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Science

New Candidate For Oldest Living Thing 60

Posted by timothy from the it's-an-old-family dept.
RoosterT writes: "AP is reporting that an 11,000+ year-old lifeform has been found in California. The lifeform? A bush. This bush threatens to topple the current world-record holder. Another bush."
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New Candidate For Oldest Living Thing More

New Candidate For Oldest Living Thing

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  • Oh. (Score:2, Funny)

    by oregon ( 554165 )
    I'd have voted for Barbara [echo-on.net]

  • Nice sarcasm jerk. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by perdida ( 251676 ) <thethreatprojectNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Thursday January 31, 2002 @11:47PM (#2935488) Homepage Journal
    There's some serious science here.


    Yes, it's a bush. That bush may tell us how plant cells adapt to conditions, and they are accurate, living records of thousands of years of climate data. It's not just "another bush".

  • "We've got bush..."

    Good place for Slashdot, anyway. =P
  • So Bushes can clone and succeed one another for thousands of years.

    George Snr. and Dubya will be pleased.

  • 11,000 year old bush? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dr. Sp0ng ( 24354 ) <mspong.gmail@com> on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:42AM (#2935641) Homepage
    Damn, I can't even find any 20 year old bush.

  • Sorry to stir, but (Score:4, Funny)

    by oregon ( 554165 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:49AM (#2935656) Homepage
    I have to ask - what is the creationist argument against this bush? It's twice as old as the universe.
    • They simply argue that scientific dating techniques are insufficient, and/or that it's an 'athiest plot' (read: reality).
    • Not all creationists believe the universe is 4,000 years old. In fact the creationists I've spoken to who are scientists believe it's substantially older than that.
      • That's impossible. Creationists aren't scientists; the two categories are mutually exclusive.
        • That has to be one of the most absurd statements I've heard in quite some time. I suggest you take a course in linguistics and one in logic. Might help your case along. :) Your statement can be forgiven, however, since I can only assume you are not a scientist or at the very least are ignorant of how a creationist can arrive at his view on the origin of the universe through the scientific process. Email me if you'd like to talk further.
          • 'Creationist' in this sense probably refers to the Henry Morris/Ken Ham crowd, who are not in any reasonable sense scientists, in that they don't have a theory that makes predictions or is falsifiable. All they really do (when in non-attack-dog mode) is make wild statements like "the earth was surrounded by a 'water belt' before the flood, which accounts for the water for the flood and (somehow) 900 year lifespans". They also claim that formations like the Grand Canyon and coal should be produced on very short time scales, although their evidence for this is silly at best. Most of their argument is based on assuming that evolution is "obviously" impossible, referring to the self-assembling 747 in a junkyard and all that.

            If this sort of creationist is what you mean, perhaps you could elaborate on how someone would derive these ideas naturalistically?

            • Re:Sorry to stir, but (Score:3, Interesting)

              by Skeezix ( 14602 )
              There are extremists in every camp. Sadly, some creationists give a bad name to the group and stick out like a sore thumb. The ones you don't hear about are the ones who are quietly working behind the scenes. So I certainly wasn't refering to the creationists who give analogies such as the 747 assembling itself in the junkyard or monkeys typing shakespeare or any such nonsense. I was referring to real scientists who have come to the conclusion that the best explanation..well, tell you what, I'll let them put it in their own words.

              "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word." -- George Ellis (British astrophysicist)

              "I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science. " -- Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer)

              "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley - updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument." -- Ed Harrison (cosmologist)

              "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." -- Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics)

              The first, and main, problem is the very existence of the big bang. One may wonder, What came before? If space-time did not exist then, how could everything appear from nothing? What arose first: the universe or the laws determining its evolution? Explaining this initial singularity-where and when it all began-still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology. -- Andrei Linde's admission

              • Ah... this is much more reasonable than what I thought you meant. Still, I'm not sure how you could logically induce creation by God from observations of nature. I understand the intuitive idea that "all this complexity and apparent fine-tuning of the universe must have come from a creator", and I'm inclined to believe it, but it doesn't seem "scientific" in any strict sense of the word. Lots of people who are scientists do believe it, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less non-rational.

                Unless I'm wrong. Are there any observations that directly point to creation by an intelligent designer, in any sense other than "we don't understand this, so it must be God"?

                The "fine tuning" of the universe isn't convincing, I think, at least as it's presented by Hugh Ross ("The Creator and The Cosmos", etc). Superstring theory (which AFAIK hasn't been entirely confirmed, if at all) predicts the possible existence of many alternate universes with different fundamental constants. If this is true, and this "fine-tuning" is really as precise as Ross claims, our universe may merely be one out of an infinity that happens to have values that produced you and I. This is merely speculation, of course, but then it's also speculation that a universe with different fundamental constants wouldn't have produced some completely different form of life. Asimov wrote a book with that premise called "The Gods Themselves".

                • Still, I'm not sure how you could logically induce creation by God from observations of nature. I understand the intuitive idea that "all this complexity and apparent fine-tuning of the universe must have come from a creator", and I'm inclined to believe it, but it doesn't seem "scientific" in any strict sense of the word. Lots of people who are scientists do believe it, but that doesn't necessarily make it any less non-rational.

                  I'm inclined to pretty much agree with you here. I'm not so much arguing that you have to, by the laws of logic, deduce that God created the universe. I was more arguing that it can be perfectly rational to be a Creationist and be a scientist. And although it may not be based on the scientific method, one can at least see how a scientist could come to the conclusion that the idea that a Creator designed the universe.

                  • I was more arguing that it can be perfectly rational to be a Creationist and be a scientist.

                    Well, I'd agree that it's not inconsistent, anyway. :-)

                    I'd be careful using the word "creationist" though, as in my experience people usually associate it with antievolutionist/6 day creation types. Especially when you say things like "Creationism really *is* scientific!" :-)

      • Well they must be pretty poor, uneducated "scientists" then.
      • Yeah! Everyone knows the universe is 4,001 years old!
    • Simple, they just argue that carbon dating is inaccurate.
    • The creationists don't disagree that our methods show that the bush is 11,000 years old. They simply think that when their god created the universe that it created it in such a way that things in it would appear to be different ages. There's no way that I know of arguing against this because you can't logically prove that everything is what it appears to be. On the other hand, you can't prove that it is true. Once again we find that the argument has turned to faith vs. rational thought. It's really a preference from there on.
      • Comment Submitted. There will be a delay before the comment becomes part of the static page. What you submitted appears below. If there is a mistake...well, you should have used the 'Preview' button!

        Wait! I used 'Preview' and I still made a mistake. What the hell?

        On the other hand, you can't prove that it is true.

        What I meant to say was:
        "On the other hand, you can't prove that it is false to assume so."

        freaking slashdot.
  • The idea of this bush being that old is mind blowing. It is awesome in the same way as that extremely large mushroom they found (covers acres I believe). As an animal, I can only consider such a thing and just gape.

    If you want to believe what you read in the book of Genesis in the Bible, the oldest man only lived to under a thousand (Methusulah or some such). As far as this bush is concerned, that person never even made it out of adolescence. The idea that this bush started growing while man was still very mired in the Stone Age is mind blowing. I suppose now we'll have to build a garbage dump on top of or something.

    "My what a short view you have Grandma."
    "All the better to crush you with, my dear."

  • How are they testing? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by arkham6 ( 24514 ) on Friday February 01, 2002 @12:54AM (#2935667)
    Someone please explain to me how they can use radio carbon dating on the bush? It was my understanding that RCD could tell the age of things because it counted the number of carbon 14 isotopes left in the item. As time goes on, that isotope decays, and that can tell an age. However, because its still alive, isnt its supply of carbon 14 still being replenished?
    • They don't perform carbon dating on a living part of the bush. As the story explains, new shoots on the upwind side can not survive... so the brush gradually "moves" downwind. They find root remains far upwind of the bush and test those.

      Having said that, I'll be surprised if they manage to find many 11 000 year old root remains with sufficient DNA remaining to confirm that they belong to the same plant.
      • Actually, considering the desert conditions under which the bush grows, I think they have a pretty good chance. Now if the bush was growing in a region where there was lots of rainfall, I'm sure the task might be near impossible due to the largely accelerated rate of decomposition. So it is quite possible that there are older things in the rain forest, but we have no way of knowing.
        • So it is quite possible that there are older things in the rain forest, but we have no way of knowing.

          IANB...

          I'm loathe to say anything is impossible, but I highly doubt it. The reason clones weaken isn't because they get weaker but because their attacker's get stronger. The current favorites in the apple world are all about 100-150 years old and need shitloads of pestisides. But they were originally selected for hardyness not just sweetness and color. It's just their viruses and parasites didn't stop evolving. (Apple trees are cloned because they "go to seed." Meaning the children are nothing like the parents. Now I know what my parents were talking about.)

          This bush can probably survive because there are few potential bugs in the neighborhood. In a rainforest there is so much life that something would evolve to attack it long before it turned 11kyo.

          Still a 11kyo plants makes me think there is probably a reason why our natural lifespans are limited. Maybe cuz populations that lived longer stiffled their descendants and hence lowered the fitness of the total population. I think that must have happened long before humans came along since the only animals that have a really long lifespan are fish and reptiles, no mammals that I know of. This last bit is just speculation, but I hope someone who can test the theory is thinking along these lines.

          • Apple trees are cloned because they "go to seed." Meaning the children are nothing like the parents.

            Quick illumination for why this is the case:
            The fruits of an apple tree (really, any plant) are generated by the female portion of the plant, which comes from only the tree that it is growing on. The seeds inside the fruit are generated out of both the male AND female parts, being the pollen blown in on the wind, and the ovum in the flower. Apples have an incredible amount of genetically variable characteristics, and a broad variety of "breeds" of apples can all interpollinate. Through meticulous hand-pollination (ot these days, genetic manipulation, too), an apple breeder will develop a trees that have desirable characteristics, say sweet tasting and shiny fruit, or disease resistant wood. They'll clone them, then graft the good fruiting branches to the hearty roots and start selling them to orchards.

            As an interesting comparison, pollen from hot pepper plants can spice up regular bell peppers without waiting a generation. That's because the capsaicin (what makes them hot) is produced in the *seeds*, not the flash of the fruit.

            A great explanation of apples genetics can be found in Shrinking the Cat [salon.com].

            • Another good book for those interested in this kind of thing is the Botany of Desire [amazon.com]. In the first quarter of the book he exaplains why apples grown from seed will never "come true" to their parents -- the fruit grown from a seed won't resemble the parent trees' fruit.

              He goes on to do similar explanations with potatoes, tulips, and marijuana.

          • It is however possible that various creepers could be even older. When I think of something like crab grass or mint which do a very nice job of taking over lawns and gardens, I don't find it too hard to believe that there could be something out there living a long time in the rainforest.

            Of course, somehow 15,000 year old grass just doesn't seem that interesting. b-)
    • As I understand it from the article, the bush sends out clone sprouts around itself which are literally the same plant (being connected by the root runners). The inner sections grow older and eventually die off, but the younger surrounding sprouts survive and continue to sprout outwards themselves. Scientists can take any preserved samples they can find of the older dead parts from the center and find out when the bush started growing (or at least measure the minimum of how old the bush is since even older parts may have completely disappeared with age).

      Because of the wind conditions of where this particular bush is growing, only the sprouts on the leeward side have survived and continued to propagate. Scientists searched in a line windward from the bush and followed the trace root remains as far as they could to find the oldest parts. These dead remains of an earlier part of the bush are what they are carbon dating.

      They pretty much say all this in the article, these are just the Cliff Notes.
    • Just to toss out a suggestion (its late, citations are for the weak), parts of wood are non-living, much like your outer layer of skin or fingernails. The carbon count in those sections would be constant. Whether or not they persist for the whole life of the plant, I don't know. I only work with things smaller than a cell, none of that weirdo organismal stuff =)

  • LOL (Score:1)

    by dh003i ( 203189 )
    LOL, the oldest thing on the earth is bush.
  • Yeah, the Bush dynasty has been pretty long-lasting. How many governors? Presidents?

    It threatens to beat out the Kennedys, for sure.
  • i'm sorry but Pat Buchanan has this bush beat for once.
  • And here I thought the oldest living thing was Dick Clark. Shows how much I know.
    -=Mike=-
  • I thought amoebas didn't die, they just reproduced. Unless you arbitrarily end it's lifespan at the point it splits, wouldn't that make them older?
  • I am not a biologist.

    I am wondering why organisms like these don't get bit rot in their chromosones and die. More specifically, I'm wondering why plants don't get cancer.

    Thinking about it. Over 11000 years, an organism must experience a hell of a lot of mutations in cell division, obviously most of which cause immediate cell death... but can someone just explain what happens to the mutations that don't die in plants like this?
  • Has its individual cells mutated into severl different strains?

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