- Chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light but reflects green, despite green being the sun’s peak energy wavelength.
- Plants optimise for a steady energy flux rather than maximum energy capture.
- Evolution selects for stability, not just raw performance.
- Kim Il-sung died in 1994 but was named eternal President of North Korea.
- This makes North Korea technically a necrocracy — a government ruled by the dead.
- RAS syndrome is when an acronym’s last word is repeated, like “PIN number” or “ATM machine.”
- The name “RAS syndrome” is itself a self-referential example of the problem.
- These redundancies are widely accepted because they add clarity despite being technically redundant.
- A skeuomorph is an object that retains design features that are no longer functional.
- The tiny handle on maple syrup bottles mimics the larger jugs historically used for storage.
- Other examples include phone icons, candle-shaped light bulbs, and many computer UI elements.
- Monocots have one cotyledon, parallel leaf veins, fibrous roots, and floral parts in multiples of three.
- Dicots have two cotyledons, branching leaf veins, a taproot system, and floral parts in multiples of four or five.
- Their vascular systems also differ: monocots have complex arrangements while dicots have ring-based ones.
- Plasmodesmata are narrow cytoplasm threads that pass through plant cell walls.
- They enable direct communication between adjacent plant cells.
- They are a key component of plant cellular connectivity.
- Xylem are tubes that transport water and substances through plants.
- They form from cells that undergo programmed cell death, leaving hollow tubes behind.
- The process thickens side walls and removes top and bottom walls of each cell.
- The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to over-attribute behaviour to personality rather than circumstances.
- People underestimate how much situational factors influence others’ actions.
- This is a well-documented cognitive bias from psychology.
- In the USA, a statistical human life is valued at approximately $10 million.
- The original estimate was based only on expected lifetime earnings.
- It was later adjusted to include risk premiums from dangerous jobs and the value to loved ones.
- The conjunction fallacy is the mistaken belief that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.
- Adding conditions can only reduce or maintain probability, never increase it.
- This is a well-known cognitive bias studied in rationality and decision-making.