The science of hanging Taiwanese pumpkin

The other day I was thinking about a problem that may need a collaboration of physicist and biologist to solve.  Looking at the ever getting larger Taiwanese pumpkin (台灣南瓜), I was wondering how long can we allow it (and many others) to hang without support and not breaking the stem that attaches to it?

9/1/12

Then next day Joy sent me an article at Harvard Gazette (originally published in Science), “Clues in the cucumber climb”; this is the link to the Harvard Gazette article,

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/08/clues-in-the-cucumbers-climb/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=08.31.12%2520%281%29#.UECgK6oHfOg.mailto

If one questions the validity of a scientific theory, just check to see whether it happens in nature or not.  We used to call science “natural philosophy”.

8/29/12