The knowledge of our couch of finely-honed scientific minds didn't pop out of the ground fully-formed - it had to be planted, tended, and grown lovingly over a long period of time to flower into the beautiful curiosity tree it is today. But like so much of life, it started as just a tiny, humble seed - which is super convenient for the topic of this episode!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscriber Garth Riley for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[Definition]https://www.nybg.org/planttalk/what-is-a-seed/https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2020.00027https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/female-gametophytehttps://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/male-gametophyte[This or That: Seed Numbers]25: seed weight or germination time2000: preserved species or oldest germinated seed385 million: individual Amazonian trees or oldest seed-producing fossilized planthttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2012/687832https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/science/12/chap5.htmhttps://www.seedvault.no/about/the-seeds/https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1153600https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/708279https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309767/https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1102491https://web.archive.org/web/20130608110356/http://sura.ots.ac.cr/local/florula3/docs/Hura.pdfhttps://www.britannica.com/story/can-apple-seeds-kill-you[Trivia Question]2024 record for smallest creature to disperse ingested seeds https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1042977https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ppp3.10519https://bantam.earth/common-rough-woodlouse-porcellio-scaber/[Fact Off]HybriBots are a cyborg way to plant seeds, made from wild oats and human-made capsuleshttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202313906 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34506974/Video of wild oat fruits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlUparIDfzEHuman urine does not protect acorns against predation by the wood mouse[Ask the Science Couch]Heirloom seeds and non-recently-hybridized plant cultivars (vs. hybrids vs. genetic modifications)https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/heirloom-vegetables/https://extension.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/dkk-mg-seed-swap-hybrid-heirloom.pdfhttps://ag.umass.edu/home-lawn-garden/fact-sheets/heirloom-vegetable-varietieshttps://extension.illinois.edu/node/21430https://hles.unl.edu/translating-language-seed-packets-hybrid-heirloom-non-gmo-and-morehttps://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/gmo-crops-animal-food-and-beyondPatreon bonus: How seeds germinate and seeds that grow better after being digestedhttps://www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/9/4/462https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2435.2005.00973.xhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1433831904700104https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eap.1667[Butt One More Thing]Mysterious tomato plant on the volcanic island Surtsey came from a seed in human poophttps://www.icelandreview.com/news/dirty-secret-uncovered-doing-business-surtsey/https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1267/