1140
World travelers (lemmy.world)
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old

Please do not disturb the migratory fruits

[-] olafurp@lemmy.world 67 points 2 days ago

I'm gonna cast doubt on this. It happened too conveniently after people figured out long distance sea travel.

If they would have floated it's much more likely that it happened somewhere in the last million years rather than the last 500.

[-] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

Yes, it is wrong. It was the result of the sea migrations of the Astronesians

[-] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 115 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

35 million years of coconuts in Asia and they didn't float over until after traders established shipping routes to Asia?

[-] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 44 points 2 days ago

Yes, but for human related reasons. Humans moved them around a lot in Africa and Asia - moving them from Southeast Asia to India and Madagascar is bound to have an impact on the currents they get caught up in.

[-] match@pawb.social 30 points 2 days ago

are you proposing some kind of Columbus effect where people heading to India will occasionally end up in Taino land by accident

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 days ago

So thanks to humans more coconuts went for a swim?

[-] FundMECFSResearch 19 points 2 days ago

According to the first article that popped up in the search results the most likely theory is portugese traders brought them over from madagascar.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Grimtuck@lemmy.world 126 points 2 days ago

Do you're telling me that it had nothing to do with swallows being either European or African?!

[-] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 59 points 2 days ago

It could grip it by the husk.

[-] PlasticExistence@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago

It’s not a matter of where it grips it! It’s a matter of weight ratios!

[-] floo@retrolemmy.com 44 points 2 days ago

I’m so glad that this 50-year-old joke is still funny.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago

Good jokes never die, nor do Black Knights.

[-] MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)
[-] madjo@feddit.nl 4 points 1 day ago

What are you gonna do, bleed on me?!

[-] towerful@programming.dev 10 points 2 days ago

What's not funny is how old I feel now

[-] sadicarnot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut.

[-] voodooattack@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Depends. Does the coconut weigh more than a duck?

[-] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 day ago

Who are you who is so wise in the ways of science?

[-] Arghblarg@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago

I don't know, I wasn't expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition.

[-] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

No one ever does

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 66 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not accurate. They were taken by Astronesians during their seaborne migrations.

Read more here

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 45 points 2 days ago

It also plays a central role in the Coconut Religion founded in 1963 in Vietnam.

follows the Coconut Religion link

The Coconut Religion was founded in 1963 by Vietnamese mystic and scholar Nguyễn Thành Nam,[1] also known as the Coconut Monk,[2][3] His Coconutship,[4] Prophet of Concord,[4] and Uncle Hai[4] (1909 – 1990[5]).

Oh, come the fuck on, now

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

Coconutship

Definitely a sex cult.

[-] A7thStone@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Repressed memory unlocked.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

I was wondering how the heck coconuts journeyed around the southern passages for what would have been probably years on ocean currents and arrive in the caribbean still viable for growth.

Or carried by a sparrow.

Not really gonna happen.

[-] ziggurat@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Is that an African or a European sparrow?

[-] MrShankles@reddthat.com 5 points 1 day ago

Neither, it's a Swallow. Still unclear if it's African or European though

[-] sadicarnot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound coconut.

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

They took the Panama Canal, obviously.

[-] sadicarnot@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

A swallow could grip it by the husk

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

So the coconuts migrated, but the majority population of many of the islands were taken there as cargo?

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago

Oof, good point

[-] match@pawb.social 49 points 2 days ago

they only think coconuts floated over on their own 500 years ago because austronesians are supernaturally invisible to white people

[-] undeffeined@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago

Bingo. I thought this was interesting and went looking for more information and its fake. They were brought to other parts of the world, first by austronesians and later by European sailors.

[-] sem 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Someone in this thread needs to say who austronesians are

Edit:

The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Southeast Asia, parts of mainland Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.

[-] booly@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They're basically the proto Pacific Islanders. It's believed that their civilizations all trace back to a group of people from the island of Taiwan/Formosa, who learned how to sail over the deep ocean and set up new communities, bringing chickens, pigs, taro, coconuts.

They settled modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, as far west as Madagascar, to Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, and most of the other Pacific Islands, as far east as Easter Island. Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Guamese, etc., are all Austronesian. Most ethnic groups considered native to these islands trace back to Austronesian expansion.

There are shared linguistic and cultural ties that showed that they had recent comment ancestry, that has since been confirmed by DNA genealogy.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

Makes a lot more sense than ASTROnesians, as spelled above, which makes them sound like aliens. Which is silly, because everyone knows aliens only land in either densely populated metropolitan areas (NYC, Tokyo, etc) or in the desert near Area 51.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Draegur@lemm.ee 29 points 2 days ago
[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

That's not what my partner says uwu

[-] expatriado@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago

Caribbean from Asia? did they take the Panama Canal 400 years before it was built? there is not path that isn't crazy

[-] lemmyng@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 days ago

Asia via the Pacific to the Americas, then a swallow grabs one and brings it to the Atlantic coast.

[-] SARGE@startrek.website 15 points 2 days ago
[-] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 10 points 2 days ago

Excuse you, this is MURICA, those are FREEDOM SWALLOWS 🦅🦅🦅

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

They went around the horn like a real man!

[-] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago

There's a current originating in Indian ocean flowing south of Africa to the gulf of Mexico, before proceeding north east between Iceland and Great Britain. It's why Scandinavia is so much warmer than the same latitude in the Americas. I'm 55 north in Denmark, and have hardly seen snow this winter, meanwhile Edmonton in Canada is 2° south of that.

Coconuts bobbing around the south of Africa is pretty wild, but not implausible.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

This is nuts!

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
1140 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

13681 readers
3341 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS