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Scientists Clone Oldest Living Organism

Posted by kdawson on from the knew-ayers-rock-when-it-was-just-a-meteorite dept.

goran72 sends along the story of the world's oldest living organism, a shrub that grows in Tasmania and reproduces only by cloning. Tasmanian scientists have cloned Lomatia tasmanica as part of a battle to save it from a deadly fungus. From the RTBG's press release (which seems to load slowly in the US):"The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens [RTBG] is working towards securing the future of a rare and ancient Tasmanian native plant... Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's Lomatia, is critically endangered with less than 500 plants growing in the wild in a tiny pocket of Tasmania's isolated south west. The RTBG has been propagating the plant from cuttings since 1994... 'Fossil leaves of the plant found in the south west were dated at 43,600 years old and given that the species is a clone, it is possibly the oldest living plant in the world,' [Botanist Natalie Tapson] said."

12 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Way of the Dodo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So can we have our Dodo bird back?

    1. Re:Way of the Dodo? by node+3 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I guess we will watch Jurassic Park 4 live. :)

      But only for dinosaurs that are not extinct, and naturally reproduce by cloning.

      Great work scientists! You've cloned an already self-cloning plant! Maybe next you can work on creating flying birds...

    2. Re:Way of the Dodo? by D+Ninja · · Score: 2, Funny

      Jurassic Park 4 Live, huh? I hear the theaters are going to charge an arm and a leg just to see it...

    3. Re:Way of the Dodo? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nono, every 20,000 years or so an advanced civilization rises up from the prairies and survives roughly long enough to clone the plant in a lab. The plant has naturally evolved a mechanism whereby it propagates a miles-wide fibrous network of false fossils to interest paleontologists, with the most interesting fossils around the plant itself.

      It's an extraordinarily patient tree.

  2. Re:not necessarily oldest living organism by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're quite liberal with definitions in Tasmania. If there's more than a year age gap then technically your sister isn't a relative.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. Re:why whatcouldpossiblygowrong? by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 5, Funny

    I might agree, except that I was delighted how close that tag came to "what could possibly grow wrong".

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    Everything will be taken away from you.
  4. Oldest living organism? by Gudeldar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since when were clones of something considered to be the same organism. I better tell my friend who has an identical twin that she is technically the same person as her sister.

    1. Re:Oldest living organism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I did them both, and I couldn't tell the difference.

  5. Re:Why? by sayfawa · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...and the sound while a tad disturbing was hilarious as well.

    It's true. This documentary has the actual call of the dodo. Skip forward to about 4:20.

    --
    Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
  6. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'd rather have brought back a species whose extinction humans attributed to through over-hunting.

    Mmmmm... Mammoth ribs...

    Mmmmm...Neanderthal man...

  7. Re:why whatcouldpossiblygowrong? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, and it frequently causes one to "lose their head".

  8. Re:facts by kramulous · · Score: 3, Funny

    5- you'd be amazed how picky (or impossible...so far) it is to coax a chunk of plant tissue into creating a whole new plant out of it's cells

    Buy it a drink?

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