Good morning, John. I continue to be impressed by the particular period of time you decided to take off from making videos
Because it's been... it's been a... it's been a lot! But for my own personal mental health, I simply am not gonna make another big, interesting, thoughtful video
so get ready for Hank Green's Top 7 Best Coconut Tree Facts
Number one. The fact that coconuts kill 150 people per year, which is more than sharks
has been widely reported as part of communications about how rare shark attacks are
Now, shark attacks are rare, but this fact is definitely incorrect. The coconut death thing appears to be poorly extrapolated from one bit of research that studied coconut-related injuries in one country
When you actually look at reports of coconut-related fatalities, between zero and two people are killed every year by a falling coconut
which is a lot! But it is less than the roughly ten people per year that are killed in unprovoked shark attacks
Also, one of the people recently killed by a coconut was kinda killed by a lot of coconuts
as during an earthquake, the tree over his house dropped a bunch of coconuts
which were able to penetrate the roof of his house and kill him
So he was kinda killed by a coconut, and kinda killed by an earthquake. Number two. Coconuts floating on the open ocean rely on storms to get pushed, along with other debris
beyond normal, tidal areas and onto some area where they can get stuck
Without storms, coconuts would not be an effective seed dispersal mechanism. This is kinda extra cool, because while big storms can destroy coconut trees
they are necessary for the continued existence of all coconut trees. Number three. Coconut trees are not trees, and coconuts are not cocoa or nuts
I mean, coconut trees are kinda trees, in that, like, if you look at it, you're like, that's a tree. Then, that's a tree, I guess
But they don't, like, share a common ancestor with oak trees. Trees is kinda just like a made-up classification. It's like a worm. It's a thing that looks like that
Now, the word cocoa, like hot cocoa, like chocolate, comes from an indigenous word that sounds something like cacao
But it was linguistically corrupted into cocoa, probably due to the influence from cocoa, the Spanish word for coconut
In English, we added a nut onto the end of cocoa, because that seemed like a good, fun thing to do, and frankly, I agree
But if you're looking for, like, a harsh, physiological grouping of what a coconut is, it's a drupe
which is just the word for a fruit that contains a single seed. So it's like a dry drupe
Though, actually, just like tree, the definition of nut is pretty wishy-washy
so you could probably actually make the case that a coconut is a nut. So I guess I've gone back on my fact. A coconut tree is a nut tree. Kind of
Number five. And this absolutely shocked me. Coconuts, very associated with sort of Caribbean life, are not native to the Caribbean
We're not like 100% sure where they first evolved, but before people started moving them around
because they were a good source of fresh water on long voyages, and also they were delicious
they were probably isolated to Southeast Asia, Indonesia region, with maybe some in Australia
and some over on, like, the southern part of India. And it seems like they first started to spread beyond that area along with Polynesians
Now, you would think that they could just float over the whole world, right
Coconuts float. They're a floating seed. But coconuts actually don't stay viable for that long when floating on the ocean
They needed us to help them take over their current range, which is now circum-equatorial
Including, of course, in the Caribbean. Number six. While coconuts might be unlikely to kill you by falling on you
they could kill you if you drank too much coconut water. It has enough potassium that a very, very large dose could make your heart start beating weird
and if you don't get help, you could die. Now, we're talking a lot here. This case study is a guy who drank 11 coconut waters
Which, that seems like a bad financial choice. Also, we should say that while this guy's condition was life-threatening, he did not die
But this is one reason why giving coconut water as intravenous fluid for dehydration
which has long been claimed as, like, a fun coconut fact, probably isn't a great idea
And finally, number seven. This is a fossilized coconut from an early species of coconut tree
and it is the size of a strawberry. John, what a wonderful and weird world we get to inhabit. I'll see you in August