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Scientists Clone Oldest Living Organism
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."
So can we have our Dodo bird back?
If this site is "news for nerds", you'd think that nerds would understand what cloning was, and that cloning plants isn't some nefarious activity.
or the skeptic scientists.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
First, of course, what exactly constitutes a single "organism" is a bit controversial, especially with plants, and especially with clonal colonies. But even if you accept clonal colonies as bona-fide organisms, Pando in Utah may or may not be older than Lomatia tasmanica , depending on which age estimates you believe.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It MAY be the oldest living leafy plant species but mosses and the horseshoe crab and many isopods are much much older and are complex organisms. There are bacteria (these are organisms too) that are millions of years older than this plant.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Cloning Strom Thurmond's nose.
So I wonder what happens to evolution when we start mucking with the natural order of things. Maybe this plant should die for whatever reason. I mean it's one thing to save something that is artificially going extinct (eg. man-made reasons) but it's something else to save something that nature is killing.
I can't help but think that by artificially changing things we are headed towards the Idiocracy.
As a horticulturalist who's worked on tissue culture projects...
1- tissue culture is growing a piece of plant of a medium (usually agar with nutrients) through various stages
2- there is no universal formula and different plants need different nutrient and environmental mixes to go through each stage
3- you're trying to get this piece of plant to create a root and shoot system
4- it requires many different steps and setups/transplants to walk a piece of plant material through the stages to where you can actually put a piece of rooted material into the ground and know it will make a plant
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
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.
So they cloned a plant that has hitherto successfully cloned itself for a thousands years without any help?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms
So we could have dodo-egg-flavored dog and cat food? Their meat tasted like ass and was somewhat less edible.
I'd rather have brought back a species whose extinction humans attributed to through over-hunting.
Like mammoth. I imagine they should be rather tasty.
Mmmmm... Mammoth ribs...
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
it is worth noting that in horticulture 'cloning' is simply the technical name for the process of propagating a plant through the use of cuttings.
you need no lab to do it - just simply a pair of scissors (or a scalpel), some rooting gel/powder and a rooting medium (compost will do), and a healthy donor ('mother') plant to work from. using a propagation unit will also give better results (perhaps better still if it's heated). 'cloning' plants in this fashion is actually very easy to do - my mum's a keen gardener and she does it with all kinds of plants all the time (one poster here claims to have cloned a plant at age 6 - and i have no reason to doubt that at all!!).
cloning is the primary method used to produce lots of (genetically) identical baby plants for use in commercial growing of all kinds (including, afaiu, in the illegal production of marijuana)
personally, i don't think this is particularly newsworthy, even if they are doing this with one of the oldest plant species in the world.
Trying to dissect add8esses will From the FreeBSD tHe same operation
I think he meant 'religious' scientists, referring to the idea that consensus makes reality. (See also: ManMadeGlobalWarming(TM) where, whether it gets colder or hotter, it's happening because of global warming. And CO2 is the only cause, never the sun, the only real source of heat in our solar system.)
The climate can only be "right" the way it was at noon on the day of the International Geophysical Year...or we're all being plunged into hell from whose grasp we can be saved by sending money to our (bloated) governments. The same governments paying scientists to post corrupted work.
Now, I *am* religious...Christian, specifically. I don't consider myself a scientist, but given my understanding of why we're here, it's ridiculous to assume we'll use up all the resources by which to live, until He decides it's over. And that's "fire" of some sort. We tend to take care of ourselves; we're a little smarter than germs, who use everything up, then die.
Yet somehow, the 'enlightened' around us ignore that the fossil record counter-indicates CO2 being involved, and push the mantra, anyway. I'm just enjoying the show!
Go scientists! I'll pay you to say I'm 10 feet tall and ripped! :>
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
for the movie, starring Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill
Also, it so happens to be a great food source for pandas. Lucky for the Lomatia Tasmanica they don't live near them.
Why would we need another Bob Dole?
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Actually the oldest organism brought back to life but not cloned was 45 million year old yeast fossilized in amber as per this story from Wired
Some of them have done so for much longer than this plant, eg Bdelloid rotifers. Smaller organisms, eg bacteria do not reproduce sexually, although through conjugation they can swap genes with other bacteria so you might say that it is not the same thing as it was before.
Isn’n “saving” a naturally dying species just as wrong as killing a naturally surviving one?
Oh, and if you want to get really deep: Aren’t our actions just as much part of nature, and doesn’t this mean, that what we do or don’t do, can by definition not be against nature?
(If we’re accepting this view, then how do we determine “The Right Thing”(TM), and why would there even be such a concept in nature? For what goal, if not for the benefit of the growth of the bio-mass that we call ourselves?)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Exactly what is cloning? I've heard of people cloning plants, but i think thats when they cut off a stem with leaves to regrow it. Is that what they are talking about?
-M
lest we forget, they also died from disease. all of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Aborigines
my friend you are gonna be a tumblin' down toward that hellfire before ya even know it.
you won't be the first kentucky-fried slashdotter, thats fer sure.
C'mon, you can admit it. I am not the only one in this crowd who initially read the headline as Scientists Clone Oldest Living Orgasm.
The Idiocracy is the natural order of things.
It's natural for species to become extinct over time, and gradually becoming too stupid seems to be our exit strategy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think he meant 'religious' scientists, referring to the idea that consensus makes reality. (See also: ManMadeGlobalWarming(TM) where, whether it gets colder or hotter, it's happening because of global warming.
Ouch. Have you heard reports that the poles are getting warmer? That's the most significant effect of global warming, and it is quickly bringing up the average global temperature.
Heck, if "global warming" really picks up and messes with the jet stream, you would expect the United Kingdom to become as barren as Siberia and Canada, which are at the same latitudes. Even still, the global average would be higher than it is now. That's right: the UK is warm now, because the Arctic is cold. If the Arctic stops being so cold, the UK will stop being warm. That mechanism is understood very well.
And CO2 is the only cause, never the sun, the only real source of heat in our solar system.)
The sun's output hasn't varied sufficiently to cause an increase in temperatures. Moreover, the Sun's output couldn't possibly cause significant increases in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures (which is what is happening), without frying everybody at the equator. Remember how the Earth is a spheroid, and the poles are cold because they're furthest from direct sunlight?
never the sun, the only real source of heat in our solar system
That's simply false. Europa is being heated by the tidal forces due to Jupiter. Our planet's magnetic field is caused by convection currents causing a dynamo effect. The most likely cause of the heating to cause the convection currents is radioactive decay within Earth's core.
I want to EAT the ancient plant! NOM NOM NOM...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
So the cloned something that only reproduces by being cloned. Umm... am I missing something here?
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
"which seems to load slowly in the US"
(A) Australia (and its island state Tasmania) lie on the other side of the largest body of water on the planet - the Pacific Ocean. Bottlenecks occur, but Americans notice it less than Australians do, because Australians visit US websites (cough cough Google) far more often than Americans visit Australian websites.
(B) Tasmania lies across another body of water from the Australian mainland - Bass Strait (Bass rhymes with ass). Although narrow, the Bass Strait is a bottleneck for communications between Tasmania and the mainland.
Conclusion: this webpage has to pass through two bottlenecks to get to Americans. Conversely, for Tasmanians trying to access American websites (like Google for instance) the web sucks.
So before you complain about this page loading slowly, think of those poor devils in Tasmania.
I am anarch of all I survey.
GP has a point. Most large organisms reproduce sexually for this very reason. The few that don't are relics living on isolated islands. Asexual reproduction makes organisms extremely vulnerable to pathogens, so most of them have already gone extinct. Many species can choose whether to reproduce sexually or asexually; they almost always choose sex when available because it gives so many advantages to their offspring.
How his post was flamebait I have yet to figure out.
Slashdot "editor" kdawson has yet again posted a story from/about his beloved Australia. That's why he is here: to promote Australia. Had this been an article about old-plant cloning in, say, Hungary or Bermuda, it would not have made the front page of Slashdot.
One species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, reverts to a sexually immature stage after reproducing, rather than dying as in other jellyfish. Consequently the species has no maximum lifespan.
This problem isn't new to Tasmanian shrubs: banana plants are propagated by cuttings (ie cloned), and the "Gros Michel" variety was wiped out 100 years ago by a fungus, because they were all genetically identical. They were eventually replaced by the "Cavendish" variety, which is now being wiped out by a new fungus. The same problem plagues apples: apple trees grown from seed usually produce sour-tasting crab apples, which are only good for making cider (that's why Johnny Appleseed planted them, to make alcohol). Occasionally an apple tree results which yields sweet apples, and such trees are henceforth replicated exclusively through cuttings. Such clones don't change with the evolutionary times, and hence require huge quantities of fungicides and insecticides to yield worm-free apples.
Cloning a threatened species just postpones the inevitable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomatia_tasmanica: ...reproduction occurs only vegetatively: when a branch falls, that branch grows new roots, establishing a new plant that is genetically identical to its parent.
Why didn't they just stick some branches in pots of soil?
http://api.ning.com/files/4k4zHJXi41vmn0z0wrNIo*fW47HkwK796c6dCV55TG78mdyHTw646RGSXLmY56-gLiqvxDkgjp40Z*aEvnZCkssaYS7OBpNz/keithrichards.jpg