Seaweed

Seaweed refers to several species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae that live near the seabed (benthic).

The term includes some members of the red, brown, and green algae. Seaweeds can also be classified by use (as food, medicine, fertilizer, filtration, industrial, etc.). The study of seaweed is known as phycology.

Taxonomy

A seaweed may belong to one of several groups of multicellular algae: the red algae, green algae, and brown algae. As these three groups do not have a common multicellular ancestor, the seaweeds are in a polyphyletic group. In addition, some tuft-forming bluegreen algae (Cyanobacteria) are sometimes considered to be seaweeds — "seaweed" is a colloquial term and lacks a formal definition.

Structure

Seaweeds' appearance somewhat resembles non-arboreal terrestrial plants.

Wakame

Wakame (ワカメ, wakame), Undaria pinnatifida, is a sea vegetable, or edible seaweed. It has a subtly sweet flavour and is most often served in soups and salads.

Sea-farmers have grown wakame in Japan from the Nara period. It has been nominated as among 100 of the world's worst invasive species according to the Global Invasive Species Database.

Names

The name "wakame" was derived from the Japanese name wakame (ワカメ, わかめ, 若布, 和布).

Etymology

In Old Japanese, me stood for edible seaweeds in general as opposed to mo　standing for algae. In kanji, such as 海藻, 軍布 and 和布 were applied to transcribe the word. Among seaweeds, wakame was likely most often eaten, therefore this me especially meant wakame. It expanded later to other seaweeds like kajime, hirome (kombu), arame, etc. Wakame is derived from waka + me (若布, lit. young seaweed). If this waka is an eulogistic prefix, same as the tama of tamagushi, wakame likely stood for seaweeds widely in ancient ages. In Man'yōshū, in addition to 和可米 and 稚海藻 (both are read as wakame), nigime (和海藻, soft wakame) can be seen. Besides, tamamo (玉藻, lit. beautiful algae), which often appeared in Man'yo-shu, may be wakame depending on poems.

Irish moss

Irish moss may refer to:

Natural history museum

A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a museum with exhibits about natural history, including such topics as animals, plants, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, and climatology. Some museums feature natural-history collections in addition to other collections, such as ones related to history, art and science. Nature centers often include natural history exhibits.

Renaissance cabinets of curiosities were private collections that typically included exotic specimens of natural history, sometimes faked, along with other types of object. The first natural history museum was possibly that of Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner, established in Zurich in the mid 16th century. The Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, established in Paris in 1635, was the first natural history museum to take the form that would be recognized as a natural history museum today. Early natural history museums offered limited accessibility, as they were generally private collections or holdings of scientific societies. The Ashmolean Museum, opened in 1683, was the first natural history museum to grant admission to the general public.

Natural history

Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. It encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it, with articles nowadays more often published in science magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms. That is a very broad designation in a world filled with many narrowly focused disciplines. So while natural history dates historically from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world, through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's field is more of a cross discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences. For example, geobiology has a strong multi-disciplinary nature combining scientists and scientific knowledge of many specialty sciences.

A person who studies natural history is known as a naturalist or natural historian.