tom Mosner for helping to make the show possible!

Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions!

While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen

[Trivia Question]

Circulation of 1938 Old Farmer’s Almanac

https://www.almanac.com/history-old-farmers-almanac

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/how-the-old-farmers-almanac-previewed-the-information-age/415836/

[Fact Off]

Bradford watermelon seeds that people would die for

https://bradfordwatermelons.com/2014/08/our-story-the-long-version/

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/71931/super-sweet-watermelon-has-deadly-history

https://www.treehugger.com/bradford-watermelons-were-juicy-delicious-people-literally-die-4862619

Hearing loss in farmed salmon because of weird otolith formation

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/farmed-salmon-are-deaf-and-now-we-know-why

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/220/16/2965/33518/Rapid-growth-causes-abnormal-vaterite-formation-in

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep25249

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.709850/full

[Ask the Science Couch]

Animal agriculture (ants, termites, pocket gophers)

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know/did-you-know-leafcutter-ants-are-farmers-who-grow-fungi

https://asm.org/Articles/2017/September/the-leaf-cutter-ant-s-50-million-years-of-farming

https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/25/12024324/termite-farming-25-million-years-ago-before-humans

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156847

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957505

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)00915-0

Video of pocket gopher pulling plant: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/940458

[Butt One More Thing]

Pig sty latrines

https://www.artic.edu/articles/629/pigsty-and-latrines

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001550/seats%2C-squats%2C-and-leaves-a-brief-history-of-chinese-toilets

https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/N5dN_A29v58C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=fertilizer