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Speaker 1: The oldest tree we know of is Methuselah, a great

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Speaker 1: basin bristle cone pine that is almost five thousand years old.

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Speaker 1: Methuselah began putting down its roots during the Age of

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Speaker 1: the Pyramids in ancient Egypt. It also lived through the

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Speaker 1: rise and the fall of ancient Greece and ancient Rome

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Speaker 1: as well. Pamarabi, Nephertidi, Buddha, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Cleopatra,

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Speaker 1: Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Da Vinci, Copernicus, Ivan the Terrible, Shakespeare, Pocahontas, Newton, Hamilton, Mozart, Napoleon, Lincoln, Darwin, Nightingale, Pasture, Edison, Gandhi, Hitler, Parks,

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Speaker 1: Mandela Martin, Luther King Junior, and Betty White. Generations of

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Speaker 1: humans have struggled and strove, some making the world better,

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Speaker 1: some making it worse, but all of them lived out

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Speaker 1: their entire lives in just a sliver of the time

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Speaker 1: during which Methuselah has been patiently growing in the White

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Speaker 1: Mountains of California. There's something both bewildering and awe inspiring

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Speaker 1: about incredibly old trees, and today we're going to be

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Speaker 1: talking about what we know about them, how do we

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Speaker 1: age trees, and how and why do some trees live

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Speaker 1: so long? Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily tremendous universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I round

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Speaker 2: myself up to fifty years old.

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Speaker 1: Hello. I am Kelly Wiener Smith. I study parasites and space,

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Speaker 1: and I round myself down to forty. You're even older

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Speaker 1: than I am than I had realized. Daniel.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, what a wonderful thing to hear.

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Speaker 1: All about how you round. Although you know, I thought

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Speaker 1: we had both agreed that we round up on average,

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Speaker 1: But at only forty two, I think I'm gonna go

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Speaker 1: ahead and round down.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think that's fair. Who really needs more

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Speaker 2: significant digits than one? Right?

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Speaker 1: That's right? That's right. Do you have a favorite tree?

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Speaker 2: Do I have a favorite tree? I love the redwoods,

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Speaker 2: you know, out here in California. I gotta say that's

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Speaker 2: something spectacular about California and the mystery, the majesty of

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Speaker 2: being the presence of these super tall and super old

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Speaker 2: beings and thinking about all the things they've seen experienced.

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Speaker 2: I love it. I just love old trees in general.

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Speaker 2: Like when you drive down a street in a neighborhood

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Speaker 2: that's like one hundred years old, and the trees like

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Speaker 2: cross over the street or have all these wiggles and

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Speaker 2: branches where it's like a new suburb with these like

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Speaker 2: tiny little potted plant trees, it's just a little sad.

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Speaker 2: So old trees are wonderful because it's something you got

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Speaker 2: to earn. It just takes time. You know, you can't

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Speaker 2: like fast grow a tree to a huge size.

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Speaker 1: I totally agree. When I lived in California, I had

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Speaker 1: to go see the Redwoods and I realized that I'd

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Speaker 1: been like looking up at one of those trees with

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Speaker 1: my mouth open, and I was like so glad nothing

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Speaker 1: had fallen into it, because I was just like I

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Speaker 1: must have stood there for, you know, fifteen minutes just

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Speaker 1: looking at the same tree being like, Ah, the things

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Speaker 1: that you've seen or you know, have been alive through.

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Speaker 1: It's just incredible. And then I had the great pleasure

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Speaker 1: of working at Race University for a while, which I

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Speaker 1: know is where you did your undergrad and they've got

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Speaker 1: that running track around the outside of the university that

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Speaker 1: is surrounded by live oaks, and they're the ones that

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Speaker 1: have those like tortuous arms that like go back, they down,

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Speaker 1: they touch the ground, they come back up again. Oh,

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Speaker 1: they're so gorgeous. I actually don't know how old those

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Speaker 1: live oaks are, but there's something about a big tree

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Speaker 1: that I love.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and Rice has so many trees. I think there's

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Speaker 2: something in the charter that they have to have more

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Speaker 2: trees on campus than students, that they really preserve the

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Speaker 2: trees on the campus.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe they've got more trees on campus than students.

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Speaker 1: If so, they got to shut that place down. Man,

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's working out.

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Speaker 2: Well. I gotta ask you call of the obvious question.

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Speaker 2: Given California's redwoods and the majesty of our old trees,

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Speaker 2: what does Virginia have to compare. I'm giving you an

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Speaker 2: opportunity here.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is easy. So California is beautiful.

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Speaker 1: But have you been to Shanandoah National Park?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I have land of many uses.

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Speaker 1: Many uses? What do you mean, like you're gonna cut

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Speaker 1: my trees down?

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Speaker 2: No? I just remember camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains

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Speaker 2: one time, and there was a sign when you enter,

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Speaker 2: It's like welcome to the Blue Ridge Mountains a land

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Speaker 2: of many uses, and well, I wonder what that means.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't remember seeing that on the side, but

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Speaker 1: like you've gone camping and the Blue Ridge answer is obvious.

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Speaker 1: It's just so gorgeous seeing all of those rolling hills

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Speaker 1: with all the trees and the like mist coming up

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Speaker 1: over them in the mornings and seeing the sunset. There's

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Speaker 1: like no more beautiful view in all of the United

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Speaker 1: States than what you get. I'm laying down the gauntlet, man.

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Speaker 2: I was with you up until that point. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I like the Blue Ridge Mountains for mountains, they're cute.

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Speaker 2: I mean, they're not that tall or that.

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Speaker 1: Point d That's why they're so nice to walk.

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Speaker 2: I like a nice granite topped mountain, you know, like

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Speaker 2: above the tree line. That's my jam. And the Sierras,

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Speaker 2: for example, Oh yeah. And I just don't think you

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Speaker 2: can compare to the majesty of the coastal Redwoods. You know,

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Speaker 2: nothing stands up to that. In my opinion, those are beautiful.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you that. I don't feel like I want

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Speaker 1: to pit one natural beauty against another, but I can

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Speaker 1: say that in grad school I tried hiking White Mountain

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Speaker 1: where the Bristol Cone Pines are. So we talked about

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Speaker 1: Methusela in the opening, and you know, I was climbing

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Speaker 1: up there and the air was getting thin and I

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Speaker 1: was like feeling miserable, and you know, so no, give

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Speaker 1: me Shanandoah any day where I could breathe. It's like

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Speaker 1: I don't want to go to space. I don't want

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Speaker 1: to go to White Mountain.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's beautiful, absolutely, I'll give you that. And

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Speaker 2: you're right, we shouldn't pit one against the other. There's

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Speaker 2: lots of different ways to be beautiful and we should

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Speaker 2: appreciate all of it.

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Speaker 1: Amen. All right, And so we had this absolutely incredible

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Speaker 1: question from a listener's son about old trees, and that's

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Speaker 1: what we're going to be talking about today. But before

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Speaker 1: we listen to the question, I want to remind you

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Speaker 1: that you can send us your questions or you can

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Speaker 1: send us your kids questions at questions at Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Kelly dot org.

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Speaker 2: We really love hearing from you, and we love hearing

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Speaker 2: from your kids. Thank you to everybody who listens to

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Speaker 2: the pod with your kid. It's a great way to

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Speaker 2: start conversations about science.

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Speaker 1: Yay, all right, So let's hear the question that we're

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Speaker 1: chatting about today.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel Kelly, I have a question, why does some

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Speaker 3: trees live longer than other trees? And why do they

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Speaker 3: live longer than people?

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Speaker 2: This is a great question because this is a question

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Speaker 2: I've had since I was a kid, looking at those

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Speaker 2: redwoods and wondering like, why do they live so long?

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Speaker 2: How do they live so long? What's going on?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fantastic question, and it was one where

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Speaker 1: when I listened to it, I thought, oh, this is

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Speaker 1: another one where I don't really know the answer, and

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Speaker 1: so I was thrilled to have an opportunity to do

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Speaker 1: some research. And so let's start this conversation by talking

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Speaker 1: about how we even go about are in the first place.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are familiar with the

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Speaker 1: idea that you can age trees based on their rings,

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Speaker 1: but it's a little bit more complicated, So.

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Speaker 2: You can't just chop down the tree and count the rings.

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Speaker 1: Danduel, Yes, but then you're a monster.

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Speaker 2: Well it reminds me of that Far Side cartoon where

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Speaker 2: the guy is standing there with his son and axe

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Speaker 2: and he's chopped down some big tree and he's going

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Speaker 2: through the history of the tree, all the things. The

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Speaker 2: tree has survived until of course that day that he

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Speaker 2: chopped it.

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Speaker 1: Down, right, but it couldn't survive us. Uh, that's sad.

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Speaker 2: So tell me then, how do we know how old

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Speaker 2: a tree is without chopping it down and counting its rings.

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Speaker 1: Well, for a while there, we were using relational ages,

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Speaker 1: so you would say, oh, well, the tree was planted

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Speaker 1: around the time the Parthenon was built or something like that.

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Speaker 1: And so Pliny was using these relational ages where he

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Speaker 1: would age trees based on historical stuff that was happening

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Speaker 1: at the same time.

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Speaker 2: But how would you know what historical stuff was happening

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Speaker 2: at the same time. How would you know this tree

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Speaker 2: was planted at the same time the Parthenon or something.

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Speaker 1: I think records and institutional memory. But you're right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you don't know unless somebody happens to know local knowledge.

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Speaker 2: And that you can trust that knowledge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they got a lot of ages wrong.

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Speaker 1: But that can't work great, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean, I'm sure there's a lot of mythology, right. People

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Speaker 2: are like, there's trees thousands of years old, and because

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Speaker 2: people are bad at deep time, you know, oh.

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Speaker 1: My gosh, so bad. And I was reading this book

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Speaker 1: called Elder Flora, and it talks about sort of the

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Speaker 1: history of our relationship with old trees and how we

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Speaker 1: often get the ages wrong, and how trees become important

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Speaker 1: for religious ceremonies and stuff, and so anyway, anyone who's

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Speaker 1: interested in old trees, that's a good book worth checking out.

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Speaker 1: But towards the end of the nineteenth century, and I'm

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Speaker 1: surprised this wasn't common earlier, we started getting a handle

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Speaker 1: on aging trees by counting their rings. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the science behind where these rings come from.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, why do trees have rings? And why do they

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Speaker 2: have one ring per year? Anyway?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, great question. Why doesn't the inside of a

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Speaker 1: tree all look the same?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't have rings. If you cut

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Speaker 2: me open, you couldn't count my age.

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Speaker 1: Well, we don't really know until we try.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we should start with a core sample.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, that's right. I'll get off my increment borer.

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Speaker 1: But we'll get to that. So, so here's how trees grow.

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Speaker 1: All right, Say you do do the horrible act of

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Speaker 1: cutting down a tree, which of course sometimes you have

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Speaker 1: to do, and we all use paper so anyway, no judgment.

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Speaker 1: So you cut down a tree, you're looking at the

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Speaker 1: center of a tree. The center part of the tree

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Speaker 1: is called heartwood. And if it's a big tree, that

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Speaker 1: center part is actually dead.

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Speaker 2: Why is it called heartwood if it's dead.

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Speaker 1: Trees are weird, and that's going to be the theme

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Speaker 1: of today's show, I think, is that trees are weird. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, the listener wanted to know why humans don't

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Speaker 1: live as long as trees, and I think the answer

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Speaker 1: is trees are weird. And you know, I'll do a

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Speaker 1: better job of answering that at the end of the episode.

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Speaker 1: But that's the take home point. So the center is dead,

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Speaker 1: and it's dead because it no longer has access to

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Speaker 1: water and nutrients that are come up through the xylum,

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Speaker 1: which will get you. So the next level you've got

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Speaker 1: is the sapwood, and the sapwood is the level where

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Speaker 1: you still get water that's coming up through the xylum.

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Speaker 1: So you've got essentially I think of it as like

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Speaker 1: a series of tubes, but it's really like specialized cells

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Speaker 1: that go from the roots up through the trunk of

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Speaker 1: the tree and into the canopy. And so the sapwood

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Speaker 1: is getting access to that water and to the nutrients.

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Speaker 1: Next to the sapwood is the cambrium, and the cambrium

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Speaker 1: maybe the cambrium we all know how good I am

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Speaker 1: at pronouncing things is going to be very important for

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Speaker 1: the rest of this episode. So this is the layer

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Speaker 1: where you have the growth happening. So on one side,

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Speaker 1: towards the outside of the tree, the cambrium starts producing bark,

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Speaker 1: and that bark is going to build up over time,

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Speaker 1: and that's going to protect the tree. Towards the inside

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Speaker 1: of the tree, it's producing the sapwood, so it's producing

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Speaker 1: more of that like woody tissue that you would build

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Speaker 1: a house out of, for example.

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Speaker 2: Woody tissue otherwise known as wood. Yeah, well for us folk.

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Speaker 1: But wouldn't bark be woody tissue? Kind of Also, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, I see, but you wouldn't necessarily build the

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Speaker 1: house out of bark. So I was trying to be

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Speaker 1: a little more specific.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, well, I don't want to blow my nose

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Speaker 2: on a woody tissue, So I guess it has lots

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Speaker 2: of meanings.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.

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Speaker 2: Well, before you dig deeper, my first question is, like,

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Speaker 2: are these hard divisions is there like an edge between

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Speaker 2: the heartwood and the sapwood, or is it like a

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Speaker 2: spectrum where like in the middle it's something that's sort

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Speaker 2: of hearty sappy, or is it really like a hard

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Speaker 2: bright line there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm thinking back at

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Speaker 1: the tree cookies as they're called, that I've looked at.

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Speaker 1: So this is like you slice through a tree at

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Speaker 1: two different parts, and it's sort of shaped in a circle,

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Speaker 1: kind of like a cookie. And I feel like often

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Speaker 1: it looks like there's a pretty clear delineation between what

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Speaker 1: would be the heartwood and what would be the sapwood.

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Speaker 1: The heartwood's like a different color, but it probably does

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Speaker 1: have like layers that are gradations in the process of dying,

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Speaker 1: essentially interesting versus cells that are still being fed, would

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Speaker 1: be my guess, right.

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Speaker 2: And so the Cambrian is the thing that's making more

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Speaker 2: soapwood on the inside and more bark on the outside.

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Speaker 2: Is that the only part of the tree that's growing.

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Speaker 2: The tree is not like expanding uniformly, sort of like

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Speaker 2: the way the universe expands. It's like only making new

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Speaker 2: rings around the outside.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's only making new rings around the outside. And

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Speaker 1: so say you were to like put a nail into

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Speaker 1: the side of a tree, and you came back fifty

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Speaker 1: years later, that nail would still be at the same

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Speaker 1: height that you had put in, but it would be

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Speaker 1: essentially getting like absorbed by the tree, like layers would

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Speaker 1: have grown around it, and so either that nail wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be visible anymore unless you actually cut into the tree.

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Speaker 1: And as someone who lives out in the woods in

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Speaker 1: an area where there used to be a lot of

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Speaker 1: barbed wire fencing, it's amazing how often we'll cut into

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Speaker 1: a tree and the chainsaw blade will get messed up

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Speaker 1: because it turned out there was a barbed wire like

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the tree and the tree had

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Speaker 1: just grown around it. It was like, nice, try humans,

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Speaker 1: I grow around you.

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Speaker 2: And so if I had like two models of growth

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Speaker 2: in my head, one where like every part of the

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Speaker 2: tree is expanding, so heartwood is always heartwood just becomes bigger.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like you're suggesting a different model where like sapwood

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Speaker 2: becomes heartwood. Is that what's happening here?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So sapwood and heartwood are both made out of

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Speaker 1: xylum cells, which are the cells where you get water

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Speaker 1: and the stuff that's dissolved in the water that goes

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Speaker 1: from the ground through the roots and up towards the

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Speaker 1: top of the tree. Both sapwood and heartwood are dead.

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Speaker 1: Those xylum cells are dead, and as those xylum cells

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Speaker 1: get more and more compressed, they become heartwood. So the

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Speaker 1: difference between sapwood and heartwood is that the xylum cells

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Speaker 1: have been compressed so much that water can't move up

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Speaker 1: them anymore, and that happens as you move towards the

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Speaker 1: center of the tree. So sapwood becomes heartwood over time.

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Speaker 2: And then that heartwood basically never changes right because it's

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Speaker 2: dead and now it's just structural.

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Speaker 1: So in most trees, that heartwood stays structural and it

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Speaker 1: stays there. And so when you bore through the center

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Speaker 1: of a tree, you can pull out a plug where

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Speaker 1: you can see all of the lines throughout the entire

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Speaker 1: life of the tree. But there are some kinds of trees,

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Speaker 1: like the Boa bab in Africa, where the inside is

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Speaker 1: sort of not the same consistency of wood that most

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Speaker 1: of us think of, and it tends to sort of

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Speaker 1: decay and rode away, and so you can't use increment

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Speaker 1: bars for a lot of those trees because the inside

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Speaker 1: is no longer there.

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Speaker 2: But for most trees, basically the living part of it

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00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:29,960
Speaker 2: is like a hollow cylinder's more like a tube than

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00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:33,080
Speaker 2: like a filled in cylinder. And that's expanding and leaving

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Speaker 2: behind its corpses.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, isn't that crazy?

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00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:40,280
Speaker 2: That is crazy, totally nuts. It's like the opposite of

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Speaker 2: a snake. A snake like sheds its skin, but the

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Speaker 2: living part is on the inside. This is like if

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Speaker 2: the skin was the living part.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Wow, trees are weird.

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Speaker 1: Yes, trees are so weird. Okay, but so why does

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Speaker 1: that growth leave behind rings instead of just like a

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Speaker 1: homogeneous center.

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Speaker 2: Or why is it linked to the year instead of

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Speaker 2: something else?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 2: What's going on every year that makes this mark inside

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Speaker 2: the tree?

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00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:09,240
Speaker 1: Right? So you get rings in areas where there's clear

323
00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:12,320
Speaker 1: seasonal differences, and that could be winter summer, but it

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Speaker 1: could also be wet season and dry season. So not

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Speaker 1: all trees have rings, and in particular, these rings are

326
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Speaker 1: either like much fainter or maybe even impossible to see.

327
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Speaker 1: And areas where conditions are more homogeneous or more similar

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Speaker 1: all year long, like a born place like California probably,

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Speaker 1: But anyways.

330
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Speaker 2: If by boring you mean consistently wonderful, then yes, all.

331
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:36,280
Speaker 1: Right, fine, Okay. So at the beginning of a season,

332
00:15:37,480 --> 00:15:40,120
Speaker 1: the wood is a little bit lighter, and it is

333
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,840
Speaker 1: more aimed at being able to transport nutrients and water

334
00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:47,560
Speaker 1: up and down during the massive growth that starts at

335
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:49,840
Speaker 1: the beginning of the spring. And so that kind of

336
00:15:49,840 --> 00:15:54,000
Speaker 1: wood is called early wood, because apparently these folks are

337
00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:56,400
Speaker 1: just as clever at naming things as the people who

338
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Speaker 1: named the rings of Jupiter. If was that Jupiter or

339
00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: Saturn where the rings are abc.

340
00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,160
Speaker 2: That's definitely Saturn, probably a Jupiter, though I haven't looked

341
00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:07,440
Speaker 2: that up.

342
00:16:07,680 --> 00:16:10,440
Speaker 1: Okay. And then after the earlywood, you get do you

343
00:16:10,440 --> 00:16:11,480
Speaker 1: want to go ahead and guess.

344
00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:13,520
Speaker 2: Daniel, I'm gonna guess latewood.

345
00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:16,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, you get lightwood. And lightwood I think is

346
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,720
Speaker 1: more about structure, and so it tends to be tighter

347
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:20,600
Speaker 1: and closer together.

348
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 2: I see. So the kind of new wood that's grown

349
00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:27,360
Speaker 2: depends on the conditions on the ground, and that changes

350
00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:29,160
Speaker 2: through the year, and that changes the kind of wood

351
00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 2: that it's grown.

352
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:32,600
Speaker 1: Yep. So every year you get this pattern of like

353
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Speaker 1: light than dark, and those are the rings that you see.

354
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:39,200
Speaker 2: And I think, say again, why the latewood is darker

355
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:40,000
Speaker 2: than the early wood.

356
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:42,040
Speaker 1: My understanding is that the late wood is meant to

357
00:16:42,040 --> 00:16:44,360
Speaker 1: be more about structure, so it doesn't need to be

358
00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:47,720
Speaker 1: so loose, so that water can go up to feed

359
00:16:47,800 --> 00:16:50,480
Speaker 1: the many leaves that are growing at the beginning of

360
00:16:50,520 --> 00:16:52,720
Speaker 1: the season. When you're at the point where you've got

361
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:54,600
Speaker 1: all your leaves, or maybe even the leaves are starting

362
00:16:54,600 --> 00:16:57,960
Speaker 1: to come down, the new growth is mostly just about structure,

363
00:16:57,960 --> 00:16:59,760
Speaker 1: and so it's a different kind of cell that looks

364
00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:00,680
Speaker 1: a little bit different.

365
00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:02,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, you make it sound like it's intentional, like the

366
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:04,760
Speaker 2: tree got together and it's like, all right, I think

367
00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:08,199
Speaker 2: we're ready for some structure. In reality, of course, is

368
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:10,320
Speaker 2: just sort of what has worked right and we're reverse

369
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:11,000
Speaker 2: engineering it.

370
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:14,399
Speaker 1: Yeah. It also is responding to the environment and so

371
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:18,680
Speaker 1: on very wet years or years with really good growth conditions,

372
00:17:19,040 --> 00:17:22,520
Speaker 1: the distance between rings is much bigger because the Cambrian

373
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,199
Speaker 1: was able to put in more rows of cells, and

374
00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:28,280
Speaker 1: so you get a greater distance, whereas in years where

375
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:30,719
Speaker 1: there's droughts or conditions are bad for some other reasons,

376
00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:32,600
Speaker 1: the distance between the rings are much smaller.

377
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:34,720
Speaker 2: And do you always get a ring, Like what about

378
00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:37,320
Speaker 2: the year without a summer, or when there's like a

379
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 2: volcanic eruption and we just don't see the sun. Can

380
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:42,080
Speaker 2: you trick trees into thinking a year hasn't passed?

381
00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: So I don't know the answer to that. I have

382
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:49,040
Speaker 1: aged fish based on their scales, so I have some

383
00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:54,240
Speaker 1: knowledge of how the environment impacts aging dynamics, and there

384
00:17:54,280 --> 00:17:56,600
Speaker 1: are definitely some years where it's very hard to tell

385
00:17:56,600 --> 00:17:58,760
Speaker 1: the difference between the rings, or to tell if there

386
00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:01,040
Speaker 1: is a ring in this particular place or not. I'm

387
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:03,840
Speaker 1: guessing the same thing happens with trees. I would also

388
00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:05,520
Speaker 1: guess that when you age a tree and you say

389
00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:08,080
Speaker 1: it's four thousand, five hundred and eighty seven years, you

390
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:10,680
Speaker 1: really mean like four five hundred and eighty seven plus

391
00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:14,280
Speaker 1: or minus thirty or something like that. Oh sure, yeah,

392
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:17,760
Speaker 1: But you can use this tool called an increment borer

393
00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:20,720
Speaker 1: to go through the center of a tree and pull

394
00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,840
Speaker 1: out a tiny little pencil shaped chunk where you can

395
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:26,679
Speaker 1: go through, and you can age it by counting the rings.

396
00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 1: But you don't need to kill the tree. It can

397
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:31,840
Speaker 1: just handle this little bit of damage. It's like drawing

398
00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:33,960
Speaker 1: blood from a human or something. And if you get

399
00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:38,520
Speaker 1: enough of these, you can actually look at climate patterns

400
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,720
Speaker 1: in a region over time, and so trees give us

401
00:18:41,720 --> 00:18:44,040
Speaker 1: a little bit of window into the past. One tree

402
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:46,840
Speaker 1: doesn't really do it, because it could be like one

403
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 1: year it was underneath a bigger tree and so it

404
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:51,600
Speaker 1: got shaded out so it didn't grow as much. And

405
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:54,040
Speaker 1: then if that tree dies, you know, the next year

406
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:56,600
Speaker 1: its growth is bigger. And so there's some other stuff

407
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:58,199
Speaker 1: to pay attention to as well. But we could look

408
00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:00,639
Speaker 1: at climactic patterns by using these tree rings.

409
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember reading that they use old trees for

410
00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:08,920
Speaker 2: things like understanding the atmospheric carbon content and all sorts

411
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:11,520
Speaker 2: of stuff. It's like an incredible record of what's happened

412
00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:15,320
Speaker 2: on Earth because it's so sensitive. It's so lucky that

413
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 2: it works this way. I mean, I can imagine lots

414
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:20,280
Speaker 2: of other ways trees could have evolved that they didn't

415
00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:22,080
Speaker 2: respond in this cyclical way.

416
00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:24,800
Speaker 1: I know. And also for managing fish populations. It's amazing

417
00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:27,600
Speaker 1: that scales tell you how old they are. We really

418
00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 1: lucked out that nature works in this way.

419
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,600
Speaker 2: Nature is a good record keeper, right, They're hints all

420
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:36,240
Speaker 2: over the world about what happened on this planet. We

421
00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:38,840
Speaker 2: just have to be good detectives and like figure out

422
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 2: how to read them. And one thing I love about

423
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 2: science is all this work that people have done, you know,

424
00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 2: this like Yeoman work to figure out, like how we

425
00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:50,359
Speaker 2: can use some part of nature to reveal secrets of

426
00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,000
Speaker 2: the universe. Right, you don't just sit around and like

427
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:55,240
Speaker 2: let the universe download it into your brain. You've got

428
00:19:55,240 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 2: to go out there and do the work and figure

429
00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:58,800
Speaker 2: out like, oh, we can use this weird rock and oh,

430
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:00,760
Speaker 2: terms out trees do this weird thing, or fish do

431
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:04,040
Speaker 2: this weird thing. Like there's so much of experimental science

432
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,119
Speaker 2: that's people's realizing they could take advantage of a quirk

433
00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:07,679
Speaker 2: of nature.

434
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:09,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's so many things you can do

435
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:11,359
Speaker 1: with it. It's like one of the favorite things that

436
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:15,439
Speaker 1: came across was that archaeologists are using tree rings to

437
00:20:15,520 --> 00:20:18,960
Speaker 1: try to date structures. So if you find, for example,

438
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,320
Speaker 1: a beam in an old house and you assume that

439
00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:24,560
Speaker 1: it was cut down to build the house, then you

440
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:26,560
Speaker 1: can look at other tree cores in the area and

441
00:20:26,640 --> 00:20:29,359
Speaker 1: sort of match up the fast growth years with the

442
00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:32,119
Speaker 1: slow growth years, and then you can back date to

443
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 1: figure out when that structure was built, even if you

444
00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 1: don't have that record anywhere. It's so amazing. The more

445
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:39,640
Speaker 1: you understand about the world, you get all of these

446
00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:42,360
Speaker 1: surprising linkages that you can use to learn even more.

447
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: It's super cool. It's incredible, Okay, But to get back

448
00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:48,760
Speaker 1: to carbon fourteen dating, it turns out that carbon fourteen

449
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 1: dating is also a method that we use to date

450
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:53,199
Speaker 1: some of the trees that we come across. So we

451
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:58,240
Speaker 1: already talked about the baobab, which sometimes rots in the inside,

452
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:01,040
Speaker 1: and so you can't use an inc bor to like

453
00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 1: get a little sample of the tree to age it

454
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:05,840
Speaker 1: because it doesn't really have a center. But you can

455
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:09,439
Speaker 1: use carbon fourteen dating and pull the innermost wood that

456
00:21:09,480 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 1: you can find to get an estimate for how old

457
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 1: the tree is. So these are the various methods that

458
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:15,359
Speaker 1: we use to age trees.

459
00:21:16,119 --> 00:21:19,439
Speaker 2: So, like some of the interior records essentially have been destroyed,

460
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 2: but you still have a few and so you can

461
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 2: say the tree is at least eleven hundred years old

462
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:25,240
Speaker 2: or at least seventy five years old or whatever, but

463
00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 2: you don't know what you're missing.

464
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: Yep, that's exactly right.

465
00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, fascinating. Well, it's incredible to me how long these

466
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 2: trees live. And you know, trees to me are just

467
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 2: stunning creatures, you know, Like if we didn't have trees,

468
00:21:37,359 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 2: or if I'd never seen a tree and you describe

469
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:41,199
Speaker 2: them to me, like, hey, there are these things that

470
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,719
Speaker 2: build themselves out of air over time, drinking sunlight and

471
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:48,399
Speaker 2: reproduce themselves and provide oxygen. I'd be like, that's some

472
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 2: crazy science fiction nonsense. But they're real.

473
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,800
Speaker 1: It's amazing, and they're beautiful and we can use them

474
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 1: to build our homes.

475
00:21:57,280 --> 00:21:59,120
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I want to hear all about the

476
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 2: world herd holders for oldest trees in the world, but

477
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:22,680
Speaker 2: first we have to take a quick break. Okay, we're

478
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 2: back and we're talking about the weird, the amazing, the beautiful,

479
00:22:26,240 --> 00:22:30,800
Speaker 2: the fantastical, the California and the Virginian, the worldwide tree.

480
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 2: It's everywhere, and it provides us with oxygen and teaches

481
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 2: us about the history of our own planet. So Kelly,

482
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,280
Speaker 2: tell us, where are the oldest trees in the world

483
00:22:40,440 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 2: and are they in California?

484
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:46,120
Speaker 1: Maybe they're in California. There are a couple other contenders

485
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:49,639
Speaker 1: for oldest tree in the world, but at the moment,

486
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,960
Speaker 1: I think the most widely accepted oldest tree in the

487
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: world is Methuselah, which we talked about in the intro,

488
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,120
Speaker 1: somewhere between forty five hundred and five thousand years old.

489
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 1: The coordinate are not public because they don't want people

490
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: to go and like carve their names into the side

491
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,359
Speaker 1: of it, because humans do stuff like that. Guys, do

492
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: we just.

493
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 2: Hold on for a moment, like back up, Like, wow,

494
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 2: five thousand years old? What was happening on Earth five

495
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 2: thousand years ago? So this tree is like older than

496
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 2: the Great Pyramids.

497
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,240
Speaker 1: This tree put down its roots during the age of

498
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 1: the Pyramids. I think this is the Old Kingdom.

499
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 2: Wow.

500
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible. So it saw the fall of ancient Egypt,

501
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: the rise and fall of ancient Rome, and ancient Greece.

502
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: Like we said in the intro, so many generations of humans.

503
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 1: It's wind boggling. I'm not very eloquent. I can't capture

504
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:37,919
Speaker 1: this adequately. It's just incredible.

505
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 2: It really just gives you a sense for the tiny

506
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 2: blip of time that we exist on this planet. And

507
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,119
Speaker 2: of course even that by five thousand years is a

508
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 2: tiny blip of time for the planet. That's the thing

509
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 2: that these old trees do for me. They give me

510
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:55,439
Speaker 2: this like tiniest taste of the deepness of time, the

511
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 2: incredible vastness of time in the universe more broadly, and

512
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 2: then of course on Earth. So do you think that

513
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 2: these trees are going to see, you know, the fall

514
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 2: of our current civilization? How long new bristle cone pines live? So?

515
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,199
Speaker 1: I think the bristle cone pines that are five thousand

516
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: years old are not looking young. But I do think

517
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: that there are some clonal organisms that we'll talk about later,

518
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: like those stands of quaking aspens that can live for

519
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: over ten thousand years. And I hope that we live

520
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,240
Speaker 1: longer than the quaking aspen stands that are alive today.

521
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: We as a species, not me personally, but I don't know.

522
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: We'll have to wait and see. What do you think?

523
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: Are we an imminent declined Daniel?

524
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 2: All that remains to be seen. I was mostly asking

525
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 2: about the lifetime of these trees. Oh, if you find

526
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 2: a population of trees and the oldest ones are about

527
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 2: five thousand years old, that means either they evolved five

528
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 2: thousand years ago and they're going to live a long

529
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 2: long time, or that's roughly as long as they can.

530
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 2: Like have bristle cone pines been living for five thousand

531
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 2: issh years for millions of years, And this is just

532
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 2: sort of like how long they typically live and we're

533
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 2: visiting the old folks Home for bristle cone pine.

534
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,199
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't think that most people know.

535
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 1: What would you have to know in order to answer

536
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: that question? I guess you would have to find dead

537
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,399
Speaker 1: bristle cone pines. You could age when they died and

538
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: determined that they had been alive for five thousand years.

539
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: I suppose in these dry environments that kind of petrified

540
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 1: would could exist, but I don't know if it does exist.

541
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we can tell when the tree dies, right

542
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 2: because of carbon fourteen dating, and you could count its rings,

543
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 2: So in principle it should be possible to know.

544
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,199
Speaker 1: You could count its rings if it didn't. Like so,

545
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 1: most of the trees on my property eventually they rode

546
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: away and decay. You can't find them anymore. But if

547
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,199
Speaker 1: it petrified and you could find it, I don't know

548
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: the answer, But my guess would be that they have

549
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 1: been living for a very long time. But if you

550
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: go out to a long enough time period, you have

551
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 1: to start thinking about things like, well, where were they

552
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: when the last glacial event happened.

553
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And it.

554
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: Turns out that bristle cone pines tended to be up

555
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 1: in the mountains, high enough and out of the way

556
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: enough that they weren't bothered by the last glacial event.

557
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: But it could be that there are trees out there

558
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: that would live for a very long time, but they

559
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: happened to be in habitats where when the last glacier

560
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: came through, it knocked them all out because they can't

561
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: run away like we can. That's one of the downsides

562
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 1: of being a tree.

563
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 2: Right, That's amazing. These guys live so long. You have

564
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 2: to think about the changing conditions of the earth when

565
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 2: they were babies or when they were growing up. That's incredible,

566
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 2: it is, all right, So Methuselah is maybe a contender

567
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 2: for one of the oldest trees on Earth. What else

568
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 2: do we find in the old folks home for trees.

569
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: Well, so there was a tree called Prometheus that was

570
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: also a bristle cone pine. But usually the contenders have

571
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 1: to be trees that are still alive. But unfortunately Prometheus

572
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: was cut down in its five thousand year prime.

573
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 2: Oh no, was it by some terrible tourist.

574
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: No, it was by I think a grad student, so

575
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: I know, okay, So there was this misconception that old

576
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: trees were probably the biggest trees, and that makes sense,

577
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: you know, you look at the redwoods and you're like, oh,

578
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: you might be so old. But actually there's this trend

579
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: where the older trees within a species tend to be

580
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 1: the smaller ones that started their lives growing more slowly

581
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 1: and maybe even over time didn't get to be as big.

582
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: They're just sort of like tiny and stodgy, and I

583
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: love it. And so I think this student didn't realize

584
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,959
Speaker 1: that they were dealing with what might be the oldest

585
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: tree on the planet, and so they were trying to

586
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: get the age. The exact details of the story have

587
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: been sort of lost to history, but a version of

588
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: the story is that the student was trying to get

589
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: the age using an increment bor, so this thing where

590
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: you hand crank it into the tree, and that just

591
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 1: wasn't working out, and so they actually did get permission

592
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: from the park Service to cut the tree down. Oh no,

593
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: and then when they cut the tree down, it just

594
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: turned out that it was five thousand years old. Oh

595
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 1: my god, maybe the oldest tree ever.

596
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: That must have been heartbreaking.

597
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that student did report later that they

598
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 1: regretted for the rest of their life that they cut

599
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: that tree down.

600
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 2: Imagine surviving for five thousand years. And then some grad

601
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,400
Speaker 2: students like, oh.

602
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: Man, yeah, the glaciers didn't get you, but the grad

603
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: student did.

604
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 2: Academia comes for us all eventually.

605
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: Oh man, yep, it gets us. So anyway, tragic story.

606
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 1: So there's also a tree in Chile, the Alersie Tree,

607
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: and again sorry my apologies of mispronouncing it, but there

608
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: is a tree in Alerseay Castero National Park that is

609
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: eighty percent likely to be over five thousand years old.

610
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: It's estimated to be five four hundred and eighty four

611
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: years old, and so that tree could win.

612
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: Where do you think that eighty percent uncertainty comes from?

613
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 2: Is that from like the rings being fuzzy or what

614
00:28:57,360 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier, like not every ring is

615
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: present or visible.

616
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: The rings being fuzzy, I think is a problem. Another

617
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: problem is that sometimes where you go through the tree

618
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: can influence how many rings you see, and so people

619
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: tend to do the boring, like you know, to get

620
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: your sample at about like chest height. But I think

621
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: if you go down even lower. Sometimes you can get

622
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: some additional rings. It's just complicated. No answer is ever

623
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: as clear as you want it to be.

624
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 2: In science, well, I appreciate that there's uncertainties, you know.

625
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 2: I've seen talks in biology where you see like data

626
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 2: plotted with no uncertainties and like a line drawn through

627
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 2: in it, and you're like, what are we doing here, folks?

628
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 2: So I'm always very impressed when I see biology with air.

629
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: Bars so used to you, hey man, A lot of

630
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: us understand error bars and confidence intervals and would never

631
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: publish a paper without them.

632
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 2: I'm still glad to hear it.

633
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: M all right. Anyway, we had talked about that tree,

634
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: the African baobab, where the inside sometimes hrats out, but

635
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: with carbon fourteen dating and then attemp at aging the

636
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: trees using the rings for the trees where that works,

637
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: we think that they can live to be as old

638
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: as two thousand, five hundred years.

639
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 2: Wow.

640
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: There's about twenty five species of trees that we know

641
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: of that we think can live to be a thousand

642
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: years old or older. But it's important to note that

643
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: not all trees live to be super old. Like right now,

644
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: it's spring in Virginia, so it's more beautiful here than

645
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: anywhere else. And the dogwoods are going to be blooming

646
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: pretty soon. And dogwoods live to be like twenty or

647
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: thirty years. They can live to be as much as

648
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: like eighty years, I think, but like a lot of

649
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: them only live to be twenty or thirty years, So

650
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: it's not the case that all trees do outlive humans.

651
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 2: Well what about the famous redwoods. These are old trees also,

652
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 2: but they're not in like the top ten oldest trees.

653
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 2: But there must be hundreds of years old.

654
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so redwoods and giant sequoias are amongst the

655
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: species of trees that can live to be over a

656
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: thousand years old, So they're found amongst those twenty five

657
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: ish species we know of, But I don't know that

658
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: there are any redwoods that are contenders for the oldest tree.

659
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: Hmm, all right, So then why is there such a

660
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 2: huge range. Dogwoods live happily for just a couple of decades,

661
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 2: bristle cone pines scratch out a thorny existence for thousands

662
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 2: of years. Redwoods become enormous over about a millennium. Why

663
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 2: do these things live such an incredible range?

664
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: So this is ecology m M. So what do you

665
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: think the.

666
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 2: Answer is, we don't know.

667
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, both of those work. So

668
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: the papers that I read, it seems like, so, you know,

669
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: there are those twenty five species that I mentioned, Yeah,

670
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: in many cases they are not closely related tree species,

671
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: or they're not super closely related, And it seems like

672
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: we have a different answer for a lot of those

673
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: different species. So, for example, part of why we think

674
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: the bristle cone pines have lived so long is that

675
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: they manage to eke out in existence in an environment

676
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: that is very dry and is up at the top

677
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,840
Speaker 1: of a mountain, and it's not a nice environment for

678
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: other competitors or for pests, and when they escape from

679
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: these competitors, in these pests, they can just focus on

680
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: slow growth and they can live for a really long

681
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: time because they don't have to worry about these other competitors.

682
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: But then you get the redwoods in these moist environments

683
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: with lots of competitors and lots of pests, and they

684
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 1: do manage to live for a long time. And so

685
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: it seems like you'd need a whole different explanation to

686
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: figure out why redwoods are able to live for so long.

687
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: It seems to be sort of connected to the question

688
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 2: we talked to Katie about, you know, our strategists and

689
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 2: case strategists like, from a species point of view, it

690
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter if you live a long time. Another

691
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 2: totally valid strategies to just like have a kid every

692
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: thirty years and then die off and make room for

693
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 2: your kids, right Like, they're definitely different strategies from an

694
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: evolutionary point of view that could work to propagate you

695
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 2: species down through history.

696
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly. And additionally, our data set is complicated

697
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: by things like what we've talked about already, which is,

698
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: you know, during the last period when the glaciers came through,

699
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: maybe there were a bunch more species that would have

700
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: lived for five thousand years, but they all got wiped

701
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: out by the glaciers. Another problem is that humans have

702
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: been cutting down trees for a really long time to

703
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,640
Speaker 1: build our houses and you know, to build our skyscrapers,

704
00:33:15,680 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: just to build a lot of different stuff, and so

705
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: we have removed a lot of trees from the landscape,

706
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: and so what we have left to age is maybe

707
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: a subset that is less informative than it would have

708
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: been if all of the trees had still been there,

709
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: or every once in a while you get an outbreak

710
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: or something like the United States used to have tons

711
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: of chestnuts, Like everywhere I look now there's pines and oaks.

712
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: If I had lived here before, a chestnut, like the

713
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: most common tree in my area would have been a chestnut.

714
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: But now we don't have any of them in the area,

715
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: And so we have a bias subset from which to

716
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: try to answer these questions why do some trees live

717
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: longer than others?

718
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 2: But we always have a bias subset, right, We just

719
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 2: have a subset that happened to survive, that made it

720
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: through the deaf gauntlet of the present conditions. We never know,

721
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 2: like on average, over a thousand parallel earths, what would

722
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 2: have survived. We just got the ones that happen to

723
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 2: get lucky and happen to survive this time. Right. Isn't

724
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 2: that always true of evolutionary history?

725
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: Yes, I'd say it's also sort of always true with

726
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: physics too, Like, you know, you only have the information

727
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: that you've already created tools for. You don't know what

728
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: you're missing, And so I think in general, a big

729
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,919
Speaker 1: part of being a scientist should involve being humble about

730
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: what you do and don't know.

731
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 2: No, it's important to always put this in context, right

732
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 2: and remember that we have a tiny fraction of the information,

733
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 2: and that fraction is biased for sure.

734
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: So one thing to note that we talked about earlier

735
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 1: is that growing slowly seems to be associated with longer

736
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: life for trees, and that can either be at the

737
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,799
Speaker 1: species level or within a species. So it looks like

738
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: individuals that tend to grow slowly early in life are

739
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: also the ones that tend to live longer. So if

740
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: they're growing more slowly, they're investing in a denser, higher

741
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: quality would and maybe they're also investing in stronger roots

742
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: or some chemicals that can fight off pests, and so

743
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: this investment in strength helps them when, for example, a

744
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: hurricane or tornado comes by. Maybe they're likely to be

745
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: still standing when that's done. Whereas if an individual grows quickly,

746
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: then the quality of the wood that they produce is

747
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 1: less good and so something is more likely to take

748
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: them out if something like a hurricane or a tornado

749
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: comes through. So individuals who grow more slowly tend to

750
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:35,240
Speaker 1: be the ones that live longer.

751
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 2: Well, how does this map two long and short lifetimes

752
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 2: for other critters, like in mammals with the longest lived mammal.

753
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this idea does map pretty well to the

754
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: rn K strategy stuff that we were talking about with

755
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: Katie when she was on the show. You end up

756
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: with some species that grow fast and some species that

757
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 1: grow slow. There's also this idea where if you are

758
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: not growing as fast as the other mammals and you

759
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,879
Speaker 1: invest in growing really quickly to try to catch up,

760
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: the quality of that fast grown muscle or fast grown

761
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: you know, bones, anything that you grew fast is probably

762
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: not as good as if you had grown sort of

763
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,920
Speaker 1: slowly and invested in doing it right. So in multiple

764
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: flora and fauna, we see the signature of fast growth

765
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: sometimes coming at the expense of the quality of that growth.

766
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:24,840
Speaker 2: I guess I wasn't that interested in mammals in particular,

767
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,160
Speaker 2: more like animals, because I know that you know, there's

768
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: some sharks that have lived for hundreds of years and

769
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 2: turtles lived for hundreds of years, whereas like I know,

770
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: mice live for just a few years, but they're also tiny.

771
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: So just like size and age correlation work more broadly.

772
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: I don't know it would be fun to do a

773
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: whole episode on aging at some point. I know greenland

774
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: sharks can live to be like hundreds of years old,

775
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: but I don't know why we think greenland sharks in

776
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: particular live that long. Somebody might know, but I don't know.

777
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 2: Somebody's probably gone down and trying to take a core

778
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 2: sample of a greenland shark and a bit that didn't

779
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: go very well.

780
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: No, No, they do not look like happy show. They

781
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: look old. You look at them, and they've got like

782
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: sadness in their eyes. Not that all old people are said.

783
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: I'm backing up. I'm backing up.

784
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 2: Old trees don't look sad. Old trees have a grace

785
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 2: and a beauty that's very hard to match.

786
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, they do. That is true for so

787
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 1: many ancient individuals.

788
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so let's hold some reverence for the

789
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 2: old folks among us and take another break so we

790
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 2: can gather our energy and talk about how trees live

791
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 2: so long and to answer the listeners question about why

792
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 2: they live longer than people. Okay, we're back, and we're

793
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 2: talking about how California is beautiful and filled with the oldest,

794
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 2: the tallest, the biggest, and probably the most beautiful trees in.

795
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: The world because there's not a lot of competition, because

796
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: what trees would want to live there? If they could

797
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: live in Virginia.

798
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 2: You're saying, if you could survey trees and offer them

799
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 2: a spot in Shindoah, they would all pick up and move.

800
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:09,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet who would?

801
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 2: You might be right, You might be right. It is beautiful,

802
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 2: all right. So tell us these oldest trees, how is

803
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:18,720
Speaker 2: it that they go about living so long? What tricks

804
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 2: do they have under their bark that let them survive

805
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 2: for thousands upon thousands of years?

806
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: So trees are so weird and so unlike anything I've

807
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: come to expect as a mammal. There are things I

808
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: expect bodies to do, and trees just don't follow any

809
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:41,359
Speaker 1: of those rules. Okay, So one and this is kind

810
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: of amazing. So we talked about that cambrial layer, the

811
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: layer that is growing the bark while also growing the

812
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: wood inside of the tree. The cells in that layer

813
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 1: don't show evidence of sinescence.

814
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 2: What sinescence?

815
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: So sinessence is like getting old and sorry everybody, but

816
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 1: you know the quality of the cell sort of deteriorating

817
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: over time.

818
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 2: So you're saying, in some trees, you can see these

819
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 2: cambria layers aging, but in the trees that live a

820
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,240
Speaker 2: very long time, they just keep going.

821
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: I think that you don't see cambril cells aging in

822
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: like any trees. Oh, and this is why trees in

823
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: general on average tend to live a long time.

824
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 2: Oh fascinating.

825
00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: We're still trying to figure out why this happens. But

826
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: the cells just seem to have this like fountain of

827
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: youth thing going on. And so because the cells aren't aging,

828
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: the things that usually kill trees isn't you know, it

829
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: just got old and stopped working. But it tends to

830
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: be things like fire or insects or erosion or hurricanes.

831
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 1: It's you know, things external to the tree that end

832
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: up being the cause of the tree death.

833
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,240
Speaker 2: So it sort of seems like the trees constantly replicating itself,

834
00:39:56,280 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 2: like every years you basically have a new tree built

835
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 2: around the body of the old tree.

836
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna jump out of place in my outline now,

837
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: because yes, it has this amazing way of replicating itself.

838
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: Where for some trees, if it like for example, falls over,

839
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: or if some of the branches touch moist soil, the

840
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: branches or the part of the tree that fell over

841
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: can start putting down roots and a new sapling comes

842
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: up from there.

843
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:26,400
Speaker 2: What that's crazy. It's like if I put my elbow

844
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 2: in a bowl of oatmeal and like turned into.

845
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: A person, another Daniel. You know, it wouldn't be like

846
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: it produced one of your kids. It's like producing a

847
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: clone of you. Oh so, like another Daniel emerges from

848
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: your oatmeal. I'm glad I didn't give you oatmeal when

849
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:42,399
Speaker 1: you were at our place, So.

850
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 2: Because you can't take more than one of me, that's

851
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 2: for sure.

852
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 1: No, that's actually a world full of Daniels would have

853
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 1: been great.

854
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 2: But nobody believes you. All right. So these trees having

855
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,200
Speaker 2: these weird ways of cloning themselves.

856
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they've got these weird ways of cloning themselves,

857
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: and they also have other weird ways of fixing themselves.

858
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: Throughout the tree, there are these buds, and some of

859
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 1: the buds will like turn into branches and stems and

860
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: leaves and stuff like that. But some of those buds

861
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 1: stay dormant, and while the leaves are growing, a hormonal

862
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: message is getting sent to those buds that says, stay put,

863
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: don't develop, stay a bud, And so it stays a

864
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 1: bud and doesn't do anything. But then if something happens

865
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: and like that branch falls off or something, and those

866
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: leaves are no longer sending the message, that bud snaps

867
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,959
Speaker 1: into action and starts, you know, building a new stem

868
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: or something like that. So trees have all of these

869
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: different parts that are waiting to emerge. So it would

870
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: be like, if you are fingers, we're sending a message

871
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: to your wrist saying we've got enough fingers, don't worry

872
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: about it. But then if you lost your fingers, that

873
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: message is no longer being sent to your wrist, and

874
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: your wrist is like time to grow more fingers, and

875
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: so it's just ready to regenerate what had been lost.

876
00:41:57,760 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: And it's just kind of like standing in wait.

877
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,839
Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible. That's so different from the way our

878
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:04,760
Speaker 2: bodies work. It feels so alien.

879
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: So alien. Yeah, okay, And so another thing that's amazing

880
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: about these trees is you know, part of them is alive,

881
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: but a lot of them can be dead. And so

882
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: for example, some trees, and not all trees, but some

883
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: trees have this system where essentially the like pipes that

884
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: provide water to the top part of the tree the xylum.

885
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: Instead of essentially like servicing all of the tree, the

886
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 1: pipes service a very particular part of the tree. What yeah,

887
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: And so like with bristle cone pines, erosion exposes the

888
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: roots to like dry air, and it kills some of

889
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: the roots. But as long as some of those roots

890
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: are still in good shape, they can provide water and

891
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: nutrients to like a branch or a couple different branches.

892
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: And so you can end up with like I don't know,

893
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,720
Speaker 1: eighty percent of the tree being dead, but twenty percent

894
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: sliver still having leaves, still being able to produce seed

895
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: and still being alive. And so it's like a very

896
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: slow process of death, but it still counts as alive

897
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 1: because it can still reproduce and it you know, it's

898
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 1: still producing green leaves.

899
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:14,760
Speaker 2: I never thought about that how one root doesn't service

900
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 2: the whole tree. It's like this root is for that branch,

901
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 2: and this root is for that branch, And so if

902
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 2: you kill some of the roots, you killing part of

903
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 2: the tree. You're not just weakening the whole tree. That's fascinating.

904
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 2: It's like if I had ten mouths and I need

905
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 2: to like feed this one for that leg and this

906
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 2: one for the other leg, and like, oops, there wasn't

907
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 2: any oatmeal left from my right arm, so that's just

908
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:36,760
Speaker 2: going to be hungry today, and that's weird.

909
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: There are tree species where like one root has you know,

910
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: like multiple we'll call it pipes that come out of it,

911
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 1: and it feeds different parts of the tree. But there

912
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: are some species of tree where you get this more

913
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: tight link between a certain set of branches and a

914
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: certain root, and in that way it's able to sort

915
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: of die in sections and eke out in existence for longer.

916
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,359
Speaker 2: It's almost more like a community than an individual, right.

917
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 2: They're just like a budge of brain systems that are

918
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 2: sort of like growing together, and some of them die

919
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 2: off and some of them continue. It's like a little

920
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 2: community of mini trees.

921
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: So I think that comparison works better for our next example.

922
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: I feel like what we just talked about would be

923
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:15,919
Speaker 1: more like, you know, everything, but my hand could die,

924
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,760
Speaker 1: but my hand is still alive, and so you'd still

925
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: call me alive.

926
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: That sounds like a horror movie I don't want to see.

927
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, me as well. But the final example for

928
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 1: how trees managed to live so long is cloning. So

929
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:33,760
Speaker 1: you have these trees called quaking aspens in the Rocky mountains,

930
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: and they're absolutely gorgeous. They're like, you know, these long

931
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: white trees. They turn beautiful colors in the fall, and

932
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: their roots are able to put out what's called a

933
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: rammit Ramit is a general word for an individual clone

934
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: when you have like a clonal organism, but it produces

935
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: a stem will come out from the root and it

936
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,399
Speaker 1: will turn into a tree, and then that tree will

937
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: produce more roots, and then it will also have a rammit,

938
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: so a stem that comes out. It's all all the

939
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: same genotype. They're all connected by their roots and can

940
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: take up over one hundred acres of land, and it's

941
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: all the same genotype. And so you know, you can say, okay,

942
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: well that doesn't really match how I think of an individual,

943
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: and so it's cheating to say that you get to

944
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,359
Speaker 1: count all of that living stuff. But they can live

945
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: for like ten thousand years, we think, And so you know,

946
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: if you're willing to count that as an individual because

947
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: it's all the same genotype, it has all the same

948
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: genetic makeup. I'm sure there's some mutations in there, but

949
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: you know, very similar. Then that can live for up

950
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:35,919
Speaker 1: to ten thousand years.

951
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting and really challenges your philosophy of like

952
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 2: what is an individual? I mean, if we had human

953
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 2: cloning and you turned eighty five and we decided to

954
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 2: make a new Kelly, would you consider that Kelly to

955
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:49,439
Speaker 2: be the same as you? And then when you died,

956
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 2: you feel like, no, I'm still alive.

957
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 1: I see your point, But like this tree is able

958
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 1: to do that with no help, Like it's incredible to me.

959
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: And they're also able to produce seed, so they can

960
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: produce this way, but they can also produce seeds that

961
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: can go off and start this whole thing, you know,

962
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 1: going somewhere else. I think it's an interesting philosophical debate

963
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 1: about whether all of those trees and one hundred acres

964
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: counts as the same individual or not. But one way

965
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: or another, it's an amazing evolutionary strategy to replicate an

966
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:21,760
Speaker 1: organism's genes and get them spread throughout the environment.

967
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 2: I guess it does depend on what you consider to

968
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 2: be the individual, because in my case, to feel like

969
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 2: I'm still alive, I would want to keep my memories,

970
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 2: my personality, all of my experiences, and I feel like

971
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:36,240
Speaker 2: butt off a new Daniel on my elbow probably wouldn't

972
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 2: have all those experiences, and so it wouldn't really be

973
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 2: me even if it had the same genotype. So this

974
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,720
Speaker 2: whole nature versus nurture aspect, Yeah, fascinating. Wow.

975
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the listener wanted to know why do humans

976
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: not live as long as trees? And I think the

977
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: answer is that trees have just gone down such a

978
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: different evolutionary path than humans have that they are able

979
00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 1: to sort of die incrementally and sort of really stretch

980
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 1: the process out. There are a lot of pieces that

981
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: all need to be working in order for our bodies

982
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: to keep going, whereas trees are able to do things

983
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: like compartmentalized to eke out in existence for a lot longer.

984
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm sometimes surprised that I'm living as long as

985
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:21,439
Speaker 2: I am when I have all these bits that all

986
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 2: have to work all the time. Yeah, and they all

987
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 2: seem sort of complicated, like we are a very elaborate

988
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 2: meat machine. It's amazing that we keep going as long

989
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 2: as we do.

990
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,240
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree. And it's amazing that we don't encounter

991
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: even more problems along the way, given how many things

992
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: have to go perfectly in order for us to continue

993
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: existing the way we do well.

994
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 2: One thing that I think humans will continue to do

995
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 2: as we age is to be curious about the world

996
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 2: and to wonder and to build knowledge. And I'm just

997
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 2: glad the human knowledge builds from generation to generation. We

998
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 2: can path this down. You don't have to be five

999
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 2: thousand years old to have five thousand years worth of

1000
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 2: knowledge because we're able to inherit it from all the

1001
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 2: folks that were curious before us.

1002
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: Yes, And it became so clear to me while researching

1003
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: this just how important that knowledge is and how it

1004
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,840
Speaker 1: builds on each other and how you know, dendro chronology,

1005
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:12,359
Speaker 1: which is the aging of trees helps you with archaeology.

1006
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: And it's just we're very lucky to have all of

1007
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: this cultural ability to transmit knowledge.

1008
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 2: It is incredible, And I love the depth of nerndomb

1009
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 2: that existed so many little facets of science, you know,

1010
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,400
Speaker 2: people who have figured out how this works for trees

1011
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:29,319
Speaker 2: and helps us in other areas like that requires an

1012
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 2: individual to be like super fascinated by this topic and

1013
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:34,319
Speaker 2: devote their life to it. And wow, I'm just so

1014
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: grateful that there are people out there who are curious

1015
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 2: and pushing knowledge forward. In every direction simultaneously.

1016
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: Thank you for being curious and listening to our show,

1017
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: and we hope to see you at the next episode.

1018
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 2: Tune in next time.

1019
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 3: Thank you for answering my question. You answered it really well,

1020
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 3: and it's how trees can be alive and some places

1021
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 3: and data and other places at the same time.

1022
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1023
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you, We really would.

1024
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 2: We want to know what questions you have about this

1025
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe.

1026
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,520
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1027
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 1: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1028
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: back to you.

1029
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 2: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1030
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,920
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1031
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,040
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1032
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,960
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1033
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:34,960
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1034
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:36,880
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1035
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:38,600
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