Comment on BBC Science

icerunner_origin@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• icerunner_origin@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Given the right conditions, some plants can live indefinitely. Others die shortly after seeding.

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  • Malgas@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There’s a bristlecone pine tree in the White Mountains of California that is nearly 5000 years old.

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• Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Depends how you look at it. If you keep raising off-shoots from cuttings, you are essentially producing extensions of the very same plant and you can do that indefinitely. An individual plant will eventually die tho as they are not biologically immortal like some lobsters fot example.

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  • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Tell me more about these lobsters

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    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Chromosomes are essentially packages of DNA and each end of a chromosome is extended by a protein called telomere, essentially sequences of “junk data” that protect the actual data (the DNA) from degradation or randomly fusing with other chromosomes. When cells split to renew, these telomeres are not fully copied to the new cell and thus shorten with each split. When they get too short, cells cannot split anymore, so there is a natural end to the renewal process (the so-called Hayflick limit).

      Lobsters possess an enzyme called telomerase which can repair telomeres and thus their cells can, in theory, divide indefinitely. They will still die naturally tho due to diseases or growing to large to sustain their body size and die of malnutrition, but they don’t age the way we do.

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      • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That was super interesting, thanks for the response

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• Kanda@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  So… Do they?

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  • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Should we send someone after him?

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    • iheartneopets@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Dammit, this is why you always secure your lifeline before entering the Rabbit Hole

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• fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Vine plants are especially weird.

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• Late2TheParty@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You gotta tell us some fun things you learned!

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• frank@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Subscribe to plant facts

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• thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  wait until you get to the part about the Ginkgo tree

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  • icerunner_origin@startrek.website ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is the horseshoe crab of trees

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