One of the World’s Longest-Running Experiments Sends Up Sprouts(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
One of the World’s Longest-Running Experiments Sends Up Sprouts
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/science/seeds-germinated-michigan-state.html
66 comments
A pitch drop experiment started in 1927 is what I thought of when I read the title:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment
It's amazing how such long experiments are organized. My first thought when I read "longest-running experiment" was the Rothamstead Park Grass Experiment.
I'm accustomed to thinking of Big Science as the LHCs and the Human Genome Project and the Human Brain Projects of the world, but there might be a category of experiments that are instances of Long-Term Science.
I'm accustomed to thinking of Big Science as the LHCs and the Human Genome Project and the Human Brain Projects of the world, but there might be a category of experiments that are instances of Long-Term Science.
> It's amazing how such long experiments are organized.
.. and how they are financed. Sometimes I wonder what humanity missed because experiments that only yield after more than one generation are rare.
.. and how they are financed. Sometimes I wonder what humanity missed because experiments that only yield after more than one generation are rare.
That is a very cool experiment and a fantastic read!
It reminds me of my own adventures making yogurt, each generation carried forward to the next batch. Being able to freeze the samples (for the ecoli, not the yogurt!) is really neat. At anytime they rewind the clock to test an ancestor.
It reminds me of my own adventures making yogurt, each generation carried forward to the next batch. Being able to freeze the samples (for the ecoli, not the yogurt!) is really neat. At anytime they rewind the clock to test an ancestor.
Or, as Stephen Jay Gould said, replaying life’s tape.
The Wikipedia rabbit hole did lead to me Stephen Jay Gould too, who I wasn't acquainted with (except for possibility a similar Wikipedia rabbit hole a decade prior whenever I first read about the experiment).
Having recently read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodicity_economics, the parallels with the things Stephen Jay Gould argued about are fascinating.
Having recently read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodicity_economics, the parallels with the things Stephen Jay Gould argued about are fascinating.
I find this both reassuring and terrifying. It's reassuring because if life was completely wiped out on the planet there would be trillions of seeds waiting for the right conditions to germinate and repopulate the Earth with life.
It's terrifying because why would this have evolved?
It's terrifying because why would this have evolved?
Sowing wildflowers is becoming more popular here in Ireland. You can buy wildflower mixes or seed bombs but the expert view is to just stop mowing, there are enough dormant seeds in the soil. And those that are present are generally more suitable to the local environment than anything you'd introduce.
Reassuring as you say.
https://pollinators.ie/wildflowers-to-plant-or-not-to-plant/
Reassuring as you say.
https://pollinators.ie/wildflowers-to-plant-or-not-to-plant/
A lot of the earth is frequently inhospitable to plant life, so it makes sense that the ones that have survived to the modern day would be able to cope with hard times.
Check out the Death Valley super blooms, they are amazing. Vast areas of the desert will just spring to life, polinate and spread seeds for the next generation, many/most of which will not grow for years.
https://rove.me/to/death-valley/super-bloom
Check out the Death Valley super blooms, they are amazing. Vast areas of the desert will just spring to life, polinate and spread seeds for the next generation, many/most of which will not grow for years.
https://rove.me/to/death-valley/super-bloom
This isn't the first mass extinction the planet has seen.
Yep. This is why I am dead set on one of those tickets to Mars.
I always find these types of comments funny. I cannot think of any other reason on why a person would think that going to mars is a better option than lack of research on the planet and its habitability.
On top of that, going to Mars isn't going to magically solve the problems. As I've said earlier in some past comment, going to Mars is just as good as moving the goalpost. What we have to do is change what we're currently doing to planet Earth rather that going someplace else and thinking that we've passed all the problems that are in our thinking.
I'm all for space exploration, but saying "I'm going to Mars to run from any problems" is just laughable in my opinion.
The way I think of it is:
If you had to terraform a planet, which one would you choose?
Option 1: a bombed-out Earth with runaway global warming, acidic oceans, the end result of mass extinctions where there's dramatically less species diversity and some planet-wide ecologies have utterly collapsed.
Option 2: Mars.
I would at least hope the answer is obvious. No matter how much we trash Earth, it's still vastly more habitable than Mars or any other planet or moon in this solar system. The human species might not survive what we do to it, but parking a small repository of humans in orbit or on the Moon that would be capable of repopulation is still easily the winning species-survival strategy over terraforming Mars. (Though I suspect it's probably even better to keep that repository someplace on Earth.)
If you had to terraform a planet, which one would you choose?
Option 1: a bombed-out Earth with runaway global warming, acidic oceans, the end result of mass extinctions where there's dramatically less species diversity and some planet-wide ecologies have utterly collapsed.
Option 2: Mars.
I would at least hope the answer is obvious. No matter how much we trash Earth, it's still vastly more habitable than Mars or any other planet or moon in this solar system. The human species might not survive what we do to it, but parking a small repository of humans in orbit or on the Moon that would be capable of repopulation is still easily the winning species-survival strategy over terraforming Mars. (Though I suspect it's probably even better to keep that repository someplace on Earth.)
Start adding embryos to the seed vault - I like it.
The reason for going to Mars is not to avoid mankind’s mistakes (e.g. global warming) but to avoid the great filter in whatever form it takes.
Yes, that's what I meant when I said I'm all for space exploration. But, most of the reasons to leave the planet Earth from us general public have been in the line of "I'm fed up with all this and that's why I have to go to the Mars to start anew" i.e. mostly running away from the problems or fed up of the system etc.
That being said, in my opinion, we should definitely pay more attention to saving this planet rather than finding new ones and doing the same thing all over again.
That being said, in my opinion, we should definitely pay more attention to saving this planet rather than finding new ones and doing the same thing all over again.
I sincerely think we do pay more attention to this planet than Mars, e.g. many people advocating mars are also involved in electric cars and solar energy.
Yeah, I agree. Mars is so utterly inhospitable that even the worst apocalypses the earth has ever seen (since it has cooled anyway) leave it orders of magnitude more hospitable. Going to mars and learning how to live there is certainly valuable, but it is definitely not a solution to earth's environmental problems.
It's not about what's better for me. It's about avoiding global extinction events and not keeping all our eggs in one basket. it's also about sacrifice in order to push the envelope and to rekindle The drive for exploration and discovery. it's about escaping before it is made impossible by people in this thread arguing that we should be punished for even trying.
> It's about avoiding global extinction events and not keeping all our eggs in one basket.
That's what I meant when I said "I'm all for space exploration".
> it's also about sacrifice in order to push the envelope and to rekindle The drive for exploration and discovery which made Western civilization great.
That "I'm all for space exploration" also covers this point as well. I'm not against space exploration and habitation. What I'm saying is we should definitely pay more attention to this planet because it is still possible to save this planet. Mars has so many obstacles that as one other comment said, Antarctic is more habitable than Mars. What I'm against is people who say "I'm off to Mars the first time tickets get available" to avoid current Earth problems (may it be their personal lives or the whole system). Expecting different things in context of these problems is just naive at best as these are human thinking problems which cannot be solved with reaching different planet i.e moving the goalpost.
Your first comment came off like that. If my interpretation was wrong then I'm sorry.
That's what I meant when I said "I'm all for space exploration".
> it's also about sacrifice in order to push the envelope and to rekindle The drive for exploration and discovery which made Western civilization great.
That "I'm all for space exploration" also covers this point as well. I'm not against space exploration and habitation. What I'm saying is we should definitely pay more attention to this planet because it is still possible to save this planet. Mars has so many obstacles that as one other comment said, Antarctic is more habitable than Mars. What I'm against is people who say "I'm off to Mars the first time tickets get available" to avoid current Earth problems (may it be their personal lives or the whole system). Expecting different things in context of these problems is just naive at best as these are human thinking problems which cannot be solved with reaching different planet i.e moving the goalpost.
Your first comment came off like that. If my interpretation was wrong then I'm sorry.
Antarctica is more hospitable than Mars. The average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees F. The South Pole is generally -76 F during the Southern Winter.
On top of that, Antarctica has a breathable atmosphere, and water. Mars does not have a breathable atmosphere, and if it has water, it does not have water in an easily accessible form. Mars also has 2.5x the radiation one would experience orbiting the Earth, or approximately 35x the radiation one would generally experience on Earth.
We would literally have to destroy Earth before Mars becomes a more viable option for continued human existence.
On top of that, Antarctica has a breathable atmosphere, and water. Mars does not have a breathable atmosphere, and if it has water, it does not have water in an easily accessible form. Mars also has 2.5x the radiation one would experience orbiting the Earth, or approximately 35x the radiation one would generally experience on Earth.
We would literally have to destroy Earth before Mars becomes a more viable option for continued human existence.
Good points. But dare you doubt human's destruction ability?..
Note also, that destroying just the thin tender habitable layer of Earth would suffice.
Note also, that destroying just the thin tender habitable layer of Earth would suffice.
> dare you doubt human's destruction ability?..
I don't doubt human's ability. Which is why I fight those who don't seem to care about preserving earth. Who seem to overlap quite strongly woth those who believe that other planets may provide a viable alternative.
I don't doubt our ability to destroy earth, but I do doubt our ability to successfully live somewhere else.
I don't doubt human's ability. Which is why I fight those who don't seem to care about preserving earth. Who seem to overlap quite strongly woth those who believe that other planets may provide a viable alternative.
I don't doubt our ability to destroy earth, but I do doubt our ability to successfully live somewhere else.
I might be a counterexample to your perceived overlap. 3 points:
* It seems that, as a species, we have deep issues rooted in our tribal upbringing. Reaching a global actionable consensus seems as hard (if not harder) as colonizing another planet. The internet only catalyzes the "us vs they" thinking people struggle to get rid of. In one of its many incarnations, it's a nurture of horribly mistaken worldviews — and here I imply climate change denialism, in context. But also flat earth, etc.
* Viewed independently from antropogenic climate change catastrophy -- living on another planet would be extraordinary achievement, would you disagree? Launching a "toy" helicopter is kinda cool, but... living? For some of our greatest ancestors, the coolest achievement has been building millenia-lasting megastructures. Our generations are building fusion testbeds, orbital telescopes & commsat constellations; why wouldn't, say, a giant Earth-shaped globe monument on Mars be great? Perhaps not a globe, yea... but a Statue Of Liberty? Dao temple maybe? A hammer-and-sickle impact crater giga-egraving? Whatever.
* Both viewed together, rationally, Mars colonization is an option to escape extinction on Earth. Not a priority, sure; more like, a backup-of-backup-of-backup plan -- for when all else failed (see point 1). It's not like we can do it soon, either; advance preparations and long practice needed. I won't express any judgement of viability. I do see, however, how ambition and inter-tribe competition can drive this plan to a ready state (see point 2) -- sooner than fossil fuel combustion stops across the world.
* It seems that, as a species, we have deep issues rooted in our tribal upbringing. Reaching a global actionable consensus seems as hard (if not harder) as colonizing another planet. The internet only catalyzes the "us vs they" thinking people struggle to get rid of. In one of its many incarnations, it's a nurture of horribly mistaken worldviews — and here I imply climate change denialism, in context. But also flat earth, etc.
* Viewed independently from antropogenic climate change catastrophy -- living on another planet would be extraordinary achievement, would you disagree? Launching a "toy" helicopter is kinda cool, but... living? For some of our greatest ancestors, the coolest achievement has been building millenia-lasting megastructures. Our generations are building fusion testbeds, orbital telescopes & commsat constellations; why wouldn't, say, a giant Earth-shaped globe monument on Mars be great? Perhaps not a globe, yea... but a Statue Of Liberty? Dao temple maybe? A hammer-and-sickle impact crater giga-egraving? Whatever.
* Both viewed together, rationally, Mars colonization is an option to escape extinction on Earth. Not a priority, sure; more like, a backup-of-backup-of-backup plan -- for when all else failed (see point 1). It's not like we can do it soon, either; advance preparations and long practice needed. I won't express any judgement of viability. I do see, however, how ambition and inter-tribe competition can drive this plan to a ready state (see point 2) -- sooner than fossil fuel combustion stops across the world.
Mars is not a viable safety hatch for continued human existence. It will simply be too dependent on resupply from the Earth for the foreseeable future (on a timescale measured in generations).
All of the following are easier to accomplish than colonizing Mars: solving global warming, colonizing the ocean floor, colonizing the Moon. Indeed, the technologies we would need to terraform or colonize Mars to a sufficient level to be an escape hatch would necessarily involve solving all of those first.
All of the following are easier to accomplish than colonizing Mars: solving global warming, colonizing the ocean floor, colonizing the Moon. Indeed, the technologies we would need to terraform or colonize Mars to a sufficient level to be an escape hatch would necessarily involve solving all of those first.
I do not yet think that humanity's capability to destroy is stronger than nature's capability to heal and grow.
But ask me again in a couple decades.
But ask me again in a couple decades.
You have seen what Mars looks like right? That planet had way more potential for you to perish than this one
Its crazy how everyone sees mars as some kind of safety rope when climate change goes bad. Surviving on mars would be 100x harder than the worst case scenario for life on earth.
Most of what would make it more survivable is the small quantity of other humans and the need for "exotic on earth" life support infrastructure already required.
Though to be viable as a backup for our species the colony would have to be able to survive, as well as be genetically viable, completely solo. Such preparation might include a "seed" vault for both plants and life, as well as a Horizon Zero Dawn style repository of all human knowledge. BTW that would also be a great international education standard for children even without it's use in the Doomsday setting.
Though to be viable as a backup for our species the colony would have to be able to survive, as well as be genetically viable, completely solo. Such preparation might include a "seed" vault for both plants and life, as well as a Horizon Zero Dawn style repository of all human knowledge. BTW that would also be a great international education standard for children even without it's use in the Doomsday setting.
Isn't the small quantity of humans exactly what makes it less survivable? The smaller the group, the more severe a single fault in the system.
This is the way habitats ecosystems work anyway. A trivial example might be aquariums: the bigger the easier to maintain a healty equilibrium.
This is the way habitats ecosystems work anyway. A trivial example might be aquariums: the bigger the easier to maintain a healty equilibrium.
If you have 1000000 people, there's a very high risk at least one is crazy or illogical with respect to survival.
If you have a couple hundred really well examined people who all really wanted to be somewhere the odds are much better, and all the more so, that problems can be contained when identified.
If you have a couple hundred really well examined people who all really wanted to be somewhere the odds are much better, and all the more so, that problems can be contained when identified.
Given that mental illness is prevalent and that we misdiagnose mental illness at a rate >1%. There is a already high risk in a couple hundred people.
Furthermore, some 500 healthy adults do not form a stable society. Being in a high risk environment will flare tempers, 500 is on the low side of genetic diversity, there are no children, there will be pregnancies...
Furthermore, some 500 healthy adults do not form a stable society. Being in a high risk environment will flare tempers, 500 is on the low side of genetic diversity, there are no children, there will be pregnancies...
Romantic prepper fantasies. With a couple hundred people, the bus factor of a tech society is wildly negative. Meaning, you'd need miracle spawns of workers already trained to keep up with just maintenance.
On Mars the whole thing would just collapse and people suffocate once the parts shipments from Earth were disrupted for a substantial period.
On Mars the whole thing would just collapse and people suffocate once the parts shipments from Earth were disrupted for a substantial period.
So some form of meritocracy.
Are there any instances in the history of the human race where that idea has worked? My impression is that it always fails due to corruption or incorrect evaluation metrics or some other fundamental flaw in the starry-eyed idea of separating "good" from "bad".
In theory, it's perfectly straightforward to write a flawless, unexploitable large program in C. In practice, we get hacked by plugging something into a Lightning port.
Are there any instances in the history of the human race where that idea has worked? My impression is that it always fails due to corruption or incorrect evaluation metrics or some other fundamental flaw in the starry-eyed idea of separating "good" from "bad".
In theory, it's perfectly straightforward to write a flawless, unexploitable large program in C. In practice, we get hacked by plugging something into a Lightning port.
Exactly. It's crazy that so many folks are buying into the dream of moving off world successfully before the planet is uninhabitable. I think this is just tied to billionaire hero worship.
We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality.
We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality.
> We should be shaming them for wasting money vs. spending those billions to force real change on Earth to fix the climate situation here which will come due long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality.
That's a false dichotomy, and just as much of a fantasy utopia as the 'solve our problems by moving to Mars' crowd:
- Space exploration and technology is an investment, not a waste.
- Space technology is not in competition with climate fixes, it helps. The most obvious example is Earth observation satellites, which are monitoring vegetation, cloud cover, ocean height, atmospheric composition, natural gas flares, forest fires, volcanic emissions, etc. right now. More long-term, reducing launch costs (like SpaceX is attempting with Starship) would increase the viability of solutions like space-based solar (24/7 sunlight, no atmosphere or cloud attenuation, no limit on surface area, no competition with agriculture/housing/etc., much less material/structure thanks to micro-gravity, etc.)
- Meanwhile there are billions being wasted on vanity projects (superyachts, palaces, etc.), and on actively harmful activities (the US war budget comes to mind), which are far more suitable targets than space tech.
- Online comment threads aren't going to change the spending habits of billionaires. Sure, if someone's making bullshit claims online (like 'moving to Mars will avoid climate change' or 'we should fix the climate before spending money on space') then calling them out can be good (hello!); combatting misinformation can sway the public discourse, even if just a little bit. On the other hand, armchair philosophising between like-minded individuals achieves absolutely nothing.
Finally, it's probably worth saying w.r.t. 'long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality': off world living will never become reality if we (as a species) don't bother trying. Self-sustaining colonies on Mars, the Moon, etc. will probably take centuries, but only if we keep taking baby steps in that direction today. Before Falcon 9, the industry was pretty content to milk a few cash-cow rockets for inflated government contracts. Now re-usability is becoming expected (e.g. ULA's hand-waving platitudes about one day catching Vulcan's engines). Starship is a huge gamble, but I'm happy someone is trying it. The Human Landing System award from NASA is both encouraging (an experienced third-party doesn't think the gamble's odds are too bad), hilarious (the lunar gateway station would be dwarfed by its "landing module"), and hopefully a face-saving way for NASA to loosen its ties to SLS/Orion/etc. (forcing the "old guard" to up their game).
We should absolutely call out these particular billionaires for their terrible labour practices, tax dodging, market manipulation tweets, monopolising, etc. We should also call out billionaires in general for not doing enough to help the climate emergency. We should also call out governments for allowing these tax-dodgers to wield such economic power in the first place. We should also call out governments for their lacklustre climate efforts. And so on. Yet criticising space investment is a nonsense strawman.
That's a false dichotomy, and just as much of a fantasy utopia as the 'solve our problems by moving to Mars' crowd:
- Space exploration and technology is an investment, not a waste.
- Space technology is not in competition with climate fixes, it helps. The most obvious example is Earth observation satellites, which are monitoring vegetation, cloud cover, ocean height, atmospheric composition, natural gas flares, forest fires, volcanic emissions, etc. right now. More long-term, reducing launch costs (like SpaceX is attempting with Starship) would increase the viability of solutions like space-based solar (24/7 sunlight, no atmosphere or cloud attenuation, no limit on surface area, no competition with agriculture/housing/etc., much less material/structure thanks to micro-gravity, etc.)
- Meanwhile there are billions being wasted on vanity projects (superyachts, palaces, etc.), and on actively harmful activities (the US war budget comes to mind), which are far more suitable targets than space tech.
- Online comment threads aren't going to change the spending habits of billionaires. Sure, if someone's making bullshit claims online (like 'moving to Mars will avoid climate change' or 'we should fix the climate before spending money on space') then calling them out can be good (hello!); combatting misinformation can sway the public discourse, even if just a little bit. On the other hand, armchair philosophising between like-minded individuals achieves absolutely nothing.
Finally, it's probably worth saying w.r.t. 'long before any off world living will be anywhere close to reality': off world living will never become reality if we (as a species) don't bother trying. Self-sustaining colonies on Mars, the Moon, etc. will probably take centuries, but only if we keep taking baby steps in that direction today. Before Falcon 9, the industry was pretty content to milk a few cash-cow rockets for inflated government contracts. Now re-usability is becoming expected (e.g. ULA's hand-waving platitudes about one day catching Vulcan's engines). Starship is a huge gamble, but I'm happy someone is trying it. The Human Landing System award from NASA is both encouraging (an experienced third-party doesn't think the gamble's odds are too bad), hilarious (the lunar gateway station would be dwarfed by its "landing module"), and hopefully a face-saving way for NASA to loosen its ties to SLS/Orion/etc. (forcing the "old guard" to up their game).
We should absolutely call out these particular billionaires for their terrible labour practices, tax dodging, market manipulation tweets, monopolising, etc. We should also call out billionaires in general for not doing enough to help the climate emergency. We should also call out governments for allowing these tax-dodgers to wield such economic power in the first place. We should also call out governments for their lacklustre climate efforts. And so on. Yet criticising space investment is a nonsense strawman.
If Jeff / Elon would instead say "it's a lot more nerd cool points to take maybe 30 people to Mars, possibly fruitful in 80 years, than it is to spend money doing the boring work of keeping the planet from overheating" and market their Mars ambitions that way vs. saving the human race then I'd have a much different opinion on the matter.
I found that what gets to people is how expensive obvious stuff like running water would be on Mars.
So what you're saying is you'd like to die a few months or possibly years later than everybody else, but on a different planet?
You don't need extinction events for it to be an advantage for seeds to be more resilient.
A very good episode on Science Vs podcast on this very subject.
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/emhxgkd/a-seedy-lat...
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/emhxgkd/a-seedy-lat...
Presumably the curators of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault [1] regularly test (or at least intend to as it is fairly new) the efficacy of their storage for different types of seeds?
1. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agri...
1. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agri...
Don't forget the 2000-year old date seed that sprouted!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judean_date_palm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judean_date_palm
I despise articles written like this
Clickbait Headline
informative intro
Real Article Begins: Once upon a time…
Please just tell me the information, I’m not here to read a story
Clickbait Headline
informative intro
Real Article Begins: Once upon a time…
Please just tell me the information, I’m not here to read a story
Seems like a good problem to tackle with NLP text summarization.
Text summarization is already pretty good for the real article issue you mentioned. I wonder if the same process could be applied in reverse to identify low quality headlines too.
Text summarization is already pretty good for the real article issue you mentioned. I wonder if the same process could be applied in reverse to identify low quality headlines too.
I have beta access to Open AI, so I could definitely give that a go when I’ve finished my exams
Its four pages including large pictures. Shorter than a children's book. Have a heart - its an interesting story with lots of detail packed into those 20 paragraphs.
I don't get moralizing the point. And if you want to go that route, I'd argue that forcing someone who is coming to you based on a headline's promise to sift through a short children's book is disrespectful and rude.
But maybe it's a generational thing and stories are what more people expect now. I bet NYT knows its audience better than I do.
But maybe it's a generational thing and stories are what more people expect now. I bet NYT knows its audience better than I do.
"Sift through". Is that what it's come to? A few paragraphs read in under a minute, is too much to ask of a modern reader?
Kids these days. Bah.
Kids these days. Bah.
With the exponentially increasing amount of information on the Internet, yes, we have matchingly decreasing amounts of patience for sifting through it. Shit is shit, matters not if it comes in tiny pieces or massive turds. It's about aggregate volume.
I'm the same and it's not like I do it on purpose. I simply cannot enjoy the style, I like the important information up front. If I felt like reading a children's book I'd go grab a children's book. If I'm reading an informational article I want it to read like an informational article.
I understand where you’re coming from, and I’m a proponent of story-telling, but give me the main points first, then let me read the story of if I feel like it.
To be more cynical, this is because it’s behind a paywall. They want to entice you with a little morsel of information, get you hooked into a story, then cut you off at the paywall.
If they gave away all the info in the first few lines, less people would want to keep reading
To be more cynical, this is because it’s behind a paywall. They want to entice you with a little morsel of information, get you hooked into a story, then cut you off at the paywall.
If they gave away all the info in the first few lines, less people would want to keep reading
I couldn't agree more. Anyone got a tldr to share?
I recall an episode of a daily TV series in Japan where they found seeds from a several thousand year old archaeological dig, which yielded a still viable magnolia tree when planted today.
And there was that story just recently about bacteria found in the deep mantle, dormant for a couple million (?) years, that grew when cultured.
Amazing how patiently life can wait for the moment to be revived again, with no promise or knowledge of when the day may come.
And there was that story just recently about bacteria found in the deep mantle, dormant for a couple million (?) years, that grew when cultured.
Amazing how patiently life can wait for the moment to be revived again, with no promise or knowledge of when the day may come.
In that state there is no awareness, so you can't really be patient as you don't feel the passing time. It's kind of like a time machine.
The Beal garden is but a few miles from my house. Today is Dr. Beal's birthday and because of this little experiment he is remembered 97 years after his death far more than any of his peers.
If you're ever in East Lansing it's worth visiting Beal garden which is next to the campus library. It's so picturesque that students have their weddings there.
If you're ever in East Lansing it's worth visiting Beal garden which is next to the campus library. It's so picturesque that students have their weddings there.
Question: Do these seeds have any biological or biochemical activity while dormant or are they completely inert for all that time?
They have very reduced biological activity, but they are not inert. Seeds can respond to water, temperature, light, day length, chemicals produced by fire and smoke, and to different plant hormones among other things.
From a biophysics perspective, I find this really fascinating. These self-contained molecular machines with a co-located energy source can plod along, albeit very slowly, for perhaps hundreds of years and ultimately self-replicate. It seems like this has implications for interstellar colonization, among other things.
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EDIT: I just realized that the LTEE and Beal’s experiment are being conducted at the same place, Michigan State University!