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“Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

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Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#61

Post by hinkley »

radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

There are a few videos out there claiming that the decline in use of Bamboo in construction/'woodworking' in Japan was not only about availability of other materials like steel and later plastic.

There was/were some species of bamboo used by craftsman that bloomed and then failed to reproduce due to weather changes. You've been working with a species of bamboo for five generations and it's just completely gone in under a year.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#62

Post by scott_s »

jansan wrote: post #46
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some other examples like that in biology, my favourite being 13- and 17-year periodic cicadas [1] with one theory being that a prime number was selected for during evolution to make it more difficult to synchronize with predator life cycles. Counters in biology are also a thing, for example Hayflick limit [2] which is a number of times a single cell can divide before it dies (partially explained by telomere…

I thought that circadas thing was made up for the series Silicon Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxh2X6NjuhY

It was not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#64

Post by avip »

bluejellybean wrote: post #60
radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

As another user mentioned, oscillating loops can achieve these phenomenon and they're extremely abundant in biology. The circadian rhythm is an excellent example of this behavior. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4758938/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4073891/

It's interesting the article says: ... even if there are no exogenous cues present, periodical patterns are still shown (1) indicating that these rhythms result from an internal time-keeping system. ... For humans, the most prominent circadian rhythm is the 24 h rhythm in the sleep-wake cycle.

I thought it's a well-studied fact that humans settle on a 30 hours sleep-wake cycle in constant light conditions?

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#65

Post by blahedo »

hammock wrote: post #59
radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

Doesn't have to be counting up. Counting down would be much easier.

Counting up and counting down are the same thing, if 0 and 1 are arbitrarily assigned.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#66

Post by vram22 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #9

Bamboo blossom is a super interesting botanical fact, and a regular front-pager on Reddits "Today I learned" > For example, devastating consequences occur when the Melocanna bambusoides population flowers and fruits once every 30–35 years[6] around the Bay of Bengal. The death of the bamboo plants following their fruiting means the local people lose their building material, and the large increase in bamboo fruit lead…

Related (and mentioned in See Also section of above Wikipedia page):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mautam

Causes famine. The Northeastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur are somewhat near the Bay of Bengal.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#67

Post by radarsat1 »

tdaltonc wrote: post #56
radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

In undergrad I made models of oscillator genes. They allow for digital cycle counting. They can also be chained to give base-2 counting systems. For example, cycle of gene A turns on gene B be turns off itself, one cycle of gene B turns on gene C, turns on gene A and turns off itself, etc. This would give you a binary counter. Assuming they all oscillate the same frequency, you would get something like: +-------+---+…

Super interesting, thanks for that. I guess a synchronization mechanism could just be the cycle of sunlight.. I'm amazed though.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#68

Post by yorwba »

tdaltonc wrote: post #56
radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

In undergrad I made models of oscillator genes. They allow for digital cycle counting. They can also be chained to give base-2 counting systems. For example, cycle of gene A turns on gene B be turns off itself, one cycle of gene B turns on gene C, turns on gene A and turns off itself, etc. This would give you a binary counter. Assuming they all oscillate the same frequency, you would get something like: +-------+---+…

Is there any particular reason you link to Wikiwand instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillating_gene ? The content appears to be the same.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#69

Post by teej »

jansan wrote: post #46
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some other examples like that in biology, my favourite being 13- and 17-year periodic cicadas [1] with one theory being that a prime number was selected for during evolution to make it more difficult to synchronize with predator life cycles. Counters in biology are also a thing, for example Hayflick limit [2] which is a number of times a single cell can divide before it dies (partially explained by telomere…

I thought that circadas thing was made up for the series Silicon Valley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxh2X6NjuhY

Life was loud and very buggy in 2004 when Brood X emerged on the east coast US.

Re: “Once-in-a-Hundred Year” Sightings of Bamboo Blossoms Reported in Japan

#70

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

radarsat1 wrote: post #2

> Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. > Although the mechanism has yet to be explained by science, many believe there is some kind of natural “alarm clock” in the plant’s cells causing the behavior. That is amazing. I'm having a hard time imagi…

Plants depend crucially on timekeeping.

The Circadian Clock is essential for coordinating metabolism, growth, and reproduction, vernalization, etc. Most plants can be considered either short-day or long-day flowering, where highly-sensitive response to the delta in day-length is tracked to coordinate flowering. Nearly all plants anticipate events like sun-rise and sun-set with precision to coordinate (expensive!) photosynthetic expression, open/close stomata, alter xylem and phloem, etc.

Applying this to longer time-scales should not be terribly surprising for such sophisticated time-keepers.

Here's some information about in-vitro induction of flowering, induced with the sorts of chemicals you might expect (e.g. cytokinin promoting, auxin repressing):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5603696/

As for the particular regulatory network that accomplishes this, it's very difficult to study an event that occurs so seldom. Even annual breeding cycles can make detailed genetic investigations take decades.

What we can infer from homology is that there's likely some kind of feedback and balance of hormones that 'count' the time. There is nothing "in the DNA" that tracks time, but the genes that DNA encodes can provide this clock function.

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