[HN Gopher] 2,500-year-old olive tree burned down in Evia fires ...
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2,500-year-old olive tree burned down in Evia fires in Greece
Author : curmudgeon22
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-08-09 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (greekreporter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greekreporter.com)
| lettergram wrote:
| Not sure how olive trees work, but perhaps it can regrow from the
| root system?
| enchiridion wrote:
| How hardy are olive trees? I wonder if it'll grow back from the
| stump
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| They're extremely hardy but not in that sense. They're hardy by
| being drought resistant and by growing absolutely massive (but
| stout) and incredibly strong. Figs on the other hand are rather
| flimsy but regrow from roots all the time.
| enchiridion wrote:
| Good to know! I actually had fig trees in mind when I asked
| the question, so good analogy. To bad then. Hopefully they've
| done something to propagate it in the past.
| Knajjars wrote:
| But climate change is a hoax, right? It was pure coincidence that
| the tree never caught fire in 2500 years
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| RobRivera wrote:
| i dont think anyone ever said climate change was a hoax in this
| discussion.
| junon wrote:
| A bit pedantic. I agree the GP doesn't add much to the
| conversation but they're clearly referencing the hoard of
| people who still think climate change is a hoax.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I know that was a poor attempt at sarcasm but very poor logic.
| There could have been thousands that have been winnowed over
| the years due to other fires.
| esalman wrote:
| Ask me in 2500 years...
|
| I kid you not, this is the exact answer I got from an IEEE
| panel member. It was right after the TX winter storm earlier
| this year- I asked them if we should take extra preparations
| for extreme weather events. He was like scientists are divided
| on this so...
| jonpo wrote:
| tragic, the tree is gone but maybe we can plant its children.
| maybe the next 2500 years will be kinder?
| m00dy wrote:
| I'm so glad that Turkey has just sent full equipped planes to
| help Greece.
| pepperonipizza wrote:
| I read just some days ago that Turkey couldn't even take off
| their canadair because they didn't maintained them, and has
| leased planes from Poland and other countries.
| warent wrote:
| A strange thought just occurred to me... they said that it was
| fertile with olives until it was destroyed by the fire. Plants
| grow and create fruit through cellular division, right? How is it
| possible for a plant to live for 2500 years without spontaneously
| developing a malignant mutation / cancer? Is it possible for
| plants to have cancer?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cancer isn't even guaranteed in animals. Naked mole rats are
| notable for being mammals largely immune to tumors. They're
| fascinating in other ways, especially their eusociality.
|
| Cancer-like growths in trees exist, but they don't have the
| problems with metastases animals do.
| lordnacho wrote:
| How have we observed enough naked mole rats to be confident
| of this? How did cancer rates in them become an object of
| study in the first place? Is there a reason to think they
| don't get cancer?
| akiselev wrote:
| It's not just naked mole rats. Some sharks, turtles, and
| other animals exhibit the same phenomenon. They're not
| immune to cancer, but their defenses (mostly multiple
| layers of contact inhibition) prevent tumors from
| establishing themselves and metastasizing or growing to a
| dangerous size _in their natural environment._ The
| adaptations themselves tend to be mutation resistant so the
| probability that a cell will become malignant _and_ lose
| those layers of protection is astronomical, whereas most
| animals have many single points of failure, so to speak.
|
| Naked mole rats reportedly develop cancer when living in
| zoos where they are exposed to much more oxygen than
| they're used to. Their genetics naturally prevent cancers
| when they're living in a hypoxic underground environment
| but when exposed to the oxidative stresses of living above
| ground, the mutation rate can overcome their natural
| defenses
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd encourage you to read
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat. They are
| awesomely bizarre creatures.
| Tsiklon wrote:
| That tree was planted in the era of Classical Greece; if it could
| speak of the epochs and people it saw, it would have had many
| tales to tell.
|
| This is as much a cultural loss as it is an economic loss. I have
| no connection to Greece or it's people, but this saddens me.
| ardit33 wrote:
| Talking about old:
|
| There is another tree in Crete that is 4k old.... (yes, 4,000
| years old). It even pre-dates the Greeks, as they arrived in
| the area only around 1400-1450bc. It was planted by the Minoan
| people... and it is still there today making olives.
| adventured wrote:
| They're not sure how old it is. The best guess range is 2,000
| to 4,000 years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_tree_of_Vouves
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