John Cuthber

If you think the shape of the electrons matters, then I very much doubt you have figured everything else out.

It's not a bad bet that the original apples were similar to what we call crab apples. If they always bred true then they would still be crab apples. It's important to distinguish the level of "sameness" that people seem to want in apples from that which they would get in nature. For a lot of things, plants which are effectively siblings are close enough, but for our apples we want identical twins. There's a half-way house where we grow F1 hybrids for use. So, for millennia our ancestors chose the biggest sweetest apples and in due course those apples' seeds were "planted" near human habitations (and well fertilised too). So the treed that grew from them were biased in favour of big sweet apples and the offspring were subject to the same sort of pressure. No need for Adam or Eve to understand genetics. Once we started farming, we deliberately chose seed from plants that we liked. But we discovered that apples don't breed true and they take ages to grow so it's a slow process to take pot-luck. We found it's much more efficient to clone them.

Here's a list of varieties produced from Cox's orange pippin which were obtained by breeding them with other varieties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox's_Orange_Pippin#Descendant_cultivars One example is Allington Pippin (Cox's Orange Pippin × King of the Pippins) But it's important to realise that, if you fertilised flowers of one with the pollen of the other and grew the pips there's still no guarantee that the seeds would grow into anything like the Allington Pippin for essentially the same reason that you and your brother or sister are not identical. Apples (and a lot of related fruit) are self-incompatible. You can't get seed from a Cox's orange Pippin without crossing it with another variety. So you can't raise them from seed. If native varieties all bred true there wouldn't be any cultivated varieties. If you are growing commercial apple trees there are no generations. There are no seeds; it's all cloning. And that's where we get the word "clone" from from Greek klōn ‘meaning twig’.

I can believe you, or I can believe wiki " while fruit varieties such as apples have been propagated over the centuries through grafts and cuttings. " And I know that fruit trees won't "breed true".

Mary had a little lamb. Her father shot it; dead. But still it goes to school with her Between two bits of bread.

I don't see why it couldn't work. They commonly use quince stocks for pears https://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/articles/fruit-tree-gardening/rootstocks-for-pear-trees

The root stocks are also propagated from cuttings- for the same reasons as the top bits. I gather that you can graft pears, apples and quinces onto the same tree. I'd like to know if you can do it with these fairly closely related plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_davidii and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_globosa Because the clash between the orange and purple flowers would be hideous.

Those trees are almost certainly grown from cuttings. The word "heirloom" in this context means that they are a very old variety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heirloom_plant

I think it was assessed here And the consensus was that it's crazy. I don't think there has been any improvement since.

To a good approximation, weigh the jack. Find jacks of similar design on the net and then look for one that weighs the same.

I'm pretty sure someone has the maths for things with a smooth change in refractive index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient-index_optics

I did not say that no effect exists. I said that if there was a big effect, we would know about it.

If you didn't allow any people near the robot, you wouldn't need to worry about them saying "stop". A policy which may have other benefits... In this situation, you could use a passive IR sensor like they use in burglar alarms. If there is a person in the room, you shut down the robot.

Is that why you answered a post on double displacement reactions without there being anything related to double displacement reactions in your reply?

If your batteries are nearly on fire you will get some H2S. The academic book doesn't seem to mention batteries. I'm reminded of the story of the Kursk, where the official news said lots of things...

That does not make much sense.

That's not true. It is considered as a risk factor in humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronidazole says "In 2016 metronidazole was listed by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen." and "Metronidazole is listed as a possible carcinogen according to the World Health Organization (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)" It plainly is considered to be a cancer risk. Similarly Says who? That paper is from 2018 by which time MTZ had been listed as a carcinogen for 2 years or so. Is anyone saying it's not carcinogenic?

No.

The National Trust is responsible for some bits.

I do, and it's not just me. https://www.keele.ac.uk/sustainable-futures/ourchallengethemes/providingcleanenergyreducingcarbonemissions/hydeploy/ We use billions of tons of natural gas each year. Mining "between 6 million and 250 million metric tons of hydrogen" isn't much use.

We use something of the order of billions of tons of natural gas each year. Taking the geometric mean of their estimates means that known hydrogen reserves would run out sometime between Xmas and Easter if we used them at the same rate.

I wonder if people engaged in this know what the death tolls on each side look like. This may clarify it (It obviously only includes civilians) https://countingthekids.org/?fbclid=IwAR0rsRw5R5C0yBNhvKy7_eHdasFiJpkJ0J1L85h8BIKvkKgHyhzLgI2py-4

Is there any evidence of that?

That's what the Tories did. They transferred planning responsibility to a cheat. https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/jenrick-steps-up-threat-to-council-with-ultimatum-over-local-plan---64679 Their man is "Going to build 5 new towns in the next couple of years to solve the housing crisis". How ? Probably better than the last guy built 40 hospitals https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/17/government-on-track-to-break-boris-johnsons-40-new-hospitals-promise

Derris is not DDT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derris It contains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone Which is often up forward by environmentalists as "good". "Soil Association standards allow organic farmers restricted use of seven nonsynthetic pesticides that have been approved on the basis of their origin, environmental impact and potential to persist as residues. They are copper ammonium carbonate; copper sulphate; copper oxychloride; sulphur; pyrethrum; soft soap and derris (rotenone)." From https://www.soilassociation.org/media/4920/policy_report_2001_organic_farming_food_quality_human_health.pdf It's associated with parkinsonism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone#Parkinson's_disease