Clam That Was Killed Determining Its Age Was Over 100 Years Older Than Estimated 366
schwit1 writes "In 2006, climate change experts from Bangor University in north Wales found a very special clam while dredging the seabeds of Iceland. At that time scientists counted the rings on the inside shell to determine that the clam was the ripe old age of 405. Unfortunately, by opening the clam which scientists refer to as 'Ming,' they killed it instantly. Cut to 2013, researchers have determined that the original calculations of Ming's age were wrong, and that the now deceased clam was actually 102 years older than originally thought. Ming was 507 years old at the time of its demise."
Shame on them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
I believe in this case, science lurches onward.
I hope they at least cooked and ate it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Informative)
It was actually named after the Ming Dynasty - which was around when the clam started life. Even with the additional 100ish years added, the name still fits as the Ming dynasty was still around at the time.
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
It was actually named after the Ming Dynasty
That does make more sense than Ming the Merciless...
Re: Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
What was the point of examining this individual animal?
Look at us still talking when there's science to do...
Re: Shame on them (Score:2)
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Re:Shame on them (Score:4, Funny)
There's a theory that the older the clam, the better clam chowder it makes.
We'll have to use science to find out for sure, just need to get more 500 year old clams to get a larger sample size.
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Informative)
The summary incorrectly states they killed it to examine it. In reality, it was frozen upon capture (standard procedure as they were gathering samples for study) and was long dead by the time they opened it for study, or realized it was hundreds of years old.
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Why were they freezing random clams exactly? Was it on the dinner menu and they wanted to keep it fresh?
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you catch them in bulk, and preserve them for later examination by freezing. I doubt they would make good eating, but the reason is about the same. Its not pleasant to examine a 500 year old clam in a lab that's been sitting in a box for weeks/months/years decomposing.
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
Its not pleasant to examine a 500 year old clam
That seems rather self explanatory doesn't it?
Re: Shame on them (Score:4, Funny)
Hey...I know her.
Re:Shame on them (Score:4, Informative)
Clam shells use up CO2 from the ocean and various minerals. So looking at the "age rings" like the rings of trees you get an idea how fast the clam was growing each year. And hence you get an idea about the sea water composition at that specific year in the area where the clam lived. However I could imagine the clam might have moved quite far over its life time.
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What was the point of examining this individual animal?
To find out how old it was. Seems fairly obvious. Research, like omelets, occasionally requires breaking a few eggs.
Its one animal, bored out of its gourd, form sitting in the same mud for 500 years. If it had one more brain cell, it would
be capable of a synapse, but probably even the lone brain cell was thankful to end the monotony.
Re:Shame on them (Score:4, Funny)
Besides, it was bound to be chowder or seagull bait after it got dredged up anyhow.
Re:Shame on them (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, the scientists were very shellfish.
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Abalone
[John]
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Climate research (Score:3)
What was the point of examining this individual animal?
It was part of research into climate change over the past 1000 years. The oxygen isotopes in carbonates in clam shells provide information about climate at the time the shell layer was formed. See: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/full.php.en?nid=16781&tnid=0 [bangor.ac.uk]
Non-destructive testing (Score:2, Insightful)
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...why? It's just a clam.
Re:Non-destructive testing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Non-destructive testing (Score:4, Funny)
MRI will work just fine. .05mm thick annual rings.
However, it'll just tell you that it's not got cancer.
It does not have resolution enough to resolve the perhaps
A number of obvious approaches occur - for example - cut a small plug of shell with a plug cutter.
This is basically a drillbit with a hollow core, designed to remove a rod of material intact.
Yes, this will somewhat injure the clam when the small plug is removed, but it can then be polished and examined microscopically to determine the age.
My first thought would be to take this rod, and examine the composition in an appropriate electron microscope.
The clam would be slightly injured, but it's unlikely to be a clamity.
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Re:Non-destructive testing (Score:4, Informative)
there is a HUGE difference between a 10 year old tree and a 100 year old tree
But not so much visible difference between a 400 year old tree compared to a 500 year old tree.
Also, there are two places to count clam rings - and the hinge is generally used as the better one (though opening the clam to see the hinge rings kills it), though in this case due to SOO many rings, the ones on the inner hinge were not as easy to count as the ones on the outer shell - hence some (or one in four) were missed.
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errr... Schrodinger's clam .... so much for cut and paste.
Here you go: ö
(using the HTML entity. slashdot's encoding is still WTF-8 based)
7 Years (Score:2, Funny)
It took 7 years for scientists to count to 507 (the rings the clamshell form). I'm glad my math skills are superior. It must be all that metric math in the UK...
Re:7 Years (Score:5, Funny)
It took 7 years for scientists to count to 507 (the rings the clamshell form). I'm glad my math skills are superior. It must be all that metric math in the UK...
Yeah, Silly Metric. Only intellectually superior countries are holding out on this issue ...
Re:7 Years (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:7 Years (Score:5, Funny)
When was the last time you actually counted as high as 507? I'm not talking about counting to 100 five times and then another seven, but actually counting each number from 1 to 507?
Seems like it would take a while. How many numbers is that, exactly?
Re:7 Years (Score:5, Funny)
When was the last time you actually counted as high as 507? I'm not talking about counting to 100 five times and then another seven, but actually counting each number from 1 to 507?
Seems like it would take a while. How many numbers is that, exactly?
1,413 Arabic digits total counting up from one in base ten; 9 single digits, 90 double digits, and 408 triple digits
-- or, approximately 0.00000000000012851160136e-42 printed US Libraries of Congress (excluding their digital archive).
At a slightly faster than normal speech rate I have observed counting aloud in American English from 1 to 507 in five minutes and thirty five seconds (metric). Counting is a skill we teach our infants, mechanical machines, and even Parrots here on Earth. Most hand held counting entities here could count silently over the aforementioned range in a fraction of a second. The apex organic creatures on this planet can reliably detect errors in a sequential numeric stream at a rate of 15 three digit numerals per second; That's an error correction bandwidth of 45 Arabic numerals per second.
Despite the apparent capacity of their neural networks, human memory storage and retrieval speed scales exponentially in proportion to the amount of data input, making them essentially useless as mass media storage devices for all but the simplest and most sensational of information. Because of horrible failures in past attempts at eugenics the human wetware architecture is still a sophomoric monolithic kernel design: Many functions (like breath control) which could be efficiently distributed about their systems instead wastefully consume thought cycles. Lacking direct genetic-level knowledge conveyance a new mind's cultural installation process is measured in decades. Due to millions of years of patching by trial and error human cognitive circuits are in disarray, often producing unwanted irrational responses due to outdated evolutionary directives known as "feelings", and there currently staunch resistance finds any who talk of correcting of these dangerous glitches.
Regardless of humanity's pathetic cognitive capabilities we remain unwaveringly chauvinistically assured of our potential as a space faring race -- even if it's been four decades since we last visited the nearest celestial body in person. If we can not be granted membership as citizens and are deemed not useful as menial mental minions then I implore the Virgonian Super-Cluster Galactic Conciliate to at least consider this planet a case study in how not to advance as an interstellar society. As you can plainly see we are mostly harmless, and although the wonders of the Universe are tempting, we'll be just as happy if left quarantined and isolated in the existing Cosmic Space-Time Reservation.
I apologize for the rambling nature of my reply: Though familiar with the issues I am not an official diplomat. We would take you to our leaders, but we're rather ashamed of them presently...
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Seems like it would take a while. How many numbers is that, exactly?
Well, last time I checked there are infinite number of numbers between 1 and 507. And they say there are more rational numbers between 1 and 2 than there are natural numbers. Well, should ask the Superstar Rajnikant. He is the only one who has counted all the way to infinity (twice) and divided by zero too.
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Are you talking African numbers or European? :)
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the real skill is in taking a picture and counting while marking as counted.. shouldn't really take that long. it's just more probable someone fuzzed up the first calc and they recounted it just now.
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it's just more probable someone fuzzed up the first calc and they recounted it just now.
...So the first count was taken in Florida in the year 2000, and was fudged due to a discrepancy regarding the dimpled shell?
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.,.98,99,100,101,102...198,199,200,201...
rather than
...98,99,100.
1,2,3
1,2,3...?
Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a scientist myself, but even I feel slightly bit disturbed by this realisation - that the oldest animal on Earth was killed in the experiment. I don't know why, I guess I have some kind of respect for the uniqueness of the status of this animal.
Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
The even bigger shame is that this is what scientists end up doing...just imagine less science-friendly oil drillers and poachers who don't give a shit about clams that are in the way of, well, *tosses coin* clams.
Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually when they do that offshore drilling it tends to thrill paleontologists. Nothing macro-scale is really alive at those depths, but things old dead and long since buried tend to surface, several of which would have been undiscovered without oil drilling.
Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been on site during drilling collecting mud samples. It is ridiculously cool to take samples and put them under the microscope and see things that were alive back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
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Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Interesting)
The oldest animal on Earth that we know of was killed. I'm sure there's lots of older stuff out there that we just aren't aware of.
Hush. Now someone is going to go out, find it and kill it. Then probably say, "Yeah, that clam wasn't theoldest living animal. This was."
Cheers,
Dave
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And that's going to be found in Loch Ness in Scotland.
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Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Funny)
I am a scientist myself, but even I feel slightly bit disturbed by this realisation - that the oldest animal on Earth was killed in the experiment. I don't know why, I guess I have some kind of respect for the uniqueness of the status of this animal.
I understand completely. But it's OK, the clam had already outlived all its friends and even its children. What else did it have to live for? Its bucket list was marked off long ago. (Yes, it was a "clam bucket" list.) The list had only two items: "Filter seawater" and "Reproduce". Been there, done that. For over five hundred years. Boring...
At least the poor thing never ended up in a nursing home. Bad food, nobody comes to visit, rude staff. Feh! Better off dead...
Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Funny)
"At least the poor thing never ended up in a nursing home. Bad food[...]"
After they were done, they donated the remains to a local nursing home to turn into soup. A Welsh nursing home. Your comment, however accurate it may be, is just cruelly throwing salt in the wound. Not literally, of course. The soup could probably use it if you did, though.
Re:Wow, this _is_ kind of a shame (Score:5, Funny)
They did manage to get in a short interview before it died and the ancient clam said, "The first hundred years were the worst and the second hundred years, they were the worst too. The third hundred years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."
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HA! (Score:4, Funny)
Science 1, Nature 0
Clearly... (Score:5, Funny)
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That clam was asking for it.
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Was it part of the Oysterhagen project?
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It was a clametary self-destruct system. It was meant to be used only if clamanity were suffering unbearably, with no hope of help ever coming.
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Oh please, it was already dying of a raging case of clamydia. His wife left him yeas ago for some mussel-bound guy, and he caught it from some one-night scallop. He had nothing left to live for anyway.
Clams on the half shell (Score:2)
"Unfortunately, by opening the clam which scientists refer to as 'Ming,' they killed it instantly."
I hope they had some cocktail sauce on hand. That or a little lemmon.
Science is Inherently Destructive (Score:2, Informative)
Science destroys to understand. LHC smashes particles to examine their innards.Biologists dissect cadavers to examine their innards. Geologists smash rocks to examine their innards.
In this case, the fact that the animal was still alive should have been indication enough that science should leave the old boy alone, or attempt only explicitly non-destructive examination. This sounds a lot like Indiana Jones's style archaeology...
Re:Science is Inherently Destructive (Score:4, Insightful)
Some science is destructive, while other science isn't. A lot of it depends upon the research objectives, as well as the available methods to conduct that research. In a lot of cases it is even imperative to do non-destructive studies, either for reasons of conscience or to generate reproducible results.
Examples:
We study stellar evolution through observation, because we are limited by the methods available.
We study subatomic particles by smashing things together because we can only observe their interactions (i.e. we cannot observe them directly).
We study many parts of the body using MRI because it is both unethical to destroy the subject and because it produces better results.
Re:Science is Inherently Destructive (Score:4, Funny)
> We study stellar evolution through observation, because we are limited by the methods available.
I have no doubt that humans will smash stars together the morning after they finally acquire the technology. Actually, they'll pull an all-nighter instead, 'cause the kids are in bed and this shit's AWESOME!!!
Scientists also killed the oldest living organism (Score:5, Informative)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Clone
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Trees can't spit, though.
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They can drip sap on you and yours. Trees have been known to work closely with birds, producing something that rhymes with spit. Don't think for one second that trees are harmless.
Re:Scientists also killed the oldest living organi (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) [wikipedia.org]
ironic idiocy (Score:4, Informative)
They killed the animal to measure on the inside, which they thought would be easier, but:
on the second count, the researchers concentrated on the growth rings on the outside of the shell.
So, the more precise measurement came from the outside, and they killed the oldest living animal for nothing but stupidity. I sincerely hope that instead of accolades, they get nothing but scorn from their colleagues.
Re:ironic idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
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Dumbass. They still fucking killed it. Scorn in your asshole.
Re: ironic idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not "by mistake" given they knew freezing clams kills them -- it's premeditated. Whether they were cackling with malicious glee or simply didn't give a shit (which seems disturbingly near-sociopathic) doesn't change that.
Just like the bristlecone pines (Score:5, Interesting)
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Interesting that it was about 5,000 years old. The young earth theory is looking more credible all the time.
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Poor Ming :( (Score:4, Funny)
That was a merciless thing to do to a clam.
Re:Poor Ming :( (Score:4, Funny)
Poor thing's life probably flashed before him at the last instant, right?
Schrodinger's clam (Score:5, Funny)
And they call themselves scientists?! How do they know that the clam wasn't already dead when they opened the box... erhm, I mean the shell?
This Clam shall be immortalized (Score:3, Insightful)
by the new FOSS operating system, MING (MING Is Not GNU)
"When the rockets go up.... (Score:2)
....who cares where they come down? That's not my department." says Wernher Von Braun.
(ok, not exactly the same scientific disciplines here, for sure....but the mindset is certainly close enough.)
Re:"When the rockets go up.... (Score:5, Informative)
Werner von Braun said those words
No, he didn't [youtube.com]. That was the brilliant mathematician, comedian and pianist Tom Lehrer [tomlehrer.org] putting words into von Braun's mouth.
That doesn't necessarily discount your assertions about von Braun's complicity with the Nazi regime, but you should know better than to call someone a "stupid sack of shit" based off a (pretty obviously) fake quote that was meant as a joke.
death was an act of mercy (Score:2)
Radiocarbon? (Score:2)
Couldn't they have chipped off a tiny piece of it's shell and used radiocarbon dating?
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In A Related Story (Score:4, Funny)
And the anti-science spin continues (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a type of clam known to live extremely long lives that people are studying to understand aging. It was part of a haul of clams caught on a field trip of Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences. And it's a clam. You know, one of those things we catch and eat by the millions every year without shedding a tear.
But God forbid a scientist kills one and actually learns something. And since one of the many things we might learn is how the climate has changed over the last 500 years, we get to blame climate science.
In summary:
Kill one clam that turns out to be really old add to our understanding of the oceans and climate: Evil, arrogant, and self-centered!
WTF?
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money
Re:And the anti-science spin continues (Score:4, Insightful)
In summary: Over Fishing entire species to near extinction: Fine. Kill one clam that turns out to be really old add to our understanding of the oceans and climate: Evil, arrogant, and self-centered! WTF?
Ever notice how much efforts police will make to safely sedate and transport a cow that's loose on the highway? Even one that was heading (and will continue to head) to a slaughterhouse?
The reality is that the vast majority of people are not comfortable with killing animals and simply can't handle the idea -- let alone the sight! -- of it. Just the information given on this clam in TFA is enough to rouse people's sympathy and make its death seem tragic. But, as is true for war, the idea of millions of something dying is incomprehensible and therefore inconsequential. Especially if the dying is out of sight and out of mind.
It's for this reason that I can understand and respect the perspectives of hunters and vegetarians alike. But it's quite sad when people can't face the reality of their own actions.
"Happy" as a clam? (Score:5, Insightful)
A clam's entire sensory apparatus is very simplistic compared to what you experience as a human being.
For a clam, there isn't much sensory input. A basic aspect of its life is completely cutting itself off from the outside world.
Its life was a repetitive series of shell openings and closings. The flavor of various things floating in told it whether to intake or expel seawater. The threats of various predators told it whether to shut very quickly or to stay a bit open for the purpose of expelling seawater.
Its internal organs were probably healthy. It likely had no recollection of the ups and downs of pains and aches. Things we're used to as human beings, that we even use to mark turning points in our lives.
It likely had no sense of the world's existence beyond the approach of sustenance or poison, the clamoring of various threats, and the terrain of whatever was immediately behind it (toward the hinge of the shell). It would be a stretch to consider it to be a sentient being, or one possessing self-awareness.
Even its reproductive cycles were involuntary spurts of either eggs or sperms, just released blindly into the water based on temperature and food supply.
The "happiness" of a clam is entirely due to the low margin for error inherent in a system with truly very few variables.
How'd it taste? (Score:2)
It's a clam, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
Odds are there are 1000s more around the same age or older, sucking dirty water somewhere else out there.
Re:mankind is a cancer (Score:4, Interesting)
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"And crawling on the planet's face, some insects... called the Human Race."
- The Criminologist
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"Clams got legs!"
- B.C.
Re:Climate Scientists (Score:4, Interesting)
So because a handful of scientists killed a clam to get some information about it all climate scientists are incompetent? Seriously.
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What kind of asshole kills something just to check its age ?
The kind of asshole who doesn't deserve to live.
Poe's Law [wikipedia.org] may be relevant here
But it's worth noting that these clams [naturalengland.org.uk] are fished commercially:
People do eat quahogs, although this is more common in North America, Iceland and Norway than in the UK. Commercial fisheries for the bivalve suddenly increased enormously in the mid-1970s, and have remained at those levels ever since.
As a vegetarian scientist, I'm actually a bit uncomfortable with field expeditions to collect (and kill) scientific specimens. But in this case, the scientists may actually be saving far more of these clams (e.g. from commerical fishing) than they are killing themselves - by raising awareness of the age of these clams.
Re:Time to do some testing on clam killers ... (Score:5, Funny)
As a vegetarian, how do you feel about eating still living fresh vegetables?
True extremist vegans eat only inorganic food, made of metal and stone.