To quote kendrick lamar: wap waps wasps wap wapuhs. crashcoursecoin.com -John

Measuring Vlogbrothers eras like Dr Who, but based on Hank's hairstyles

I'm so mad that Hank already styles his curly hair better than me who has had curly hair my whole life.

So cool. It's not 11,000 years old, but my mom has a grape vine taken from a cutting from a vine at my grandpa's house, which he got from a vine that his grandfather brought with him on whatever ship he was in when he immigrated to the US.

As someone growing figs about as far from the mediterenean as you can get i appreciate that first special fig

Hank say the plural for of wasp can summon cats.

the fig tree story is such a work of art I think I'm gonna buy a coin just for that alone.

I love figs. In Cantonese they are called "mo fa gou" which roughly translates into "no flower fruit." I bought this coin as a way to remember my grandparents as well. My grandfather grew a massive fig tree in his yard but I only started eating them around high school because the fruits looked they were packed with alien worms or something. This is a great reminder of two sources of wisdom that I respect, cherish and love. DFTBA

Slowly realising this was gonna be about crash course was an exhilarating experience. Don’t have the money to donate at this point in time so I am so great full to everyone who can and does!

This is also why every Honeycrisp apple, Haas avocado and Cavendish banana you've ever eaten is kinda from the same tree.

other fruit: i figured out how to propagate my seeds using animals seedless fig: I FIGURED HOW TO LIVE FOR EVER BY USING HUMANS

I learned this entirely by accident one day as a kid with my brother lol. We were just walking around with sticks and thought it was funny to put these two literal sticks in the dirt, and ended up accidentally discovering how fig trees work lmao. I like to think the discovery of fig propagation was a similar to my story, just two kids playing with sticks and accidentally growing trees.

Human being, discovering a source of sugars: Woah, GUYS!

Im gunna share this story with my biology students!! We’re finishing up our evolution unit today :)

It's cool that an organism which would have been the unsuccessful oddball of it's tree friend group became maybe the most successful fig tree ever??? What a metaphor for divergence being a strength rather than a flaw.

im currently using crash course for nursing school so sadly i don't have an extra $100, but ONE DAY IN THE FUTURE i will be making nurse money and will be so excited to finally buy one of these coins. Thank you to everyone who does buy these coins, you're helping me become a better nurse.

Hank's excitement in telling us about figs is a perfect example of why Crash Course is great. Learning from people who take joy in sharing knowledge motivates the students.

"...from Earth's first farmers." Leafcutter ants: Am I a joke to you?!

LOVE IT. Weird trees are my jam. Reminds me a bit of Pando, the quaking aspen clonal forest. Estimated to be about as old as the seedless figs we eat!

I try to be down with nature, but the fig/wasp thing just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I am very very grateful to everyone who has ever planted a fig tree that grows figs without wasp parts.

Even more fascinating are canine transmissible venereal tumours. These are contagious tumours that are transmitted from dog to dog and the tumour is actually part of a dog born about 11,000 years ago. That dog is still alive in the form of tumours growing on other dogs. The tumours all have the same DNA rather than having the DNA of the host animal as tumours usually do. The DNA has mutated somewhat over that time, but it is unmistakably dog DNA (from a North American breed of dog, hybridised with a little bit of coyote). That dog from 11,000 years ago somehow transformed itself into a single-celled parasitic lifeform, but it is still genetically a dog.

My husband was literally out checking his fig tree cuttings when he saw this video. He was SO excited to share. Thank you for bringing a smile to our faces with such an epic concept.

This is fun. My grandfather had a fig tree in his backyard. He's passed on now, but lots of my family have trees that came from cuttings from his tree. I love that his tree gets to live forever.

Hank. This is one of the WILDEST stories about the world you've ever shared with us. I've been waiting until today to figure out how much I can donate. And, no joke, this story alone made me bump up a tier. Getting my coin now. Thank you to everyone at Complexly for what they do. 💚

I feel so dumb for going “ah yes, the Newton fruit, of the Fig variety” and realizing ive never had an actual fig

A lot of aquatic stem plants propragate like the fig. It's such a mindblower. Plants are so badass.

I have never cared about crash course coins as much as I have this year, the videos for them have been so great

One fig to rule them all, one fig to bind them. One fig to bring them all and in the darkness feed them

I bought my crash course coin already, now time to consume more figs. I am at your command, Hank.

I love this Ship of Theseus! Makes me also think about the myth about the staff thrust into the ground that grew into a tree - maybe not a myth, but a record of fig agriculture?

By the way, the 90s alt-rock hairstyle is great and only adds to the best aspects of the nerdy vibe.

Thank you to everyone who can (and does) buy the crash course coin! Unfortunately grad school is expensive so I can't contribute this time around, but I am grateful that crash course continues to exist!

Adam Ragusea, in his video on figs, brought up a counter article by other scientists on the cultivation idea. Idk if i can post links here but you can search on youtube adam ragusea figs and its in the description. The argument is that the tree could have done this cloning without humans. Both articles were in 2006 it seems. Id love to see if there has been more research on this, maybe in a scishow video. Doesnt take away from the point tho. Whether or not the cloning survived to the modern age cus of humans or not, it would still be pretty fucking amazing.

I can't help but think how it's not that far a leap in logic from all those fig trees being the same tree to saying all living things are part of one super organism and I think that's beautiful.

Wasps aside, this is the same for Cavendish bananas, the most popular variety worldwide, which are seedless and so all Cavendish banana trees are the same tree.

My first Crash Course Coin! Yay! Y'all are such great story tellers. Vlogbrothers and Crash Course helped me survive a very dark and lonely time after a severe MS flare, by giving me something educational to watch and a community. Happy to be able to give back. And thank you for always finding ways to support artists. Just another reason to love what you do. 🥰

seeing a vlogbrothers video the second it comes out with '0 views' is wild

My wife and I planted a seedless fig cutting at our wedding, so this obviously makes it so much cooler

I really needed this this morning Hank, thanks. I'm sitting here dreading going to my job on a fruit farm and you've changed the context for me. Now I just need a seedless fig.

This video is inspiring me to cut a branch from my parents’ fig tree to make another of my parents’ fig tree. We live about an hour from the Jordan valley, and now that I think about it, I’m not entirely sure our figs have seeds🤔

Even better than dried figs are figs picked fresh off the tree. We live almost the other side of the world from the Mediterranean, but fig trees are very popular here.

Best way for a species to survive on earth: be useful/interesting to the humans

Your energy and excitement for things is so refreshing… thank you 😊

I love a good Hank deep dive into a random topic that makes me suddenly want to learn a lot more about it 🤔🧠

When my grandmother went to college, she got a pothos plant. She propagated and kept a version of that pothos her whole life. When she died, my dad took over the plant. When I went to college, he gave me a propagation of the same pothos. In essence, I still have the same pothos of the plant my grandmother had when she went to college! So cool!

Was it really a genetic dead end? Or did it find a replacement for the wasps? That tree now procreates via humans instead of wasps and, honestly, it was a better plan. Not that trees (or genetic mutations) really have plans...

Honestly been loving the videos about the stories on these coins!

The interaction between humans and the fruits and veggies we love is an incredible walk through history. It's one of the many reasons I love gardening as well as eating the bounty of nature!

Soooooo as an avid gardener and huge plant nerd I have a few things to add to this. One, you don't have to root cuttings to clone plants. Yes, figs are really easy to do this with (I'd know, I've rooted a few myself), but in many situations grafting is preferable. Grafting itself is also pretty wild, you're literally fusing two different plants together, sometimes from different species or in exceptional cases even different _genuses,_ simply by carefully cutting them, sticking them together, and the plant does the rest of the work by basically making the plant form of stem cells and fusing the cambiums of both plants together. As for figs, the ones that don't need pollination (parthenocarpic figs), also known as "common type" figs, aren't exactly all clones of the original tree. IIRC they all have some parentage from those original parthenocarpic trees, and are often cloned simply for keeping around the particular desired variety, but they can be produced through sexual reproduction (seeds) and many have quite long lineages. You'll still get seeds from parthenocarpic varieties but if not pollinated they will be empty and nonviable. Most fig growers actually prefer pollinated, seed filled figs since when pollinated even the parthenocarpic varieties produce higher quality fruit and the seeds add a nice nuttiness. There's also a couple that are truly seedless, but again plenty of these are more modern varieties. Parthenocary and seedlessness are traits that seem to crop up all the time, its not quite such an absurdly rare one off, and have occurred in all sorts of cultivated plants. Perhaps there's some particularly ancient truly seedless fig cultivar from the middle east that you're talking about here, but I haven't heard of any that have been cloned for quite that long, and considering the fig community they would probably go nuts for such a thing, hype it up like crazy, and sell cuttings for eye popping prices if such a thing truly was found and confirmed. As for the figs you ate, they're probably the cultivar "calimyrna," a smyrna type fig which requires pollination to set fruit and ironically is a cultivar far older than a lot of the fancy modern parthenocarpic ones. So you're still eating figs from a quite old, perhaps even ancient, cloned tree.

I just read the Bell Jar so this is timely

Excited for the new Rockabilly Hank era.

I am glad there is no-one in the comments saying "actually, figs are not fruits". Yes, botanists call the fig fruit a synconium. That does not mean that figs are not fruits in English. We have been calling figs fruits for over 800 years. Botanists should make their own words up, not try to change the ones we have.

New wave Hank is into fig trees

Speaking of figs... The fondest memory I have of my childhood is of a time when we lived in a house that had a fig tree growing next to it. And my grandad one day picked one and had little me taste it for the first time. And let me tell you - it was love at first sight (or taste, if you will) Fig jam is also fantastic. I agree with Hank, we should eat figs more, pls and thank.

Totally love this. Finally someone is explaining the common figure and why its fruit isn’t full of wasp. There have been so many click bait articles telling folks if they eat figs eating wasps. even some extension professionals don’t understand this.

My dad discovered figs last fall and now has cuttings from over 100 species that he cared for in a converted pantry over the winter and has started planting (in a suburban backyard)

I really like this way of thinking about food/plants/history and being mindful of the web of interconnectedness all around us, that connects us not only to each other today, but to all of human history

This is one of the coolest things I've learned recently. Thanks Hank!

The wasps tongue twister just made me choke on my food 😂 Crash Course? I just almost needed a crash cart

Fun fact, we’re also doing the same thing with Tabasco sauce seeds.

Figs branches are beautiful and the fruit is delicious. I'm glad you feature it on the coin this year. I can't wait until I can eat fresh figs in the late summer/early fall.

Absolutely love both this story and your hair!!

I'm watching through Crash Course Psychology for my Psych 101 class and the degree to which Hank's hair has changed is really wild

I love the tiny little crunches of fig seeds though

Never thought I'd hear the Ship of Thesseus-type problem applied to plants :D

PLANTS ARE SO COOL, MAN! Hank, thank you for keeping in your attempt to say wasps, it was delightful.

WOW! Really rockin' those curls, Hank! I love it!

This was lovely to watch while making my afternoon coffee. 🙂 Happppppppppppy Friday, Hank!

Hank, please try dried figs and brie cheese it's amazing

The title and screencap had me very concerned but this story is so cool and also makes me want to get more practice with propagating my plants, because how cool is this?

Love that story, I too, would like to try a seedless fig, those connections to the past always amaze me, also I decided to get a coin, I had been thinking about doing so and actually forgot, so just to let you know, yes, uploading a video with a cool story and a reminder really did work!

I have never bought a CC coin (I am a monthly patreon) but I did today. You really should have led with this story Hank! Because I will buy a lot of things when I’m crying.

Hands down the most evolutionarily advantageous trait a species can have is "being useful to people"

There's a fig and goatcheese toasted sandwhich at a shop near my apartment and now it is even MORE my absolute favorite food.

Making homemade fig newtons from freshly picked figs is a core memory of mine. Just climbing an old ladder in an even older man’s backyard for some free figs.

I spent all day seeing this notification and thinking "Hank no," but it turned out way cooler than I expected!

You’ll never know how good it feels to learn there’s somebody out there that loves those dried figs as much as I do. And ofc fresh if I can get my hands on them.

This is much more reassuring than Sylvia's take. Thanks Hank 😆💙

I knew it was going to be a fig from that thumbnail! I genuinely love figs, and a perfectly ripe fresh fig is one of my favorite things to eat. An 11,000 year old seedless fig is now getting added to my food bucket-list (along with a blue Java and Gros Michel banana)😄.

Growing up in Frederick MD, a neighbor had a fig tree. My grandpa and he were good friends and he always brought us figs to eat. Delicious!

this is….the coolest thing I have ever learned

Okay, you got me with that story. I just ordered a coin. Ya'll are the best!

Mind blown 🤯 I think it's the same with specific varieties of apples. All Granny Smith apples essentially come from cuttings from the original tree.

The mini cut of all the difficui saying wasps was my favorite part.

Sounds like that first tree has a lot of... Branch locations

looking good friend! :) thanks as always for every video!

Me suspects that this will become one of their biggest videos this year

I used to kind of like the idea of using the Younger Dryas event as year 0 in a calendar system (i.e. add 9700 years to the common system) I have now converted to being a firm proponent of the Seedless Fig calendar. Before Seedless Figs & After Seedless Figs.

figs are absolutely delicious. one of my favorite fruits. and the leaves are so beautiful!

If you like figs that much, you can just grow some yourself, Hank. The Chicago Hardy variety can survive your winters with just a bit of babying. Its almost certainly NOT an 11,400 year old cultivar, and honestly I have no idea how they created it or what its lineage is (although that would be a neat video topic) but if you want a LOT of figs growing them yourself is probably gonna be cheaper economically and environmentally than having them shipped from somewhere tropical.

Just another day of the Green brothers making me cry about the beauty of humanity 😭❤

Loving the haircut Hank - the short sides look awesome

thank you so much for posting this without any wasps. i'm really interested in ecology but i'm terribly afraid of bugs so it makes it really hard to learn more about the field

Love this story

I’m into this era of hank’s hair journey

I just heard fig trees and already know it is about Crash Course.

Can someone dig up J.R.R. Tolkien real quick? I have a question about the White Tree of Gondor...

1:25 Self-proclaimed amatuer horticulturist here, this is called vegetative propagation of which severed pieces of the plant are able to take root many succulents can do this, other methods of vegetative propagation includes stolons, bulbs, rhizomes and tubers.

this goes really well with the "Eating a Heart of a King" video by J. Draper

Hank Green says "wasps" on the the same level as Benedict Cumberbatch says "penguins"