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So.
None of you thought it *might* be important to tell me that ferns have sperm that swim??? I just had to find all this out on my own?
And, (apparently, & no one thought to bring this up either
) fern plants are only one form... they have this 'other form' (tiny, ephemeral, difficult to find in the wild) alternates generations-- Fern spores don't grow into ferns! (WHAT) they grow into 'gemetophytes' (WHAT) THEN you get a fern.
Feel like I've uncovered a massive scandal.
@futurebird How so? They teach us this thing in schools?
Edit: I'm really sorry if this reads as condescending. It wasn't my goal. I was surprised and fascinated and should have worded it better...
We had the option to opt out of taking biology in HS and take advanced physics and chem instead.
Since these were the "harder sciences" that's where I got pushed. So all the biology I learned in school was under 8th grade.
And I'm starting to think that was BAD. It's also bad that kids who are good at math and excited about STEM get steered away from geology, biology, etc. we are messing up big time with this move.
@futurebird there has been a lot of changes in our education system since but I'm pretty sure they taught us about various plants' life cycles in gymnasium (kid ages 12 - 15). Currently gymnasium was merged to elementary school and I heard they simplified the knowledge requirements so not sure if that's true anymore.
I definitely had that in high school too, just more detailed; biochem class specialisation with medical rescue.
@futurebird It got me curious why chemistry&physics was chosen while bio is omitted. Technically chem is a part of physics so I kinda understand the choice sentiment.
Here however you choose math&phys (both require lots of calculations) or bio&chem (since chemistry, especially biochemistry, is extremely important in bio to follow the enzymatic and whatnot reactions happening under the hood and understand stuff deeper)
Is there a reason why biology is excluded from "life sciences" over there?
@Twarda @futurebird >both require lots of calculations
Showed this to my colleague bioinformatician, she giggled, showed to another one - ecologist, he mumbled some swearwords and I heard "statistics", "GLM" and "Bayesian" among them, then I remembered obligatory "advanced calculus", "probability theory/statistics", "differential calculus in biology" from my freshman year, parts of "biochemistry" (kinetics) and three different courses of *ecology (parts about population dynamics, diffusion equations, popgen). And It's "Zoologist", what's written in my diploma.
Modern science is about math and phys. Almost all of it.
@tyx @futurebird I'm unsure if I understand this reply. I am aware of this and I did calculations, math, statistics etc on my studies as well. My point was that biology is somehow treated separately from "hard science" despite the fact it requires all of the above and I'm unsure why is that. Perhaps you meant this comment to be humorous?
@Twarda Sure I did! My weird humor sense doesn't combine well with my poor English.
@tyx Ah that's what I thought! I'm the Polish neighbour so my English is often all over the place as well :)
@Twarda I was just grumpy about people in education system, who take decisions about combining science modules like [(math+phys), (bio+chem),(geology+geography)] instead of doing [(math+phys), {(bio+chem),(geology+geography), (more math+more phys)}], really breaks understanding of many basic principles further and takes lots of effort in university to fix.
@tyx Indeed, the division is artificial and probably legacy based. However, I can see it also as an opportunity to focus on certain professional deeper rather than do jack of all trades master of none course. Eg. to my understanding at university level the student *should have* the *basic* geology/earth sciences understanding which is why it is commonly omitted from biochem modules.
That said I admit that I'd like to know more about geology than I got from my HS, more practical knowledge that is
@Twarda [Grumpy] And then they won't give me any grants because "you're not multidisciplinary enough" [/grumpy]
I used to think about higher ed from a researcher standpoint: "you'll be learning things all your life anyway, higher ed is just to teach you how to learn", so the broader then better - basic concepts like higher math are easier to grip at the beginning, and then you will spend all your life memorizing bat's call patterns and spot on the lizards.
BTW legacy in this field is much more sensible IMO - 150 years ago it was just physics, just with wiggling frog legs sometimes.