An unpaid UK researcher saved the Japanese seaweed industry (2017) | Hacker News Reader

An unpaid UK researcher saved the Japanese seaweed industry (2017)

arstechnica.com

61 pointstosh13 comments

> Nori contains toxic metals (arsenic and cadmium), whose levels are highly variable among nori products. It also contains amphipod allergens that can cause serious allergic reactions, especially in highly sensitized crustacean-allergic people. Therefore, daily consumption of high amounts of dried nori is discouraged

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nori

> The reason nobody had been able to find nori seeds was because they were looking for the wrong plant.

Algae by definition are unable to produce seeds. "Seeds" here is jargon with a different meaning.

I have the seed of an idea that they might be using a lay taxonomy here. Or is it the germ of a thought?

Erasmus Darwin was way ahead of you. He weaved them into erotic poetry...

The lunatic.

Seed Potatoes aren't seeds either, they're tubers.

Agretti seeds are tiny rolled up plants.

Seed seems to be one of those words that's applied quite broadly.

Wait, so nori isn't actually a plant? (As far as I know, algae are not plants...)

Correct! Seaweed is a complex algae. Although much less common, seagrasses are true plants (which evolved from terrestrial plants like 100 million years ago). I can't think of any other submerged marine plants, and some limited google searches are only giving me mangrove forests as additional marine plants.

>Despite being fired for getting married, she became the first elected president of the British Phycological Society in 1952. Today, Drew-Baker is known in Japan as "the mother of the sea," and every year a festival is held in her honor in Uto City.

I wonder if she gets extra recognition from at least half of the Japanese population, for the circumstances surrounding her firing, given that being fired for daring to be both female and married is still apparently the established practice in many Japanese companies today.

That's not the case at all. Women certainly quit their jobs due to poor maternity support and childcare services, as well as the managerial glass ceiling, but I don't know how anyone can believe that Japanese labor law would allow for the standard practice of firing women when they get married.

Japanese labor law does not allow it. But Japanese labor law is often not upheld. Japanese law does not allow the education system to systematically downgrade the results of female students to stop them becoming doctors either, which has gone on for years.

You're referencing a scandal unrelated to your original point that sparked massive outrage when it was uncovered.

Where is your evidence that it is "established practice in many Japanese companies today" to fire women when they get married?

Through my friend Asami, mostly. To be more accurate, you are encouraged to get married, the dismissal happens when you get pregnant.

Look up the term 'matahara'.

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