8 ms·
One of the World’s Longest-Running Experiments Sends Up Sprouts
- flobosg 5y agoNot the longest, but my favorite long-running experiment is the E. coli LTEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_ex... EDIT: I just realized that the LTEE and Beal’s experiment are being conducted at the same place, Michigan State University!
- koolba 5y agoThat is a very cool experiment and a fantastic read! It reminds me of my own adventures making yogurt, each generation carried forward to the next batch. Being able to freeze the samples (for the ecoli, not the yogurt!) is really neat. At anytime they rewind the clock to test an ancestor.
- flobosg 5y agoOr, as Stephen Jay Gould said, replaying life’s tape.
- Ericson2314 5y agoThe Wikipedia rabbit hole did lead to me Stephen Jay Gould too, who I wasn't acquainted with (except for possibility a similar Wikipedia rabbit hole a decade prior whenever I first read about the experiment). Having recently read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodicity_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodicity_economics, the parallels with the things Stephen Jay Gould argued about are fascinating.
- swimfar 5y agoA pitch drop experiment started in 1927 is what I thought of when I read the title: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_drop_experiment
- puzzledobserver 5y agoIt's amazing how such long experiments are organized. My first thought when I read "longest-running experiment" was the Rothamstead Park Grass Experiment. I'm accustomed to thinking of Big Science as the LHCs and the Human Genome Project and the Human Brain Projects of the world, but there might be a category of experiments that are instances of Long-Term Science.
- ibizaman 5y agoLink: http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Park http://www.era.rothamsted.ac.uk/Park
- weinzierl 5y ago> It's amazing how such long experiments are organized. .. and how they are financed. Sometimes I wonder what humanity missed because experiments that only yield after more than one generation are rare.
- simple_elevated 5y agoPlease don't link to pay-walled articles.
- julienchastang 5y agoQuestion: Do these seeds have any biological or biochemical activity while dormant or are they completely inert for all that time?
- whyenot 5y agoThey have very reduced biological activity, but they are not inert. Seeds can respond to water, temperature, light, day length, chemicals produced by fire and smoke, and to different plant hormones among other things.
- julienchastang 5y agoFrom a biophysics perspective, I find this really fascinating. These self-contained molecular machines with a co-located energy source can plod along, albeit very slowly, for perhaps hundreds of years and ultimately self-replicate. It seems like this has implications for interstellar colonization, among other things.
- gnarbarian 5y agoI find this both reassuring and terrifying. It's reassuring because if life was completely wiped out on the planet there would be trillions of seeds waiting for the right conditions to germinate and repopulate the Earth with life. It's terrifying because why would this have evolved?
- nickserv 5y agoThis isn't the first mass extinction the planet has seen.
- gnarbarian 5y agoYep. This is why I am dead set on one of those tickets to Mars.
- dathos 5y agoYou have seen what Mars looks like right? That planet had way more potential for you to perish than this one
- SilverRed 5y agoIts crazy how everyone sees mars as some kind of safety rope when climate change goes bad. Surviving on mars would be 100x harder than the worst case scenario for life on earth.
- mjevans 5y agoMost of what would make it more survivable is the small quantity of other humans and the need for "exotic on earth" life support infrastructure already required. Though to be viable as a backup for our species the colony would have to be able to survive, as well as be genetically viable, completely solo. Such preparation might include a "seed" vault for both plants and life, as well as a Horizon Zero Dawn style repository of all human knowledge. BTW that would also be a great international education standard for children even without it's use in the Doomsday setting.
- tsjq 5y agohttps://archive.is/02BlC https://archive.is/02BlC
- martyvis 5y agoPresumably the curators of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault [1] regularly test (or at least intend to as it is fairly new) the efficacy of their storage for different types of seeds? 1. https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agriculture/svalbard-global-seed-vault/id462220/ https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agri...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- yitchelle 5y agoA very good episode on Science Vs podcast on this very subject. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/emhxgkd/a-seedy-latenight-adventure https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/emhxgkd/a-seedy-lat...
- supernova87a 5y agoI recall an episode of a daily TV series in Japan where they found seeds from a several thousand year old archaeological dig, which yielded a still viable magnolia tree when planted today. And there was that story just recently about bacteria found in the deep mantle, dormant for a couple million (?) years, that grew when cultured. Amazing how patiently life can wait for the moment to be revived again, with no promise or knowledge of when the day may come.
- varispeed 5y agoIn that state there is no awareness, so you can't really be patient as you don't feel the passing time. It's kind of like a time machine.
- permo-w 5y agoI despise articles written like this Clickbait Headline informative intro Real Article Begins: Once upon a time… Please just tell me the information, I’m not here to read a story
- billynomates111 5y agoI couldn't agree more. Anyone got a tldr to share?
- voisin 5y agoSeems like a good problem to tackle with NLP text summarization. Text summarization is already pretty good for the real article issue you mentioned. I wonder if the same process could be applied in reverse to identify low quality headlines too.
- permo-w 5y agoI have beta access to Open AI, so I could definitely give that a go when I’ve finished my exams
- mhb 5y agoWell, journalists used to be taught the inverted pyramid concept. Maybe they've become preoccupied with other agenda.
- permo-w 5y agoThe Economist Style Guide suggested summarising in the first few lines, then elaborating after that
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoIts four pages including large pictures. Shorter than a children's book. Have a heart - its an interesting story with lots of detail packed into those 20 paragraphs.
- 5y ago
- aliswe 5y agoDon't forget the 2000-year old date seed that sprouted! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judean_date_palm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judean_date_palm
- rmason 5y agoThe Beal garden is but a few miles from my house. Today is Dr. Beal's birthday and because of this little experiment he is remembered 97 years after his death far more than any of his peers. If you're ever in East Lansing it's worth visiting Beal garden which is next to the campus library. It's so picturesque that students have their weddings there.