Posted by
timothy
on 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."
Re:How are they testing?
by
leastsquares
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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.
Re:How are they testing?
by
Dancing+Tree
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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.
-- :::Horrendous Experiences Make Amusing Anecdotes:::
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
:::Horrendous Experiences Make Amusing Anecdotes:::