Dandelion or orchid: the human garden needs us all

2 posts / 0 new

Sat, 2009-11-14 16:59

Doug

a genetic trait tremendously maladaptive in one situation can prove highly adaptive in another. We needn't look far to see this in human behavior. To survive and evolve, every society needs some individuals who are more aggressive, restless, stubborn, submissive, social, hyperactive, flexible, solitary, anxious, introspective, vigilant-and even more morose, irritable, or outright violent-than the norm.

All of this helps answer that fundamental evolutionary question about how risk alleles have endured. We have survived not despite these alleles but becauseof them. And those alleles haven't merely managed to slip through the selection process; they have been actively selected for.

Sat, 2009-11-14 17:57

Brian White

Well, you can eat dandelion as salid. You can even extract gum from the root to make rubber. The russian dandelion (a different species) has been used to make rubber since the second world war at least. So yes, even the weeds are useful and often a lot more useful than people realize.

A russian emegrant in BC has a patent on a way to extract the rubber gum from dandylions (and other gummy plants).