How long will it last? Will the plant eventually get a mutation and die?
A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
101–110 of 145 posts
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#102Hmm can we open the bottle and test if the water is indeed from 1972? I mean how can we actually test that this guy isn't just making things up, and wasn't opening the bottle to water the ecosystem?
I wonder if carbon dating would work. Seems like it ought to, since C14 is produced in the upper atmosphere, so if's been sealed then it wouldn't get any new C14. The small amount of decay over 42 years might be trouble to measure. A potentially crazier idea: measure the trace amounts of uranium, plutonium, and other long-lived fallout products. Atmospheric nuclear testing continued on a semi-regular basis until 1980…
We could also use tritium for dating the water.
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#103So in a symbiotic bacteria/fungi/plant ecosystem, I can understand why CO2, H2O, and O2 might be able to remain in balance. But decomposition produces not only CO2, but CO, CH4, nitrate chemistry... I have trouble understanding why this cycle isn't at least a little bit leaky, since it seems like some of the trace gasses wouldn't automatically have all of the biological, solar, and marine sinks available in nature. I…
Have you guys seen the SUPER SUPER LARGE sealed ecosystem. It's called earth. It's amazing how long it has lasted without any significant mass coming in or going out.
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#104So in a symbiotic bacteria/fungi/plant ecosystem, I can understand why CO2, H2O, and O2 might be able to remain in balance. But decomposition produces not only CO2, but CO, CH4, nitrate chemistry... I have trouble understanding why this cycle isn't at least a little bit leaky, since it seems like some of the trace gasses wouldn't automatically have all of the biological, solar, and marine sinks available in nature. I…
It really depends on the bacterial flora present in the container. Bacteria are incredibly diverse, and just as one decomposer may be a methanogen [1], a different species of bacteria present may be a methanotroph [2]. So given the right bacterial "mixture," a self-sustaining CH4 cycle is not unreasonable. Additionally, CO is a metabolite for some methanogenic bacteria, specifically in production of acetyl CoA [3]. M…
It would also make sense that bacteria would tend towards stable equilibrium populations - ie a lack of a particular nutrient would result in a limited population in the species that require that nutrient.
By that logic if you had sufficient biodiversity to start there would be some limiting nutrient that would fix the stable state biomass of the whole system.
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#105Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The skepticism is entirely valid when the article in question is from the Daily Mail.
People really hate the daily mail, don't they? It's a tabloid, but realistically you should be skeptical about everything the press puts out. However, when it's a plant in a jar, being skeptical is really just being a crank. It's a plant in a jar. Who cares? Besides, just because more credible papers mention the guy doesn't change the fact that you have to take him for his word. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/…
I think some people thrive on being contrarian, regardless of whether they have a valid reason for it or not. I just can't decide whether some people do it for the sake of appearing smart (look at me! I call everything into question!) or because they're extremely pessimistic and/or skeptical in nature. The problem with the latter is that it almost seems to be expressed in online discussions to a pathological extreme, so I'm sure it shares something with those personality traits that lend themselves to trolling (at least to a degree).
There's an interesting discussion on the bottled plant over at skeptics.stackexchange.com [1] that covers many of these reasons, but in more detail. The crux of it is that we can't really prove whether or not David Latimer did or did not water this plant in the 40-odd years since bottling it, so we're left with taking his word for it.
But at the end of the day I don't think it really matters. He looks like a nice guy I wouldn't mind having for a neighbor and really appreciates his plants. Maybe he's spinning a yarn, maybe he's not. Does it really matter? No.
[1] http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/15838/can-a-plan...
Edit: Someone already linked this 5 hours ago (I should've ctrl+f'd it), so toss 'em some upvotes [2].
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The skepticism is entirely valid when the article in question is from the Daily Mail.
People really hate the daily mail, don't they? It's a tabloid, but realistically you should be skeptical about everything the press puts out. However, when it's a plant in a jar, being skeptical is really just being a crank. It's a plant in a jar. Who cares? Besides, just because more credible papers mention the guy doesn't change the fact that you have to take him for his word. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/…
The Daily Mail is especially hated because it's a tabloid hiding under a veneer of respectability. It has a long history of pandering 'science' stories.
This story for example. Don't you wonder how the interior of the glass has stayed so spotless for 40 years? It has to be cleaned, but they don't explain how.
Maybe it's some kind of magnetic cleaner, or maybe he's simply opening the bottle up to clean it. It's an obvious question, but it's typical of the Daily Mail's cynical and patronizing attitude that they don't care to answer it.
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#108So in a symbiotic bacteria/fungi/plant ecosystem, I can understand why CO2, H2O, and O2 might be able to remain in balance. But decomposition produces not only CO2, but CO, CH4, nitrate chemistry... I have trouble understanding why this cycle isn't at least a little bit leaky, since it seems like some of the trace gasses wouldn't automatically have all of the biological, solar, and marine sinks available in nature. I…
Have you guys seen the SUPER SUPER LARGE sealed ecosystem. It's called earth. It's amazing how long it has lasted without any significant mass coming in or going out.
Other than several hundreds tons of cosmic dust per day according to http://www.universetoday.com/94392/getting-a-handle-on-how-m... .
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#109So in a symbiotic bacteria/fungi/plant ecosystem, I can understand why CO2, H2O, and O2 might be able to remain in balance. But decomposition produces not only CO2, but CO, CH4, nitrate chemistry... I have trouble understanding why this cycle isn't at least a little bit leaky, since it seems like some of the trace gasses wouldn't automatically have all of the biological, solar, and marine sinks available in nature. I…
Have you guys seen the SUPER SUPER LARGE sealed ecosystem. It's called earth. It's amazing how long it has lasted without any significant mass coming in or going out.
Earth also loses helium and hydrogen. The current rate of loss is about three kilograms (3 kg) of hydrogen and 50 grams (50 g) of helium per second, according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
Re: A sealed bottle garden thriving after 40 years without fresh air or water
#110Oh, hell, how did a Daily Mail link get to the front page? This is a british tabloid. You may as well be debating the veracity of a story about a wolf boy discovered in the wild.