What I learned about London from my brother

My brother is a senior at Augustana college, so this year he has to complete a Capstone project. He is majoring in biology and environmental science with a minor in philosophy. Quite the academic, eh? I think he should write a book. Anyways, he decided to do his project on seed saving. For the past two weeks he has been travelling around London, England conducting interviews and visiting points of interest regarding seed saving. The reason he chose London is they have one of the largest seed banks in the world. It's quite fascinating, really.

He showed my parents and I pictures and explained all kinds of stuff about seed saving. Basically, when someone discovers a new species of plant, they take the seeds and send them to a seed bank where they are processed, frozen, and stored in hermetically sealed containers. Not all species of plants are stored in London, however. Only about 12% of the plant population is there. But when you think about how many species of plants there are in the world, that's a lot. These seeds are all kept in two rooms at the seed bank. Just TWO ROOMS. They must very efficiently pack them in there. Also, they are ordered by a specific coded system to ensure no one can break in and easily find what they're looking for. It's pretty sneaky of them.

A part of seed saving that is really super awesome is that if a species goes extinct, there's a large chance one of the seed banks in the world has at least one seed from that specimen. With that one seed a species of plant can be reborn. My brother had some pictures of plants that were being regrown. He also had a picture of this one huge plant that either produces one large leaf made up of many small leaflets or, every once and a while, a single flower. This flower is the largest in the world and apparently smells like rotted meat. Yummy.

Carlisle, my brother, also spoke to us about other random things he learned in England. First of all, he told us about the announcements at the subways. A lady's voice would come over the intercom and announce something, ending every announcement with "mind the gap." He said it was annoying. Also, because England is one of the few countries where one drives on the left side of the road, they have to paint on the road which way pedestrians should look in order to avoid being hit by a vehicle. Apparently the English also like to take stuff from other places and keep it. This includes species of trees.

My brother researched one summer in Colorado and he had a friend that now goes to Oxford for graduate school. He met up with her while he was in England. First of all, he visited the Great Hall in Christ Church College. This is where the the dining hall scenes in Harry Potter were filmed. People who are a part of Christ Church College have formal dinners EVERY NIGHT of the week. That's pretty cool. His friend said that her college only has formal dinners once or twice a week. No big deal or anything. Also, students wear full academic regalia (cap, gown, tassel, etc.) to their final examinations. Yep, they wear all of that just to take a three hour exam. Awesome. Undergraduate studies work differently, too. The students will have a few lecture courses, but they also meet individually with professors who give them other outside work such as readings and essays which they then discuss together. It seems like a much more intimate and individualized kind of learning. Very interesting. I'm not sure I'd like it.

After seeing all of his pictures and hearing his stories I really want to travel somewhere awesome and have stories and experiences of my own. It will all happen in due time.

P.S. Dr. Birgen, could I get a culture point for this informal talk my brother gave to my family and I? :)