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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?
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...
Yeah, Silly Metric. Only intellectually superior countries are holding out on this issue ...
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
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
...why? It's just a clam.
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.
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?
When was the last time you actually counted as high as 507? I'm not talking about counting to 100 five times and then another seven, but actually counting each number from 1 to 507?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
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So because a handful of scientists killed a clam to get some information about it all climate scientists are incompetent? Seriously.
there is a HUGE difference between a 10 year old tree and a 100 year old tree
But not so much visible difference between a 400 year old tree compared to a 500 year old tree.
Also, there are two places to count clam rings - and the hinge is generally used as the better one (though opening the clam to see the hinge rings kills it), though in this case due to SOO many rings, the ones on the inner hinge were not as easy to count as the ones on the outer shell - hence some (or one in four) were missed.
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My first thought was: Do MRIs work on clams? This is like the genius who killed the oldest known tree in the world to see how old it was.
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
MRI will work just fine. .05mm thick annual rings.
However, it'll just tell you that it's not got cancer.
It does not have resolution enough to resolve the perhaps
A number of obvious approaches occur - for example - cut a small plug of shell with a plug cutter.
This is basically a drillbit with a hollow core, designed to remove a rod of material intact.
Yes, this will somewhat injure the clam when the small plug is removed, but it can then be polished and examined microscopically to determine the age.
My first thought would be to take this rod, and examine the composition in an appropriate electron microscope.
The clam would be slightly injured, but it's unlikely to be a clamity.
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.
When was the last time you actually counted as high as 507? I'm not talking about counting to 100 five times and then another seven, but actually counting each number from 1 to 507?
Seems like it would take a while. How many numbers is that, exactly?
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
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
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.
When was the last time you actually counted as high as 507? I'm not talking about counting to 100 five times and then another seven, but actually counting each number from 1 to 507?
Seems like it would take a while. How many numbers is that, exactly?
1,413 Arabic digits total counting up from one in base ten; 9 single digits, 90 double digits, and 408 triple digits
-- or, approximately 0.00000000000012851160136e-42 printed US Libraries of Congress (excluding their digital archive).
At a slightly faster than normal speech rate I have observed counting aloud in American English from 1 to 507 in five minutes and thirty five seconds (metric). Counting is a skill we teach our infants, mechanical machines, and even Parrots here on Earth. Most hand held counting entities here could count silently over the aforementioned range in a fraction of a second. The apex organic creatures on this planet can reliably detect errors in a sequential numeric stream at a rate of 15 three digit numerals per second; That's an error correction bandwidth of 45 Arabic numerals per second.
Despite the apparent capacity of their neural networks, human memory storage and retrieval speed scales exponentially in proportion to the amount of data input, making them essentially useless as mass media storage devices for all but the simplest and most sensational of information. Because of horrible failures in past attempts at eugenics the human wetware architecture is still a sophomoric monolithic kernel design: Many functions (like breath control) which could be efficiently distributed about their systems instead wastefully consume thought cycles. Lacking direct genetic-level knowledge conveyance a new mind's cultural installation process is measured in decades. Due to millions of years of patching by trial and error human cognitive circuits are in disarray, often producing unwanted irrational responses due to outdated evolutionary directives known as "feelings", and there currently staunch resistance finds any who talk of correcting of these dangerous glitches.
Regardless of humanity's pathetic cognitive capabilities we remain unwaveringly chauvinistically assured of our potential as a space faring race -- even if it's been four decades since we last visited the nearest celestial body in person. If we can not be granted membership as citizens and are deemed not useful as menial mental minions then I implore the Virgonian Super-Cluster Galactic Conciliate to at least consider this planet a case study in how not to advance as an interstellar society. As you can plainly see we are mostly harmless, and although the wonders of the Universe are tempting, we'll be just as happy if left quarantined and isolated in the existing Cosmic Space-Time Reservation.
I apologize for the rambling nature of my reply: Though familiar with the issues I am not an official diplomat. We would take you to our leaders, but we're rather ashamed of them presently...
> 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!!!