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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 insane, that's so hot we'd burn our fingers if we touched the trees?!
That's 21C for anyone living in the 21st century.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
The first link is to a subscription-only site.
The second contains "warm" and fuzzy quotes like the following:
"Trees in chilly climates also have ways to make their leaves or needles retain more heat from the sun. Pine needles, for example, clump together. Think of gloves and mittens, Helliker says. If you're wearing gloves, wind can easily whip heat away from your individual fingers, leaving you cold. But if your fingers are all together in a mitten, they're going to be warmer.
Richter says the discovery isn't just fascinating science. It gives her a special kinship with trees.
On a recent day in Philadelphia when the mercury was near 100 degrees, she said, "I was staring at a hickory tree and its leaves were down â" they had wilted," she says. "And I was thinking, hey, it's hot, I'm hot. They enjoy 70 degrees, and I enjoy 70 degrees, too.""
A special kinship with trees?!? How did this make it to Nature?
... when placed into moist locations. Give me five!
Ok, no good comes from watching Scrubs.
I'm sure a war or two has been fought over whether toilet paper should be hung in the proper overhand fashion or the grotesque underhand abomination.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Yes, clearly everything runs smoothly when people work in different units. Nothing could ever go wrong. Nobody could spend millions on a probe only to smash it into a planet instead, right?
Sometimes it's worth an inconvenience...
what's that now?
Don't use that M-word around trees. They'll get very nervous hearing that!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
YYYY-MM-DD(ISO 8601) is the only correct format. When you specify dates in that format, you can sort things chronologically simply by sorting them alphanumerically.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Mod parent down. This is absolute rubbish, how did it get to +5 informative? I assume it's there as a joke so it should only be +5 funny, or possibly now, +5 fooled Slashdot. I am a plant physiologist, there are three basic types of chlorophyll in land plants, a,b & c. They have slightly different spectra, but they are not blue and yellow, they all have minimal absorbance in the green part of the spectrum and thus look green. The yellows and reds in senescing leaves are from carotenoids and anthocyanins.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
The evolution of chlorophyll followed (perhaps in Cyanobacteria) in organisms at the bottom of the sea. These were the first organisms to fix carbon dioxide. Being at the bottom of the ocean, only the far bands of visible light were available to them (blue and red), and hence green chlorophyll evolved.
Since then, accessory pigments have also evolved (e.g. phycobiliproteins), which have reclaimed other parts of the visible spectrum, and changed the colour of the plants or algae.
The rest of the world really needs to start using only English. Honestly, it really is worth the effort to switch.
I'm generally in favor of metrication and the use of metric units, but the issue of temperature is a key exception. The Fahrenheit scale is more precise, and its zero-to-100 degree range more realistically covers the spectrum of what one would typically see on a weather report.
I sometimes wonder why Celsius is considered a metric measure to begin with: It predates the advent of the modern metric system itself. Its zero-degree reference point is just as arbitrary as Fahrenheit's in the big scheme of things. And, the measure doesn't employ metric prefixes (although I suppose they could conceivably be appropriated for the purpose).