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Trees' Leaves Grow At a Cool 70° All Over the World
biogeochick writes "Ever turn on the air conditioner on a hot day? How about a heater when it gets cold? OK, so we all know that humans act to keep themselves cool, but what about trees? A recent article on tree core isotopic evidence has shown that trees from tropical to boreal forests all grow at 70 degrees. The study, published in Nature by some fantastic researchers (so one of them is my adviser, so sue me) and covered by NPR on All Things Considered, has shed some light on the convergent temperature at which trees perform photosynthesis." Update: 06/19 21:31 GMT by T : I give, I give -- that's 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's about 21.11 degrees Celsius.
Americans really need to start using the metric system. Honestly, it really is worth the effort to switch.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'd imagine that the range of structures that can produce chlorophyll-like function is constrained, and that such structures with broader absorption either aren't possible or aren't evolutionarily reachable.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
If I recall my chemistry correctly, I think you mean 70 Kelvin, the Kelvin scale does not use degrees.
My other sig is extremely clever...
It's got nothing to do with getting upset. It's about sheer convenience. In large swathes of the World the metric system has been the only system taught for decades and this is an internationally read website which has (I suspect) a demographic bias towards younger people. Providing temperatures in a system that large portions of its readers may not know off the top of their head seems silly and unncessary when all that was needed was a "70F (21C)" to save potentially some x thousand readers have to go Google it or, God forbid, read the article.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
But seriously, when did Fahrenheit stop working?
About the same time that furlongs per fortnight ceased to be a useful measure of speed.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
"3) 96F - average body temperature"
That's nuts! An AVERAGE temperature to calibrate a thermometer? That's the same thing as calibrating my speedometer in my car to the average speed of a laden swallow.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Which is another way of saying 'less than 5% of the population of the world still uses Fahrenheit'. Looked at that way I'd assert it's in exactly the same league, or, indeed, the same 5.560 kilometres.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
TFA should be: "TTrees' Leaves Grow At a Cool 70 in the USA and Myanmar And At a Cool 21 Everywhere Else Where The Middle Ages Have Ended And The Age Of Enlightment Has Arrived", but they ran out of space. Strings in Slashdot have a 120 character limit, you know.
Latest System? Are you daft? Celsius has been the standard for science and, well, everywhere except the US, for a long time. Just because the US has been staunchly ignoring the rest of the world's units and measures doesn't mean that it's this newfangled temperature scale only commies and Jews use.
No, you missed the point - Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin, it doesn't matter. What matters is that the unit is *specified* correctly. A 'degree' unit is a 360th of a single complete angular rotation. Obviously a 'degree C' or 'degree F' is completely different.
There's nothing wrong with specifying a non-standard unit, as long as it's specified accurately. Doing conversions is all part of the fun.
Why is it remarkable? We live on the same planet...
Now if trees were from Venus and preferred 70F temperatures, that would be remarkable. What's not remarkable is that both trees and humans prefer an environment they evolved in.
The worst part is the article says "21 C" - meaning the guy who submitted this had to do extra work to make it that way.
=Smidge=
I think I'd call it a minority. It's supposed to be an international system of measures. At this point, I'd call said country rather backwards. Especially considering you can't even walk into a science classroom in any university in the US and use the imperial system. SI is the way of science, and the way of the world, except for the US - a paltry 300 million people who are falling behind the rest of the world.
Of course it is Fahrenheit, but why the hell the temperature in a real unit is not at the post's update?
Evidently, you don't have a passport. In the rest of the world, Fahrenheit is about as commonly used as the cubit.
You are missing the elegance and simplicity of using ice water and body temperature to calibrate thermometers. In the 18th century, every thermometer was hand calibrated. Plunge the thermometer into a vat of ice water and make a mark. Plunge the thermometer into your body, make another mark. If you are using ancillary temperature (under the arm) rather than oral or rectal temperature (and really, where would you rather stick that thermometer?), 96 is pretty close. Make 64 evenly spaced marks between the two marks by subdividing by 2 six times. Why not use the boiling point of water? The simple answer is that it is too hot. You would end up with a thermometer unsuitable for measuring outdoor temperatures in a fancy garden, which I imagine were the most profitable sales of the thermometers.
Notice that 32 is also a power of two, and that there are 180 degrees between the boiling point of water and the freezing point.
the 1 Kelvin just happens to about 1 degree C but the definitions are indpendent