TWIL - Issue #1

This week I learned

1. Bamboos are some of the fastest growing plants, sometimes growing up to 36 inches in 24 hours. Bamboo is great at cloning itself, the plant is capable of growing tendrils, new shoots that are genetically identical to the parent. It also flowers over long periods of time, with a certain kind of bamboo - Phyllostachys nigra var. henonis or Henon bamboo taking 120 years to flower. The interesting bit is that they die as soon as they flower. The even cooler thing is that regardless of how the bamboo is cloned, identical clones retain a sort of internal genetic timer from the parent. That means that any clones, regardless of how small or old they might be in real years will all flower and die simultaneously. This is called Synchronous flowering and is supremely cool.

2. The Spanish inquisition of the Inca empire and its people resulted in the natives being forced to work in the Cerro Rico de Potosí for seventeen weeks a year, starting in 1574. They reintroduced mita - a form of forced labor used by the Inca empire. Between the 16th and 18th century, 80% of the world's silver supply came out of this mine. They were constantly exposed to mercury fumes because the mines did not have enough pure silver, an issue they resolved by using the patio process to extract silver from ore causing miners to suffer from mercury poisoning.

3. The word credit has its roots in the Latin word credo which means "I believe".