Comments on: Meet Pando, the world's oldest living organism

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Easy peasy, it was created 5,000 years ago as a 75,000 years-old tree, truly a miraculous act by the god of the desert to test our faith, and a divine sign that we should buy more guns and vote republican.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 04:52:00 +0000

- science is wrong;
- it’s a trick to check your faith;
- god made it seem that way;
- no one really understands this stuff.

Take your pick.

By: James Penrose

James Penrose — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 03:05:00 +0000

Wonder how the “Young Earth” crowd handles this stuff?

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 02:32:00 +0000

Aye, ’tis a mythical place many try to forget.

By: Mark Kingston

Mark Kingston — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 01:18:00 +0000

I thought I’d check this “oldest living organism” business out on google, and the results are all about some sea grass in Spain that could be 100,000 years old. What should I believe? Is the science here so inexact that either could be the oldest?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/9066393/Ancient-seagrass-Oldest-living-thing-on-earth-discovered-in-Mediterranean-Sea.html

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:57:00 +0000

Bamboos are monocarpic. Possibly.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:48:00 +0000

Do not taunt happy fun 80,000-year old clonal colony.

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:01:00 +0000

Old and in Utah? Dang tree probably has a bunch of McCain/Palin and Romney/what’s-his-face stickers on its’ trunks.

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:57:00 +0000

Ok, now I’m curious about how bamboo forest ages stack up, or that one giant subterranean fungus, or the immortal jellyfish…

By: Treeswing

Treeswing — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:37:00 +0000

I stopped there a couple years ago specifically to hang a hammock in the grove(I’ve got ‘a thing’ for trees). The locals mostly don’t know it as Pando, just “that old forest” or somesuch. Unfortunately, there are vacation houses situated right among parts of it. Still beautiful, along with all of Fish Lake and it’s surroundings.

As an aside, you can recognize individual clonal colonies of Aspens in the fall, by the different rates they change color and lose their leaves.

(Aside #2 – I happened to camp on the original road into the lake and along comes a guy in his 70′s whose family was coming in for their yearly gathering on the lake. Turns out his grandfather was a ranger there who was one of the folks who slid logs across the frozen lake to build the original lodge(since burnt down and rebuilt). He was quite a talker and I got a ton of local history in the couple of days before his family came in. I didn’t ask, but postulated later that there was a good chance he was conceived at the lake)

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:31:00 +0000

You keep saying that. I wonder if anyone believes you.

;^)

By: Jerril

Jerril — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 20:00:00 +0000

It’s a single organism because it’s a single continuous mass. Amoebae and rotifers detatch and go off on their own. Pando is a gigantic root ball with shoots sticking out of it.

By: timquinn

timquinn — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:59:00 +0000

tremble, I see what you did there.

By: CastanhasDoPara

CastanhasDoPara — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:48:00 +0000

Or HeLa cells. Let’s hear it for the only immortal human!*

*cell line

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:32:00 +0000

And there’s a Provo Utah

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:31:00 +0000

There’s a fuck-ton of aspen in Utah to boot.

By: chenille

chenille — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:34:00 +0000

I am sure the opposite. 80 millennia is a long time to be sending pollen out on the wind, long enough to have distant descendants with its own distant descendants. It’s up to you whether that’s as appealing a notion.

By: xen0z0id

xen0z0id — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:26:00 +0000

indeed and a billion caterpillar generations, can not change the fact that even chuman,have no clue about subdivision and making a 3d model out of nothingness

By: lknope

lknope — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:11:00 +0000

The 80,000 Year Old Virgin! Good movie.

By: chenille

chenille — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:10:00 +0000

Clonal colonies are neat. Still not sure why they qualify as a single organism, but not other things like for instance a clonal lineage of amoebae or rotifers, some of which are going to be much older still.

Edit: ok, amoebae do separate, but does that mean they all count as newborns? I know for bacteria at least, you get one new and one older cell, which actually shows some aging. People didn’t mind division when they talked about “immortal” jellyfish.

Pando, too, has had groves split off in its time, and a new furrow across the middle would hardly make people deny its age. I don’t think nature has drawn such clear lines for us to follow, is what I guess I’m saying.

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:57:00 +0000

But can you plug into it with a usb-enabled ponytail like that tree network in Avatar?

By: Brainspore

Brainspore — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:55:00 +0000

Whereas his creepy cousin Pedobear requests wishes of said 9-year-old human friend.

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:53:00 +0000

Yeah, and keep the Irish happy. There are still the Kia Ira, Kia Rira, Kia Pira and Kia Cira to come.

By: Aeron

Aeron — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:42:00 +0000

“Never EVER go above the canopy!”

By: Jellodyne

Jellodyne — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:35:00 +0000

Pando seems like a good car name, maybe Kia could use that instead of Provo.

By: L8

L8 — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:31:00 +0000

No, Pando is a magical bear who grants wishes to his 9 years old human friend.

By: CLamb

CLamb — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:24:00 +0000

How about “Pando Magnus”?

By: Wreckrob8

Wreckrob8 — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:59:00 +0000

And weighs an estimated 6 000 000 kg.

But, although it is Latin, the word Pando does not sound venerable enough to my mind. It sounds like a cartoon character.

No. I was wrong. The Great Pando is, of course, a nineteenth century magician.

By: Nylund

Nylund — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:58:00 +0000

As a clonal colony, is it fair to say it’s also the world’s oldest virgin?