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Scientists Discover Another 'Extinct' Tree
meta5table writes "Scientists have just discovered a previously extinct tree in Mauritius. This is not quite as significant as the Wollemi Pine, but it is still pretty cool. Now I just wish someone would find a thylacine."
Perfect! I'm running low on post-its already!
Yes, Elvis is keeping them alive in Area 51 so they can gnaw on Hitler's brain.
It seems to me that if the tree is in an area subjected to harsh environments that have landslides and fires might not be a candidate for forgetting about natural selection. That bit seemed a bit hokey to me. It's in this supposedly dangerous area, yet it's over 100 years old. There can't be *that* high a risk of these problems.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
when a mummy thylacine and a daddy thylacine
You are suggesting necrophillia!?
Besides it wouldn't work.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Figure this, I live in Mauritius which is a small island of a million and a few thousand inhabitants and I first read about this tree on Slashdot.
I think I need to take a break from the WWW.
Mauritius is the island where the Dodo bird lived, before being hunt to extinction by the early visitors to the island.
Mauritius and its neighbouring isles are homes for many rare trees and animals, among which are the VERY rare Pink Pigeon, Echo Parakeet and the Mauritian Kestrel which was once, the World's rarest bird.
For those who care to know more visit
http://www.maurinet.com/wildlife.html
http://www.themyp.com
http://www.mauritian-wildlife.org
And maybe it was the fear of being buried in billions of tonnes of speeding, sediment-laden water that killed off the trilobites?
A pity; I'd like some for my garden pool, and am looking forward to live ones being discovered, as the Coelacanth was.
How about you?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Mammals drink moms milk.
They are split into three categories: placental, marsupials and monotremes.
Placental=gestate in womb, these are most common, like homo sapiens and pigs.
Marsupials=pouched animals, mother has no placenta, like kangaroos.
Monotremes=rare these animals are egg-laying, a reminder of things past, like the duck-billed platypus.
You are welcome.
I'll refer to my personal hero, George Carlin, on this one:
Carlin on the word "Indian"
The short version is that what we call India was called Hindustan back then. Columbus came back to Spain (being an Italian guy that didn't speak great Spanish) and told the court he had found "Una gente in Dios," a people in God. "In dios" became "Indian".
-B
You mentioned the thylacine, a.k.a. the Tazmanian Tiger. They actually have a fetal specimine preserved...I bet it won't be long until they are able to clone it.
Also, I saw a nice conspiracy show that claimed that there are actually a few left in the wild.
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
Well, that'd be the [i]normal[/i] thylacine way, but then there's also... when a cloning scientist takes cells from daddy's butt-hair and injects them into a kangaroo egg...
You don't understand either the scientific knowledge to be gained from studying it, or the human interest in seeing a glimpse into life on earth 150M yrs ago?
It also happens to produce Taxol, so has huge commercial possibilities medicinally as well as horticulturally.
But the rest of the respondents are correct, the anglo-saxons are not much different from others: you only have to look at the mess the Chinese have made, or the emergent situation in India. When population pressure and wildlife habitat collide, wildlife always loses, because animals don't vote, now do they?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
But it's a marsupial, not a mammal. Or are marsupials mammals?
Best Slashdot Co
Supporting evidence here and here.
--
Amazing! Someone mentions goat sex and it's not off topic.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
If you'd read the article, you'd see that this wasn't the case as some of the 67 specimins on this island might be as old as 1000 years. It was thoguht extinct becausen one had been seen since the early 19th century.
I'll bite. Ilyich, what was the plant that was presumed extinct that you rediscovered?
This is you? I am impressed! Too bad for your sake that I'm not some cute blonde 19 year old impressed coed, but I am impressed all the same.... I've always wondered how you verify the discovery / recovery of a new / rare species. Usually I wonder this right when some cool looking gold-shelled beetle with emerald green eyes lands nearby and I wonder if this is a new species that I could name cybrpnkii bugii.... Please allow me to read between the lines of your postings and make a comment or two. So what if nobody else around you thinks trees are cool or even doesn't care about your solid achievements as a naturalist? What you care about IS important, whether anybody shares that with you or not, and deep inside you obviously know that. The world is full of people who don't care and own chain saws. The day that the few people like you stop caring about conservation is the day the last field gets paved over, and that will be a very bad day indeed. It's people like you who poke around under rocks in the forest (so to speak) that have given all of us the keys to genetic engineering and leads on a cure for cancer. This is important even tho the financial rewards are often lacking...So best of wishes on your wildlife pursuits, and who knows, I'm a Tennessee native (Go Vols!) living in north Alabama, if I ever bump in to you in Gatlinburg or the Smokies, the drinks are on me! -cybrpnk (rickyjames@email.com)
I saw your namesake's tomb in Moscow back in 1993... I was part of a Boeing team that was launching a protein crystal experiment to Mir. Russia, what a country...just like Chicago back in the 20s...
I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading from /.ers about how "trees aren't news for geeks". Come on!!! Trees are where books come from!!! Trees are exercises in fractal mathematics!!! Trees are how apes like us escaped extinction from feline and canine predators!!! Trees are just plain cool in several meanings of the word!!! And extinct trees are yet another arena to play Jurassic Park!!!
Speaking of extinct trees (or those almost so), nothing can top the story of the American Chestnut ... from "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" fame. More details here. There is hope that one day these magnificent trees will be
revived ...
"Broccoli is getting pissed!!!"
*chuckle*
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
There are two places where a morality discussion is futile:
1) Titty bar
2) Slashdot.
As a woodworker I can't wait to cut one down and make a Humidor!
Seriously though it would be good to see our own countries doing a little more to conserving and reseeding our forests with native trees rather than just the ones that'll make the most profit. It takes a Maple take 100 years to grow but that's no excuse to grow 4 crops of pine or the likes in that time solely for profit.
My opinions are my own, if they were to be shared by others the world would be a scary place!!
Now I just wish someone would find a thylacine. .....
We need to find two; you see, when a mummy thylacine and a daddy thylacine love each other very much
My parents have a 50-year-old blight-resistant American Chestnut in the front yard in NH. Beautiful tree, great chestnut yield, and about a week's worth of work to pick up all the "flowers" and "porcupine eggs" every year. The town wanted to cut it down to widen a road, but when they realized what it was, they left it alone.
I'm not an ecofreak, but it takes profound ignorance (or denial) to not see that decreased biodiversity will create a lot of problems. We are currently in the midst of the sixth great extinction that has occurred during the history of life. If current trends continue, within a century this event will become both the fastest and the most sweeping extinction ever, beating even the great Permian extinction of about 275 million years ago, and absolutely dwarfing the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) dinosaur extinction caused by a giant meteorite 60 million years ago. Every day more than a hundred species disappear. One or two have probably evaporated while you are reading this post.
Ha ha, another tropical tree is extinct. Or beetle. Or slouch rat. Or passion flower. The mall is still open, the sky is still blue, and besides, we've got films of all that stuff we can watch on the Discovery Channel. So what?
Messing with biodiversity is no laughing matter. After the Permian extinction, fungi were temporarily the dominant life form on Earth. Sure, in a few tens of millions of years, whatever's left after we're finished will begin speciating again, and eventually restore biodiversity. In the meantime, however, remember that we evolved not as a stand-alone species, but as nodes in a great web, a network of interdependent creatures, feedback loops, and survival dependencies. Air, water, and soil all depend on this network. Our food, our health, our very breath depend on it. (For the cost/benefit analysis crowd -- our economy depends on it.) Like a well-designed computer net, the web of life is fault-tolerant and self-healing...up to a point. After that point, the network crashes and burns.
Wilson suggests imagining sitting in the window seat of a jetliner as it taxis to the runway. As you look out on the wing you can see the rows of rivets holding the wings together. Each makes an undetermined contribution to the ability of the plane to fly. Now, as you watch, a few of the rivets start popping out. The process continues...at what point do you start to wonder about the integrity of the wing? More succinctly, at what point do you start to feel afraid?
Biodiversity is like this. No one can say when the crucial rivet has popped. But even if the crucial rivet is still (temporarily) in place, risk begins accumulating at an ever-increasing rate. We are right to be afraid of losing diversity. Already, we've undertaken enormous risk. Is there anyone out there who really thinks we need to keep converting the biomass of other species into ever more biomass of our own? (For starters, I can think of better things to do with Imperial Woodpecker meat than turn it into Mexican Truckdriver meat.) Nothing will get better with billions more people, and a lot of things will get worse.
If you want to check out some well-written and interesting books on the subject, Wilson's book Biodiversity is a good read, as well as Roger Lewin's and Richard Leakey's book The Sixth Extinction.
Scientists have just discovered a previously extinct tree in Mauritius.
Wow, it was previously extinct? Did it spontaneously re-evolve from a related species? Or maybe the science of Jurassic Park isn't as far off as we thought...
(Note to moderators: This should be classed as Funny, not Insightful.)
The heart has reasons that reason does not understand. - Jacques Bènigne Bossuet
Do viable, yet ungerminated, seeds count as an extant tree? Or does there need to be a growing specimen in order for a plant to count as still extant?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Actually, LCTS is quite avialable and usually ships within 24 hours at Amazon
Extremely interesting, and of course we will be allowed to tamper with these endangered trees, possibly endangering them further, so that we can make some money.
Humans have always been at odds with nature, and at this point in time have the ability to greatly impact the course of evolution, by both driving some life forms to extinction, and preserving other out-of-time life, mostly depending on cuteness or how much money might be gained in marketing panda liver pate.
I am intrigued by the pursuit of knowledge, but attaching artificial significance to something because it either makes you feel good or could make you some money has nothing to do with that pursuit. It is a by-product, and should not be the drive. If we choose to preserve this tree, that decision should not be influenced by the commercial possibilities.
How willing would we be to preserve this tree if it produced a noxious gas as a waste product, instead of oxygen as most plants do? What of the plight of the small pox virus? Shall we let small pox die out merely because it suits us?
Dinsdale . . . .
Do not touch -Willie
While moving a crated cage a worker slips and is dragged screaming into the cage before his comrades can rescue him. The camera pans past a rainsoaked corner of the crate as lightning flashes...Danger: Jurassic Flytrap!
Brrr....
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
(Currently backordered at Amazon, unfortunately.)
Great book. Well worth the (quick) read... funny... interesting... inspiring... touching...
Thylacine@Home : use your computer to help search the Tasmanian northlands for signs of this elusive marsupial cat-dog.
--Blair
"I see a great need."
when a species becomes extinct due to nature, it is natural selection... humans are a part of nature as well... why try to save every species? we can't do it, first of all, and secondly- it will make our ecosystem stagnant.
The last pyrenesse mountain goat left in the world was on a 24hr watch by park rangers. There was talk of cloning it, using a related goat species as the surrogate mother.
And then a tree fell on it...
Plants seem to be a little more resistant to extinction. Even though all members of the species have disappeared, the seeds may still exist, and they can remain fertile for many years before finally sprouting.
This may have happened here.
You're right. From now on I will refer to them as the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes.
It's awful how the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes were persecuted and faced genocide.
I truly feel sorry for the Peoples of the Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narranganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, and Shinnicock Tribes.
m00.