[HN Gopher] World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian...
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World's oldest tree still growing near the Norwegian-Swedish border
Author : Manheim
Score : 224 points
Date : 2022-07-14 06:16 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sciencenorway.no)
(TXT) w3m dump (sciencenorway.no)
| Graffur wrote:
| What is the rule with Cookie notices bring in a different
| language? Strangely, this is the first one I have come across not
| in English.
| [deleted]
| wohfab wrote:
| Isn't the "oldest tree" always "still growing", until it doesn't
| grow? Then it's dead? Then it's not the oldest tree anymore?
| hobo_in_library wrote:
| In other news, the oldest human alive is still aging!
| Proven wrote:
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > No part of today's living tree is as old as 9 500 years, but
| genetically, the tree is exactly the same individual as when it
| began to germinate.
|
| It looks like we've found a Theseus tree!
| throw0101a wrote:
| There's a list:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees
| joosters wrote:
| Birds migrate over winters. Spruce trees migrate over ice ages...
| bencollier49 wrote:
| This blew my mind. Gives an idea of the timescales we're talking
| about:
|
| "The reason why Old Tjikko now finds itself on the barren rock
| near Trysil - more than a hundred metres higher than what is
| considered the tree line - is simply that the spruce tree rose
| along with the mountain it grows on during the land uplift that
| followed the ice age."
| q1w2 wrote:
| The article conflates two phenomena...
|
| 1. The uplift of the land after the glacier melt.
|
| 2. The fact that spruces "multiply" by spreading out their
| roots and can thereby migrate over centuries.
|
| The 2nd point sort of dances on the definition of
| "reproduction" and "individual". Genetically this tree is
| identical to it's original "cloned parent" from 9500 years ago,
| but there are also "other?" spruce trees lower down the
| mountain along the tree line that are it's "siblings?"/"self?"
| - now detached from one another.
|
| That's the thing with nature - it doesn't always follow
| definitions we place on it. net-net, this isn't quite the same
| as finding a tree that's individually born and still 10000
| years old.
| bcbrown wrote:
| For the bristlecone pines in California and Nevada, a primary
| cause of death for old trees is that erosion slowly exposes
| their root system over time until it kills them. So in a sense,
| they can outlive the mountains they grow upon.
| hinkley wrote:
| Had to read this in reader mode because while the text of the
| article was in English, the cookie pop up was in what I'm
| guessing is Norwegian, and covered most of the space where the
| text is. Who does that?
| zrobotics wrote:
| Every news source on the planet it seems. This source didn't
| localize to your language (I had the same frustration), but
| every website seems to do this, this one just didn't localize
| the cookie prompt.
|
| Not going to lie, it seems a bit presumptuous to expect that a
| local Norwegian source has every aspect of their site optimized
| for English readers. Aside from the Norwegian text, it was a
| standard cookie click-through.
|
| Edit: this reads hostile, I mainly want to point out that not
| every site online is in English and expecting that shouldn't be
| the norm. I've read excellent Chinese only articles through
| translation services, it seems unfair to expect everyone to
| default to English to share their knowledge. Especially now
| with AI translation being a thing, it seems unfair to criticize
| a local news source for focusing on their local language.
| Reading non-English sites is easier now than ever, and
| translation errors are worth being able to read about more of
| the world's ideas. There are ideas that don't spread to the
| wider web simply because the author wrote them in their native
| language. When it's so easy to get a machine translation that
| isn't perfect but is serviceable, I have trouble complaining
| about language issues.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > This source didn't localize to your language (I had the
| same frustration), but every website seems to do this, this
| one just didn't localize the cookie prompt.
|
| > Not going to lie, it seems a bit presumptuous to expect
| that a local Norwegian source has every aspect of their site
| optimized for English readers.
|
| Not at all, when they're presenting an article _written in
| English_.
| [deleted]
| tgv wrote:
| Trolls, of course!
| kebman wrote:
| They will come and eat your cookie!
| hinkley wrote:
| Speaking of trolls and Norway, if you have never seen Andre
| Ovredal's Trollhunter, you should find a copy. Easily one of
| my top five film festival discoveries, and generally well
| received by anyone I've shown it to.
|
| The setup is a bunch of journalism students trying to do an
| expose on a man who they believe is a bear poacher, and then
| it's down the rabbit hole for another hour.
| kebman wrote:
| Just to be clear, the tree is found in Dalarna in Sweden, though
| this is indeed East of Trysil in Norway. Since Sciencenorway.no
| (!) is a Norwegian outlet, they need to at least attempt to make
| their articles relevant for Norway.
|
| The outlet is the English version of Forskning.no. _Forskning_
| means research in Norwegian, but in this instance it really means
| science. Their focus is to bring news about what Norwegian
| scientists are up to with popular science articles for the
| masses. That 's why some of their articles seem a tad tabloid at
| times.
|
| The tradition in Norway is that the most tabloid articles are
| published during the main summer vacation, when newspapers employ
| interns and temp journalists. We even have a word for such
| articles: _Agurknytt._ It means cucumber news, and implies that
| the article is desperately trying to make news out of something
| that isn 't.
| narag wrote:
| In Spain it used to be _serpientes de verano_ (summer snakes)
| but not sure if Loch Ness is still popular.
| zrobotics wrote:
| So equivalent to popular science for the US crowd.
|
| I'm curious, why 'cucumber' news? Just due to the harvest time
| of the plant, or is there some cultural significance to the
| term?
| soegaard wrote:
| "Cucumber time" is the season, where news paper doesn't have
| anything to report on than cucumbers.
|
| http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cuc2.htm
|
| https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid
| LeonM wrote:
| In Dutch it is "komkommertijd" [0], which also literally
| translates to "cucumber time". It has the exact same
| meaning.
|
| [0] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komkommertijd
| severine wrote:
| Other examples would be, according to Wikipedia, "silly
| season" in english, "serpiente de verano" (summer snake) in
| spanish, "Sommerloch" in german, and a bunch of others.
| Very common phenomenon.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
| mikaoj85 wrote:
| <<Silly season/cucumber time>>
|
| Harvest time, indeed.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season
| madmoose wrote:
| Apparently it's from German around 1780, for the time during
| the summer when the cucumbers ripen, everyone is on vacation,
| and business is slow. That's what the Danish wikipedia entry
| says, at least.
|
| https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agurketid#Ophav
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season#Other_names
| konschubert wrote:
| Sauregurkenzeit
| zrobotics wrote:
| Ah, so the US "dog-days of summer". Not going to lie, I
| prefer the silly-season nomenclature, it captures the lack
| of motivation and malaise that seems to set in during the
| height of summer much better. Thanks for the explanation,
| very interesting.
| adrian_b wrote:
| English "dog-days" is just a translation of Latin
| "caniculares dies", which came from the time of
| visibility before sunrise of the "Dog Star" a.k.a.
| Sirius.
| aerique wrote:
| We have the same expression in Dutch: "komkommertijd".
|
| The Dutch Wikipedia mentions English, German or Jiddisch as
| possible sources:
| https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komkommertijd
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Everytime tehre is a funny word in German E.g.
| "Hechtsuppe" I assume it to be Jiddisch or Rotwelsch.
| AndyJames wrote:
| Same in Polish "sezon ogorkowy"
| marttt wrote:
| Same in Estonia, "hapukurgihooaeg". Literal translation
| of the German "Sauregurkenzeit".
| sleepyhead wrote:
| > Just to be clear, the tree is found in Dalarna in Sweden
|
| They point it out in the introduction: "discovered a tree up on
| Fulufjallet - in Sweden just east of Trysil municipality in
| Norway" also it says "near the Norwegian-Swedish border" in the
| headline.
| tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote:
| Also, it is only about 4km from the border. This is "near" in
| this context (context being relatively unpopulated area with
| not much things except for nature within 4km).
| pengstrom wrote:
| The corresponding Swedish term is "burknyheter" (canned news) I
| believe. For slow seasons, news are pulled from the can.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| There is also "rotmanad", ("rot month") which refers to the
| time of year it's warm enough for things to go bad quickly.
| breindog wrote:
| Absolutely wild to see the surrounding land "grow" this spruce
| 1000 meters above the typical tree line in the region.
| vesinisa wrote:
| That title is rather clickbaity for a "science" magazine.
| Crucially, the tree prominently featured in the large picture is
| not 10,000 years old and only its root system originates from
| that period:
|
| > Today Old Tjikko's tree trunk is only five metres high.
| Although the spruce may have had many such trunks over the
| millennia, the tree's root system has survived all these years.
| No part of today's living tree is as old as 9 500 years, but
| genetically, the tree is exactly the same individual as when it
| began to germinate.
|
| Indeed if we allow equating the plant to the age and extent of
| its root system (genetically the same organism, although no part
| of the present plant is as old), I already found this other tree
| root system named "Pando" in Utah, USA, that is estimated to be
| up to 14,000 years old - making the Swedish spruce's claim to
| world's oldest dubious:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
|
| Pando is also thought to be the largest and heaviest known single
| organism, covering 43 hectares and weighing 6,000 tons.
| d0mine wrote:
| Likely true: most cells in your body are younger than your age
| too.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I thought Pandora is 80,000 years old. Where did you get
| 14,000?
| vesinisa wrote:
| From the URL I provided as source (Wikipedia)? On the "oldest
| trees" Wiki page it also says that there had been previous
| aging resulting with much older estimates, but these were
| invalidated by newer results with lower estimates.
| kebman wrote:
| Crucially the tree is in Sweden and not Norway xD
| alkonaut wrote:
| The cool thing about it and what does give it the 10k year feel
| is that it grows in a spot that was only low enough for trees
| to grow 10k years ago because the mountain has risen 100 meters
| since, and it couldn't start growing there now.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Sort of. The article also says that spruce trees slowly
| migrate via spreading their root systems. So this tree
| "system" probably originated lower along the tree line and
| migrated up over the centuries.
|
| The article has conflicting information on this point.
| __alexs wrote:
| What is a "tree"?
|
| None of the leaves on Methuselah are 5000 years old, but we say
| that the tree is that old.
|
| Kind of a Tree of Theseus situation going on.
| vesinisa wrote:
| Assuming you mean this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)
|
| It says that its trunk is about 5,000 y.o. as counted through
| growth rings. I would think most people would understand this
| to be the proper age of a "tree".
| beanjuice wrote:
| You are 10 years old, I am also 10 years old. We are all 10
| years old. [10]
|
| [10] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/science/your-body-is-
| youn...
| vesinisa wrote:
| While its true that _most_ cells in our body replace once
| about seven years, humans do have e.g. neuron cells that
| are about as old as the individual:
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/does-body-replace-
| itself-s...
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The river is a thousand years old. The oldest water in it
| just came from the spring a few days ago.
|
| Yet take away any water younger than a week, and the river
| is gone.
|
| How do you measure an age of a process defined by change?
| lgeorget wrote:
| Unsurprinsingly, Wikipedia has a list of the oldest known trees
| in the world:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees
| elygre wrote:
| yes, one tree with multiple trunks. Many trees will drop their
| leaves annually, then recreate new leaves next spring. Turns
| out the spruce can do this with its entire trunk. I found it
| fascinating and enlightening, and learned something new.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| IANAB (B = botanist) but I believe that many species of tree
| can grow more than one trunk and that the spruce is not
| unusual in this respect.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Aspen trees do this.
| zrobotics wrote:
| For anyone in areas with Aspen trees, they are a single
| organism since they spread via roots. That is why you see
| groves of Aspen trees that seem to be sharply delineated,
| it's all one tree.
|
| Biology is just fascinating/scary like this, but knowing
| this makes the experience of standing in an aspen grove
| during the height of summer even more powerful. It's all
| one connected organism thst has spread so far that you
| can't see anything else of the mountain while standing in
| the middle of the grove.
| Fiahil wrote:
| See also : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
| bergenty wrote:
| Yes, most if not all trees can do this. It was a strategy
| called coppicing that allowed more lumber to be grown from
| the same root system.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Did other people think before clicking on the link "I really hope
| they don't say where it is or provide a picture, because someone
| is sure to go find it and chop it down"? Has the Internet ruined
| me?
| etiam wrote:
| Quite similar, yes.
|
| I went to comments precisely to say I really wish they'd stop
| bringing mass Internet attention to vulnerable wonders of
| nature like these. It places them in terrible danger.
|
| The sadist with an axe is definitely a real threat as has been
| seen repeatedly, but even if not, the stampede of a selfie-
| crowd is a danger in itself for something like this. There are
| ancient plants that have had life-threatening damage from
| suddenly having unreasonable numbers of people clinging on them
| for photos and wearing down the grown all the way through the
| roots.
|
| I certainly don't want to see this sort of reporting just to
| fill space during a news drought.
| TrickyRick wrote:
| The tree has a website (The website honors the age of the tree
| by also looking like something prehistoric) [1], information
| about it and its location is readily available on the national
| park's website [2], it has a Wikipedia article [3], and of
| course it's on Google Maps. So I don't really think this
| article provides anything new.
|
| [1]: http://www.oldtjikko.se/OldTjikkoFulufjallet.html
|
| [2]: https://www.sverigesnationalparker.se/park/fulufjallets-
| nati...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tjikko
| BLO716 wrote:
| Reminds me of a story of Donal Rusk Currey and his unfortunate
| undoing while doing his job.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accide...
|
| One last note, as I've been to The Ancient Bristlecone Pine
| Forest in recent years, it's an AMAZING panacea of views up high
| as the eye can see. I THINK you can see almost all of the Sierra
| Nevada across the valley in a couple points, and its breath
| taking how beautiful it is.
|
| Worth visiting, but as a short fat white guy in technology - be
| ready for the thin air, and absolutely grueling hikes if you
| explore. It's SOOOO worth it for anyone in the Bay Area to make
| this trek.
| davidspiess wrote:
| I recently watched a german documentary "Das geheime Leben der
| Baume" [1] where they visit this exact tree. Highly recommend it.
| The documentary is based on a novel of the same name by the
| author Peter Wohlleben [2].
|
| [1]: https://www.3sat.de/film/dokumentarfilm/das-geheime-leben-
| de...
|
| [2]: https://www.amazon.de/Hidden-Life-Trees-Communicate-
| Discover...
| CalRobert wrote:
| If you happen to be in California and want to see the oldest non-
| clonal trees in the world, visit the Bristlecone Pines in the
| white mountains near Mammoth. But maybe do it soon...
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-06-27/drought...
| throwaway742 wrote:
| sad
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(page generated 2022-07-14 23:02 UTC)