{"id":17223,"date":"2024-11-25T19:00:10","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17223"},"modified":"2024-11-25T20:23:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T20:23:33","slug":"squirting-cucumbers-shoot-their-seeds-like-botanical-bombardiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17223","title":{"rendered":"Squirting Cucumbers Shoot Their Seeds Like Botanical Bombardiers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scientists say they\u2019ve worked out how the plant can fire its seeds up to almost 40 feet.<\/p>\n

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The hairy, ground-hugging vines of the squirting cucumber Ecballium elaterium might seem like an ordinary weedy plant. But take a closer look at the plant, which grows in dry, barren areas in the Mediterranean, and you\u2019ll find \u201can extraordinary thing,\u201d said Chris Thorogood, a botanist at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum.<\/p>\n

The roughly 1.5-inch fruits of the squirting cucumber contain toxic chemicals and are distinguished in another way from the green rounds you might put on a salad. \u201cWhen they\u2019re ripe, they eject their seeds very violently in a stream of mucilage,\u201d Dr. Thorogood said. They can shoot up to almost 40 feet.<\/p>\n

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about these plants around 2,000 years ago. It\u2019s long been a mystery why and how the plants can carry out this act of vegetative bombardment, Dr. Thorogood said.<\/p>\n

In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Thorogood and his colleagues share how the squirting cucumber goes ballistic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Researchers knew that pressure builds up inside the fruits before they blow. \u201cInitially we all thought it was rather straightforward,\u201d said Finn Box, a physicist at the University of Manchester and another author of the study. But they decided to take a closer look, recording high-speed video of the cucumber cannons in action.<\/p>\n

The ripe fruit detaches from the stalk, opening a hole in the cuke\u2019s base. From there, the researchers found, seeds emerge at speeds of up to 66 feet per second. As the fruit detaches, the stem recoils. The fruit rotates backward, changing the angle at which seeds shoot. As slimy fluid spews out, depressurizing the fruit, the seeds\u2019 speed drops. The whole process takes about 30 milliseconds.<\/p>\n

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Scientists say they\u2019ve worked out how the plant can fire its seeds up to almost 40 feet.The hairy, ground-hugging vines of the squirting cucumber Ecballium elaterium might seem like an ordinary weedy plant. But take a closer look at the plant, which grows in dry, barren areas in the Mediterranean, and you\u2019ll find \u201can extraordinary thing,\u201d said Chris Thorogood, a botanist at the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum.The roughly 1.5-inch fruits of the squirting cucumber contain toxic chemicals and are distinguished in another way from the green rounds you might put on a salad. \u201cWhen they\u2019re ripe, they eject their seeds very violently in a stream of mucilage,\u201d Dr. Thorogood said. They can shoot up to almost 40 feet.The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about these plants around 2,000 years ago. It\u2019s long been a mystery why and how the plants can carry out this act of vegetative bombardment, Dr. Thorogood said.In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Thorogood and his colleagues share how the squirting cucumber goes ballistic.Researchers knew that pressure builds up inside the fruits before they blow. \u201cInitially we all thought it was rather straightforward,\u201d said Finn Box, a physicist at the University of Manchester and another author of the study. But they decided to take a closer look, recording high-speed video of the cucumber cannons in action.The ripe fruit detaches from the stalk, opening a hole in the cuke\u2019s base. From there, the researchers found, seeds emerge at speeds of up to 66 feet per second. As the fruit detaches, the stem recoils. The fruit rotates backward, changing the angle at which seeds shoot. As slimy fluid spews out, depressurizing the fruit, the seeds\u2019 speed drops. The whole process takes about 30 milliseconds.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17225,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17223"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17226,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17223\/revisions\/17226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}