The Kingdoms and the Tastes

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How many of you learned in school that the living world is divided into two kingdoms, the plants and animals? Or three, plants, animals, and protists? I did.

Well, you may be suprised to learn that the first scheme was antiquated by 1866, and the second by 1956? Here's the current six-kingdom list, from Wikipedia:
Eubacteria, Archaebacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia.

Or how about basic tastes? Four? (Salty, sour, bitter, sweet.) That's what I was taught in the sixties and seventies. Well the fifth basic taste has been known since 1908.

Why does it take a century or so for these things to get into textbooks?

Comments

  1. Wabulon2:43 PM

    Or the 48 human chromosomes, propagated from one generation of textbooks to the next for decades.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wabulon2:48 PM

    If you haven't settled on a third book yet, you might start with "The Kingdoms and The Tastes" for a title.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gcallah5:37 PM

    A bit too close to Camus's Exile and the Kingdom for my tastes. Anyway, I have four titles in the queue.

    ReplyDelete

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