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Clam That Was Killed Determining Its Age Was Over 100 Years Older Than Estimated
schwit1 writes "In 2006, climate change experts from Bangor University in north Wales found a very special clam while dredging the seabeds of Iceland. At that time scientists counted the rings on the inside shell to determine that the clam was the ripe old age of 405. Unfortunately, by opening the clam which scientists refer to as 'Ming,' they killed it instantly. Cut to 2013, researchers have determined that the original calculations of Ming's age were wrong, and that the now deceased clam was actually 102 years older than originally thought. Ming was 507 years old at the time of its demise."
What was the point of examining this individual animal?
Ever heard of it?
It took 7 years for scientists to count to 507 (the rings the clamshell form). I'm glad my math skills are superior. It must be all that metric math in the UK...
I am a scientist myself, but even I feel slightly bit disturbed by this realisation - that the oldest animal on Earth was killed in the experiment. I don't know why, I guess I have some kind of respect for the uniqueness of the status of this animal.
Science 1, Nature 0
THL phish sticks
Our duty is clear: we must capture and kill as many clams as possible to locate an even older clam, thus obviating any guilt about having killed the oldest clam!
507 years is pretty old, but not quite as old as Prometheus : a ~5000 year old tree that was cut down in the 1960's so that it's rings could be counted. At the time of its demise, it was the world's oldest known living organism, and (as far as I know) no older organism is known to exist.
They killed the animal to measure on the inside, which they thought would be easier, but:
on the second count, the researchers concentrated on the growth rings on the outside of the shell.
So, the more precise measurement came from the outside, and they killed the oldest living animal for nothing but stupidity. I sincerely hope that instead of accolades, they get nothing but scorn from their colleagues.
There was a scientist who cut down the oldest non-clonal living tree in the world, a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains in California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree) It was about 5000 years old. They knew it was old but didn't exactly know how old it was but they sure did when they cut it down. D'oh! Even years later people would meet him and say, "Hey, weren't you the guy who..."
That was a merciless thing to do to a clam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Clone
And they call themselves scientists?! How do they know that the clam wasn't already dead when they opened the box... erhm, I mean the shell?
“The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of its diseases is called man.” - attributed to Nietzsche
The man who dies rich dies disgraced. -- Andrew Carnegie
They can drip sap on you and yours. Trees have been known to work closely with birds, producing something that rhymes with spit. Don't think for one second that trees are harmless.
rewriting history since 2109
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
by the new FOSS operating system, MING (MING Is Not GNU)
So because a handful of scientists killed a clam to get some information about it all climate scientists are incompetent? Seriously.
"And crawling on the planet's face, some insects... called the Human Race."
- The Criminologist
He was delicious.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's a type of clam known to live extremely long lives that people are studying to understand aging. It was part of a haul of clams caught on a field trip of Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences. And it's a clam. You know, one of those things we catch and eat by the millions every year without shedding a tear.
But God forbid a scientist kills one and actually learns something. And since one of the many things we might learn is how the climate has changed over the last 500 years, we get to blame climate science.
In summary:
Kill one clam that turns out to be really old add to our understanding of the oceans and climate: Evil, arrogant, and self-centered!
WTF?
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
A clam's entire sensory apparatus is very simplistic compared to what you experience as a human being.
For a clam, there isn't much sensory input. A basic aspect of its life is completely cutting itself off from the outside world.
Its life was a repetitive series of shell openings and closings. The flavor of various things floating in told it whether to intake or expel seawater. The threats of various predators told it whether to shut very quickly or to stay a bit open for the purpose of expelling seawater.
Its internal organs were probably healthy. It likely had no recollection of the ups and downs of pains and aches. Things we're used to as human beings, that we even use to mark turning points in our lives.
It likely had no sense of the world's existence beyond the approach of sustenance or poison, the clamoring of various threats, and the terrain of whatever was immediately behind it (toward the hinge of the shell). It would be a stretch to consider it to be a sentient being, or one possessing self-awareness.
Even its reproductive cycles were involuntary spurts of either eggs or sperms, just released blindly into the water based on temperature and food supply.
The "happiness" of a clam is entirely due to the low margin for error inherent in a system with truly very few variables.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Some science is destructive, while other science isn't. A lot of it depends upon the research objectives, as well as the available methods to conduct that research. In a lot of cases it is even imperative to do non-destructive studies, either for reasons of conscience or to generate reproducible results.
Examples:
We study stellar evolution through observation, because we are limited by the methods available.
We study subatomic particles by smashing things together because we can only observe their interactions (i.e. we cannot observe them directly).
We study many parts of the body using MRI because it is both unethical to destroy the subject and because it produces better results.
I'm pretty sure that radiocarbon dating only helps you figure out how long ago an organism (or piece) died. When it's living it's taking in C14 and C12 from the environment. Once it's dead and stops taking in carbon you can compare the ratio of C14 left to the C12.
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Werner von Braun said those words
No, he didn't. That was the brilliant mathematician, comedian and pianist Tom Lehrer putting words into von Braun's mouth.
That doesn't necessarily discount your assertions about von Braun's complicity with the Nazi regime, but you should know better than to call someone a "stupid sack of shit" based off a (pretty obviously) fake quote that was meant as a joke.
"95% of all Slashdot
What kind of asshole kills something just to check its age ?
The kind of asshole who doesn't deserve to live.
Poe's Law may be relevant here
But it's worth noting that these clams are fished commercially:
People do eat quahogs, although this is more common in North America, Iceland and Norway than in the UK. Commercial fisheries for the bivalve suddenly increased enormously in the mid-1970s, and have remained at those levels ever since.
As a vegetarian scientist, I'm actually a bit uncomfortable with field expeditions to collect (and kill) scientific specimens. But in this case, the scientists may actually be saving far more of these clams (e.g. from commerical fishing) than they are killing themselves - by raising awareness of the age of these clams.
Odds are there are 1000s more around the same age or older, sucking dirty water somewhere else out there.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
As a vegetarian, how do you feel about eating still living fresh vegetables?
True extremist vegans eat only inorganic food, made of metal and stone.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Economy is just money flowing around. It doesn't matter too much on what you spend it. You could waste for example enormous amounts of money on military forces without any particular benefit.
In case of action against global warming, the very least you get is that you do longer with fuel, keeping the price low which happens to be good for consumers. Also, it keeps stuff like oil available for a longer period of time. Not a bad thing either. And that is true even if climate scientists were wrong. My Dunning-Kruger bet however is that they are more likely to be right than you or I, and in particular that whether they are right or wrong has nothing to do with economy and this bias should be left out when deciding whether they are wrong or right.
In my country, houses used to use 3000 m3 gas for heating, these days it is 500 m3 or less without any loss of comfort. In my country we used to have a huge gas field. It is almost empty now. Instead of 30 years, we could have enjoyed it for over 150 years. Also, there are tremors now in that area of the country caused by the settling after the gas extraction, resulting in (costly) damage to housing. It pays to be frugal with resources.
Bert
Radiocarbon dating relies on fresh 14C being generated (high up) in the atmosphere by solar radiation. It mixes due to air turbulence, so plants have a substantially constant supply of it. The exchange of 14C carbon with carbon below the surface of water is poor. There, plant/animal stuff eaten also results in CO2 but it is absorbed by algae again. So it is recycled there, and doesn't have the good mixing and constant supply like in the atmosphere. So, scientists know: You can't do radiocarbon dating using material that grew in or under water. (Liars for religion use examples like radiocarbon dating a freshly caught fish to be hundreds of years old as evidence that radiocarbon dating is unreliable and proof that their favorite myth book is correct. Sigh). So, no radiocarbon dating on the clam wouldn't work.
Bert
Death to Ming!
> We study stellar evolution through observation, because we are limited by the methods available.
I have no doubt that humans will smash stars together the morning after they finally acquire the technology. Actually, they'll pull an all-nighter instead, 'cause the kids are in bed and this shit's AWESOME!!!
"Clams got legs!"
- B.C.
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What was the point of examining this individual animal?
It was part of research into climate change over the past 1000 years. The oxygen isotopes in carbonates in clam shells provide information about climate at the time the shell layer was formed. See: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/full.php.en?nid=16781&tnid=0
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse