Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 January 22

= January 22 =

Report on Country Information Guidance on Eritrea
Hi,

I am looking for the "report, published on Friday" mentioned here. Apokrif (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Apokrif (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Odd, it doesn't seem to appear on the inspector's website. News reports like the one you link to normally include a link to the published report, as well.  Maybe it'll be added to the website next week, I would check back then. --Viennese Waltz 16:16, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There is a report here, which matches the general thrust of the report described in the Guardian article, but it's from May 2015. It also doesn't contain the quotations given in the Guardian piece (such as "completely divorced from relevant objective evidence"). Possibly those are from a spoken interview or other form of communication with the report's author, and the journalists got the release date of the underlying report wrong? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks like there is actually a recent report but it is not (yet) available (for free). Apokrif (talk) 18:14, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * No need to say that I'm also looking for the "robust Home Office response to [t]his report" :-) Apokrif (talk) 19:04, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "Then why say it!", he snapped viciously. :) --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Apokrif (talk) 13:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Apokrif (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Ginseng
When I was in Appalachia, I was told that Ginseng were found in the Eastern North America and East Asia because these areas were once connected when the species evolved. But looking at a map of Pangea, these two regions were never joined together unless they meant Rodinia or another previous supercontinent. I heard this same story from a botanist in a plant exhibit in the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta as well. The ultimate question is how the Panax family evolved on two geographically separated places and where it originally evolved. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:09, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * There are 11 species of Ginseng, AFAIK only one American ginseng, is native to Appalachia. American Ginseng is not native to Asia; finding two members of the same genus of plants on different continents is not surprising.  See, for example, distribution of species of maple (genus Acer) or Oak (genus quercus).  America and Asia have been directly connected many times in the past due to the Bering Land Bridge.  -- Jayron 32 22:59, 22 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The Panax family of the 11 species you mentioned not just American ginseng; better question is where did the common ancestor of most modern ginseng species originate and how they have evolve and distribute across their current endemic regions. America and Asia have been connected by the Bering Land Bridge by Eastern Northern America and the Appalachian Mountains have never been connected to Eastern Asia. What was told to me was that the Appalachian Mountains were part of a larger systems including mountains in Eastern Asia. However, the remnants of the prehistoric Appalachian Mountains were only on the Atlantic coastline. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I've always wondered how genuses like "Oak" exist in both Eurasia and North America when it's tundra Biome map 11.svg even now. Trees can't survive there, much less deciduous ones. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that climatic conditions have changed dramatically over millions of years, such that the connecting areas may once have been good environments for the species in question, but no longer are. StuRat (talk) 07:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Unbelievably you're right that it was warm enough recently. The article says evidence of birch trees was found there which means that high latitude paleoclimatology is very freaky. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:27, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * And over very long time periods, parts of continents now in polar regions may have been in temperate or even tropical regions. StuRat (talk) 07:36, 25 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Though the longer it is the less likely that there wouldn't be divergent evolution. A few things are living fossils but they are the exception. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:58, 25 January 2016 (UTC)