Zombie fungi pulled from amber is the makings of a movie ;)
Thaw, The Thing (overt), Andromeda Strain, Deep Rising (overt)
A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favourite tree evolution thing is the forests in the Galapagos being evolved from dandelion seeds blown in on the wind from South America.
Fascinating. Do you have a link to that, or the name of that species?
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poplar is considered junk wood? This is news to me. I’ve seen plenty of poplar furniture.
It’s too soft to be of much use except the odd piece of furniture (for which it is pretty terrible because it dents too easily). As a woodworker finishing it also sucks because the fibers tear too easily. Its grain pattern looks bland at best, it ages poorly, and its color is too inconsistent from tree to tree. That said, it’s one of the most stable woods so it doesn’t warp much which is why it’s a popular base mater…
It's considered to be a poor firewood around here, as well.
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
The oddest tree I know of is poplar, which is incredibly common around here and is basically considered junk wood. Turns out, those individual, fast-growing trees are in fact stems of a large underground root system. One of these trees has 47,000 stems: > Most agree [...] that Pando encompasses 42.89 hectares (106 acres), weighs an estimated 6,000 metric tons (6,600 short tons) or 13.2 million pounds, and features an…
Poplars have underground roots, but they are not "underground root stems" per se. Their main stem is the trunk we see growing above ground.
I'm mostly using the terminology from the Pando article. The article quotes a "Mitton and Grant" as writing:
> quaking aspen regularly reproduces via a process called suckering. An individual stem can send out lateral roots that, under the right conditions, send up other erect stems; from all above-ground appearances the new stems look just like individual trees. The process is repeated until a whole stand, of what appear to be individual trees, forms. This collection of multiple stems, called ramets, all form one, single, genetic individual, usually termed a clone.
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Poplar is considered junk wood? This is news to me. I’ve seen plenty of poplar furniture.
It’s too soft to be of much use except the odd piece of furniture (for which it is pretty terrible because it dents too easily). As a woodworker finishing it also sucks because the fibers tear too easily. Its grain pattern looks bland at best, it ages poorly, and its color is too inconsistent from tree to tree. That said, it’s one of the most stable woods so it doesn’t warp much which is why it’s a popular base mater…
Which is all great for arrow shafts actually. Just may need to be thicker than usual.
The Mary Rose shafts seem to mostly have been poplar.
Not that this would be very relevant nowadays but still.
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently visited the national history museum and finally got a sense of the _weirdness_ of prehistoric trees. No bark, a green trunk (utilizing photosynthesis), tall like a palm tree. I'd love to see something like that now.
Closest you can come today is probably a tree fern. I've got a Dicksonia antarctica in my living room under grow lights. It's a neat plant.
Those look a lot like the ones I saw in the museum. Very cool plant!
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently visited the national history museum and finally got a sense of the _weirdness_ of prehistoric trees. No bark, a green trunk (utilizing photosynthesis), tall like a palm tree. I'd love to see something like that now.
> visited the national history museum what nation?
Sorry, I was referring to the Smithsonian National History Museum
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
My favourite tree evolution thing is the forests in the Galapagos being evolved from dandelion seeds blown in on the wind from South America.
Fascinating. Do you have a link to that, or the name of that species?
I heard about it on the David Attenborough's Galapagos series:
https://iview.abc.net.au/show/david-attenborough-s-galapagos
Here is a YouTube playlist, I think it was episode 3, Evolution:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3iXsS5tZSZG4gcYrblBd...
Also see the wiki page mentioned in the sibling comment.
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can something precede history. Isn’t that just older history?
Conventionally, History starts with written records. Everything that came before is prehistoric. It’s useful as a concept when discussion groups of humans in the last 10-odd millennia, but not really for things that are a couple of millions years old.
> Everything that came before is prehistoric.
Hi, Wikipedia doesn't agree with you:
> Prehistory [...] is the period of _human_ history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems.
Emphasis mine on "human".
Re: A glob of 99M-year-old amber trapped a zombie fungus erupting from a fly
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conventionally, History starts with written records. Everything that came before is prehistoric. It’s useful as a concept when discussion groups of humans in the last 10-odd millennia, but not really for things that are a couple of millions years old.
> Everything that came before is prehistoric. Hi, Wikipedia doesn't agree with you: > Prehistory [...] is the period of _human_ history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. Emphasis mine on "human". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory
Yes, you are right. I was thinking in the context of human populations. And then there is the question of what is human and what is not, and the limit between archaeology and paleontology when considering homininae.