World travelers
from The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to science_memes@mander.xyz on 23 Mar 14:38
https://lemmy.world/post/27286082

#science_memes

threaded - newest

Grimtuck@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 14:48 next collapse

Do you’re telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!

disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 15:04 next collapse

It could grip it by the husk.

PlasticExistence@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 15:15 collapse

It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!

floo@retrolemmy.com on 23 Mar 15:55 next collapse

I’m so glad that this 50-year-old joke is still funny.

aeronmelon@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 16:38 next collapse

Good jokes never die, nor do Black Knights.

MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 16:59 collapse

…we’ll call it a draw.

FauxLiving@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 17:51 next collapse

It’s far too perilous!

madjo@feddit.nl on 24 Mar 00:32 collapse

What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!

towerful@programming.dev on 23 Mar 17:58 collapse

What’s not funny is how old I feel now

sadicarnot@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 03:09 collapse

A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut.

voodooattack@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 18:30 next collapse

Depends. Does the coconut weigh more than a duck?

Arghblarg@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 20:06 next collapse

I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition.

OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml on 24 Mar 17:02 collapse

No one ever does

Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de on 24 Mar 17:06 collapse

Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?

sadicarnot@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 03:10 collapse

But then of course, uh, African swallows are non-migratory.

expatriado@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 14:58 next collapse

Caribbean from Asia? did they take the Panama Canal 400 years before it was built? there is not path that isn’t crazy

lemmyng@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 15:02 next collapse

Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.

SARGE@startrek.website on 23 Mar 15:35 collapse

African, or European?

osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org on 23 Mar 16:08 collapse

Excuse you, this is MURICA, those are FREEDOM SWALLOWS 🦅🦅🦅

MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 17:02 collapse

gulp gulp gulp

Look like I got some on my cool red hat oh nooooooooooo uwu

spankmonkey@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 15:18 next collapse

I assumed one finally got lucky and got around the southern tip of Africa while headed west.

BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works on 23 Mar 15:19 next collapse

There’s a current originating in Indian ocean flowing south of Africa to the gulf of Mexico, before proceeding north east between Iceland and Great Britain. It’s why Scandinavia is so much warmer than the same latitude in the Americas. I’m 55 north in Denmark, and have hardly seen snow this winter, meanwhile Edmonton in Canada is 2° south of that.

Coconuts bobbing around the south of Africa is pretty wild, but not implausible.

match@pawb.social on 23 Mar 16:34 collapse

Native Americans and Polynesians Met Around 1200 A.D.

Sergio@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 17:08 collapse

Great article. It’s worth remembering that DNA is only evidence that someone banged, and I imagine there’s a fair amount of contact that goes on before that.

A North American group from Colombia

I hope this person just meant to say “Native American”, and doesn’t really think Colombia is in North America.

(sorry, I’ve spent the last week proofreading articles…)

match@pawb.social on 23 Mar 17:12 collapse

North America of course being any part of the Americas in the Northern hemisphere –

Sergio@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 17:18 collapse

The funny thing is, I can’t even tell if you’re being serious or joking…

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Mar 19:08 collapse

Even the Columbia part is weird. Should have been “present-day Columbia” or similar.

Sergio@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 20:00 collapse

Yeah, they also varied between spelling it “Columbia” and “Colombia” in the same article.

But I get it, there’s not a lot of money in popular science publishing so they may not even have a copy editor, at least those kinds of stories are still getting popularized and not just ‘ancient aliens’.

IndiBrony@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 16:01 collapse

They went around the horn like a real man!

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works on 23 Mar 15:00 next collapse

Coconuts have evolved to spread from island to island by floating, but it’s still weird that one happened to float to the other side of the world in historic times. I would have guessed that either the currents could never take a coconut there or that the currents would have taken a coconut there long ago.

(When I visit Florida, I see coconuts float by sometimes. Some have been in the water a long time - they’re covered in barnacles. However, if they’re still floating does that mean they might still be viable?)

hydrospanner@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 02:07 collapse

Y’know… I’d have found all this “coconuts floated from Asia to the Caribbean” stuff pretty far fetched…

But not two years ago I was fishing, and a goddamn coconut floated right down and bumped me in the leg.

In the Monongahela River.

In Pittsburgh.

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works on 24 Mar 02:54 collapse

Floating upstream - what a coconut!

hydrospanner@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 03:03 collapse

Mysterious ways, I tells ya!

ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works on 24 Mar 11:58 collapse

I’m picturing it jump up rapids like a salmon.

Dasus@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 15:08 next collapse

The float yeah and that’s how they spread, but the coconuts were mostly brought by ships.

A coconut is really good on a ship 500 years ago, you have fresh water, some nutrition, etc.

Some ship gets destroyed with a load of coconuts on board and so it began probably.

Then when even the first ones have taken root, they start floating from isle to isle themselves.

burgersc12@mander.xyz on 23 Mar 16:04 next collapse

No, it was clearly the Swallows gripping them by the husks!

Dasus@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 17:09 collapse

I wish someone gripped my husk.

AtariDump@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 20:59 collapse

Play your cards right and my friend will.

Dasus@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 21:16 collapse

Do they like role-playing?

AtariDump@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 00:53 collapse

They never leave home without their D20 sooo……

captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works on 23 Mar 16:17 collapse

"500 years ago*

Columbus makes the trip in 1492, 533 years ago.

Yeah that checks out.

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 15:49 next collapse

35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they didn’t float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?

XTL@sopuli.xyz on 23 Mar 16:14 next collapse

Climate change confirmed.

1rre@discuss.tchncs.de on 23 Mar 16:33 next collapse

Yes, but for human related reasons. Humans moved them around a lot in Africa and Asia - moving them from Southeast Asia to India and Madagascar is bound to have an impact on the currents they get caught up in.

match@pawb.social on 23 Mar 16:38 next collapse

are you proposing some kind of Columbus effect where people heading to India will occasionally end up in Taino land by accident

Korhaka@sopuli.xyz on 23 Mar 18:03 collapse

So thanks to humans more coconuts went for a swim?

FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Mar 16:47 collapse

According to the first article that popped up in the search results the most likely theory is portugese traders brought them over from madagascar.

Draegur@lemm.ee on 23 Mar 15:50 next collapse

No swallows necessary

Lemminary@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 16:34 collapse

That’s not what my partner says uwu

perishthethought@lemm.ee on 23 Mar 15:53 next collapse

Life… finds a way.

TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 16:34 collapse

uh…

match@pawb.social on 23 Mar 16:28 next collapse

they only think coconuts floated over on their own 500 years ago because austronesians are supernaturally invisible to white people

undeffeined@lemmy.ml on 23 Mar 18:28 next collapse

Bingo. I thought this was interesting and went looking for more information and its fake. They were brought to other parts of the world, first by austronesians and later by European sailors.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 23 Mar 19:04 collapse

Someone in this thread needs to say who austronesians are

Edit:

The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.

Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works on 23 Mar 19:52 next collapse

Makes a lot more sense than ASTROnesians, as spelled above, which makes them sound like aliens. Which is silly, because everyone knows aliens only land in either densely populated metropolitan areas (NYC, Tokyo, etc) or in the desert near Area 51.

booly@sh.itjust.works on 23 Mar 20:07 collapse

They’re basically the proto Pacific Islanders. It’s believed that their civilizations all trace back to a group of people from the island of Taiwan/Formosa, who learned how to sail over the deep ocean and set up new communities, bringing chickens, pigs, taro, coconuts.

They settled modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, as far west as Madagascar, to Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and most of the other Pacific Islands, as far east as Easter Island. Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Guamese, etc., are all Austronesian. Most ethnic groups considered native to these islands trace back to Austronesian expansion.

There are shared linguistic and cultural ties that showed that they had recent comment ancestry, that has since been confirmed by DNA genealogy.

belastend@slrpnk.net on 23 Mar 20:57 collapse

Did austronesians reach the carribean? I thought they made it to madagascar and hawaii, but not the carribean.

undeffeined@lemmy.ml on 23 Mar 18:30 next collapse

Not accurate. They were taken by Astronesians during their seaborne migrations.

Read more here

Revan343@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 18:48 next collapse

Read more here

Lol, I need to start doing that

RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 19:17 next collapse

I was wondering how the heck coconuts journeyed around the southern passages for what would have been probably years on ocean currents and arrive in the caribbean still viable for growth.

Or carried by a sparrow.

Not really gonna happen.

ziggurat@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 21:08 next collapse

Is that an African or a European sparrow?

MrShankles@reddthat.com on 23 Mar 22:43 collapse

Neither, it’s a Swallow. Still unclear if it’s African or European though

sadicarnot@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 03:09 collapse

A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut.

OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 23:58 next collapse

They took the Panama Canal, obviously.

sadicarnot@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 03:08 collapse

A swallow could grip it by the husk

ICastFist@programming.dev on 23 Mar 19:21 next collapse

It also plays a central role in the Coconut Religion founded in 1963 in Vietnam.

follows the Coconut Religion link

The Coconut Religion was founded in 1963 by Vietnamese mystic and scholar Nguyễn Thành Nam,[1] also known as the Coconut Monk,[2][3] His Coconutship,[4] Prophet of Concord,[4] and Uncle Hai[4] (1909 – 1990[5]).

Oh, come the fuck on, now

Grimy@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 19:44 collapse

Coconutship

Definitely a sex cult.

A7thStone@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 20:17 collapse

Repressed memory unlocked.

Comment105@lemm.ee on 23 Mar 20:20 collapse

Please, no! Coconuts don’t fit up there!

wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Mar 22:17 collapse

Not with that kind of attitude.

quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 28 Mar 06:54 collapse

So, aliens did it. I knew it.

Revan343@lemmy.ca on 23 Mar 18:47 next collapse

Coconuts: the world’s strangest migratory mammal

Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 23 Mar 18:52 next collapse

This is nuts!

olafurp@lemmy.world on 23 Mar 19:50 next collapse

I’m gonna cast doubt on this. It happened too conveniently after people figured out long distance sea travel.

If they would have floated it’s much more likely that it happened somewhere in the last million years rather than the last 500.

undeffeined@lemmy.ml on 24 Mar 17:14 collapse

Yes, it is wrong. It was the result of the sea migrations of the Astronesians

Kolanaki@pawb.social on 24 Mar 00:02 next collapse

The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?

OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml on 24 Mar 17:01 collapse

They could grip it by the husk

chiliedogg@lemmy.world on 24 Mar 01:01 next collapse

So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?

tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip on 24 Mar 01:11 collapse

Oof, good point

Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works on 24 Mar 11:40 collapse

Please do not disturb the migratory fruits