Rachel Sussman: The world's oldest living things

[@Myrdraall]

hahaha I had read "Rachel Sussman: The world's oldest living thing"

[@edurocha05]

wow, her voice is so soothing, I could listen to her for hours!

[@juergenczwienk2500]

I am totally impressed with Rachel Sussmans work. Very impressive.

[@pacnite]

The irony is that by doing this talk, she raised their profile and put them more in danger

[@elomoose1169]

Ooooof you right. I have to write an essay abt this video, thx for a great thesis!

[@Mrinfiniteonce]

One disappointing fact, she did not describe how the age is being determined.

[@MrJekyllDrHyde1]

This is inspiring, I need to find someone who would fund my around the globe travels !

[@MOPEDBRAD]

Anyone consider life on Earth a 3+ billion year old organism? Over 3 billion years old, and still in the womb.....

[@QuijanoPhD]

I love how the Japanese tree at 1"15 is either 2,180 years old OR 7,000 years old.

[@timvangelderen8635]

Another reason why god did not exist first. Thank you scientist.

[@AlanKey86]

A 9000 year old tree would be quite difficult for a young earth creationist to explain...

[@McPrfctday]

@PsySwitch1983 She's not ugly, she's got Jewish features and is beautiful. You probably just don't have much experience of what 'real' people look like. She's clearly not a trained public speaker as she uses unexciting tones and her pauses are too short whilst her 'interesting points' are too drawn out. She's a photographer.

[@JimmerJoMoore]

Methuselah is a 4844-4845-year-old[1] Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) tree growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California.[2][3] For many years it was the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism, until superseded by the discovery of another bristlecone pine in the same area with an age of 5063 years (germination in 3051 BC).[1] The tree is named after Methuselah, a Biblical figure having the longest mentioned lifespan in the Bible of 969 years.

[@flavorfives]

She used the word: "humbling" correctly! YAY! Sorry, that's a pet peeve of mine.

[@nightmathzombieethan]

@augustharper Delicious irony. There's a general consensus amongst scientists in different fields worldwide and yet I bet if you went to just ONE church, every churchgoer there would have different answers as to what it means to be Xtian, and what the bible means. Hilarious how they all read the SAME book and they still can't agree on it. I honestly/sadly think that a lot of Xtians are never taught the truth of how the scientific world works, because most of the 1's I meet have no REAL idea.

[@ErnestJay88]

Wow.. 600.000 years old bacteria ? their own age is OLDER than entire human species history, i mean "ENTIRE" (from Homo Erectus, into us... today, not just from 3000 BC Mesopotamia civilization)

[@MobiusCoin]

@xjaskix And it is certainly not an early Christian idea, neither Augustine or Thomas Aquinas spoke of such ideas of longevity of human life. Nevermind Jesus himself, who was an apocalyptic teacher (as was Paul) whose whole premise was that the Kingdom of Heaven was coming very soon, probably within his follower's life time. You're just making shit up, Genesis says that man will have dominion over the animals, not out live them.

[@QuijanoPhD]

@TodayInMyWorld HAHA. That is one of the two major indicators that someone is a new scholar instead of an experienced one. "With that being said" and stuff like "Indeed".

[@Kurtconradt13]

How do they work out the age of something living?

[@crudhousefull]

The red mark on Sri Lanka on the map is for a sapling of the Bo tree that the Lord Buddha reached enlightenment under. That sapling is now over 2000 years old with a continuous history recorded by monks from the time it was brought to Sri Lanka by India. Probably the most photographed tree in Sri Lanka lol. She doesn't need to come here to get more details

[@archipelligo]

nope i don't know who you think your teaching, its not pathetic at all, he was unjustly prejudice against a woman who had a tattoo so i said what i said, nothing pathetic about it, i hope he responds (which wouldn't be pathetic either ) and thanks me for the lesson that i have taught him

[@frankporcaro9824]

Amazing. I can't imagine the amount time, patience, and research this took.

[@Individualism101]

@Monchanger So if you have choice over how your tax dollars are spent then obviously you have the choice not to spend them? If so, you should be held personally accountable for the insurmountable government debt being piled onto the next generation.

[@KeiNaarr]

@coopersnoop Huh, I don't have the time to wath it again for 15 minutes just for that.. Please give me the quote and the minutes she said it.

[@Vitaminnn07]

@spolida it's just my reply to a person @h2inuyasha2 who thinks the earth is not even 80 000 years old, find his original comment and weep

[@DoktorEllis]

its like listening to eyore giving a badly written speech with an even worse ben stein impersonation......

[@pisanghangus]

Yeah, great research. And if any of these things die within our lifetime...it shows human has done too much bad things on Earth to kill them right now after living for so long.

[@DayTripperEqualsHomo]

@ForCurrentUse see if it reacts with nucleur material then a substrate will be resent that you can date them to what time sone that the co2 / oxygen and nitrogen levels are

[@Ceramictrout]

@Vitaminnn07 Do you not see the advent of spray-on cheese and the appreciation of various kinds of Snookies as incontrovertible proof of this phenomenon?

[@nightmathzombieethan]

@Noemro LMAO!!! I was yelling that at someone yesterday and they just didn't "get it". 4chanitely some people do! LMAO

[@Clone42]

What a horrible speaker. Very self-indulgent, extremely boring, and unnatural in her delivery. Couldn't sit through it.

[@augustharper]

@nightmathzombieethan I like the way you think. Feline RNA has been dated back to 35,000 years, but I guess RNA testing can be corrupted somehow too.

[@superfisto]

Asking the age of bacteria is a philosophical question. If they divide asexually and lineage can be traced back to close the the origin of life...

[@bradwatson7324]

I'm sorry Rachel, but the tattoo and the necklace keep me from being able to concentrate on anything you say.

[@LucianoSubiraaOrvalho01]

Atacama desert, the desert with conditions that resembles Mars, it must be near the desert because nothing grows in the Atacam desert, nothing.

[@roidroid]

@nightmathzombieethan lies. The entire universe was created LAST THURSDAY. All of our memories are fake.

[@neil73]

@AgentWD400 and Justin Bieber - He's been around for at least a year now; far too long for a pop 'artist'

[@Hemphempmind]

How about most useful living thing? Cannabis plant! = fuel, paper, medicine, plastics, FOOD, clothes, houses, soaps...so much more.

[@Individualism101]

@Monchanger On the contrary. You have absolutely no choice how your tax dollars are spent. That is why they are tax dollars.

[@unknotmiguel]

@goog2k i think yes. but even clonal can have some subtle differences, due to small DNA errors, during the cloning mitosis..

[@akrulla]

Awesome, another eye-opener. Thanks TEDTalks! :)

[@michalchik]

Sometimes it is just nice to ignore the young earth creationists and get on with appreciating the wonder of reality.

[@Yaalah]

@MistahhB That's not true, they know all about it. They work hard to synthesize new information with their beliefs.

[@webgpu]

@h2inuyasha2 i heard somewhere earth's age is 4.5 billion years ( wikipedia - "earth's age" )

[@PersonalPariah]

@ForCurrentUse Well it's not under ideal circumstances I know... but if you really loved them, you'd make it work.

[@lawolsten]

@LudicrousTachyon which isn't a capability of the human body, sadly, or maybe that should be happily?.

[@nightmathzombieethan]

1:10 7000 years old? But the Earth has only been around for 6000! (Rolls his eyes).

[@Vitaminnn07]

@Ceramictrout sorry, i don't understand what you're talking about.. i wish i could.

[@Yaalah]

@AlanKey86 They've come up with extremely creative ways to synthesize information like this.

[@VaeSapiens]

interesting. One complaint: There is no such thing like year 0 in the Gregorian calendar.

[@MistahhB]

@AlanKey86 That's just one of millions of things those people don't know anything about

[@guidi2005]

What a relief after watching His Holiness the Karmapa. My brain feels better again.

[@adj789]

amazing

[@devourerofbabies]

@PsySwitch1983 Yeah, because her looks are so relevant to what she's saying.

[@kilroy1964]

@CptMcClain I think it's more like 4000. 6000 is supposed to be creation.

[@tranceman14]

is it just me or does she sound like she just smoked some great bud?

[@SuperiorApostate]

@AlanKey86 well when they created that tree it was 3000 years old...

[@Georged811]

Can someone tell her that there is no such thing as a year zero ?

[@JayZed]

How do they know how old a living thing is?

[@LemonLimeLaughter]

She is just like me after I go hiking in the woods with a blunt.

[@LudicrousTachyon]

Looks like the secret to living forever is super slow metabolism.

[@Noemro]

@nightmathzombieethan I'm pretty sure it's OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!!

[@romeoneverdies]

@nightmathzombieethan 6000 years old ?? where do you get that ?

[@augustharper]

@nightmathzombieethan I once read on a christian forum a response by a poster who asked how many scientists there were in the world, he thought maybe around a few hundred. He asked why we were allowing a couple hundred scientists, versus the millions of faith and religious teachers, to give us our version of reality. It boggles my mind sometimes how ridiculous it can all be. I wonder if they will ever allow a "reliable" system of dating to enter their brains.

[@JimmerJoMoore]

oops apparently: The trunk of the above tree is less than 600 years old-but its roots date back to 9,550 years ago, making it the world's oldest known living tree, scientists say.The Norway spruce, of a species commonly used as Christmas trees in Europe, was found in 2004 on a Swedish mountaintop. ( I am not sure if this is correct)

[@Platyzoan]

Her definition of an old living thing is very generous to include clonal plants and coral (colonies of tiny cloned creatures). These are lifeforms that are dying and reproducing clones of themselves over thousands of years. No doubt they fascinating, but there aren't single individuals that have lived for the spans that she states. I am surprised no bristlecone pines made her presentation. Now, those are some interesting trees.

[@cameronchubet43]

Rachel:The tree is actually a male and immortal.-People just sit and stare- Rachel:Get it? -People laugh-

[@WhisperShadow77]

I don't get it

[@MOSSUPTHEHERO]

atcho0o0o0o0! I think I just caught a 600 000 yr old cold

[@TheWheatless]

I wonder how they measured the ages of these things? Cool.

[@caviper1]

@AgentWD400 - No, Larry King was born in 1749. Check it.

[@kkseer]

Wow very interest stuff

[@JimmerJoMoore]

um the methusala trees are the oldest, 5000 years old!

[@Individualism101]

Tax dollars -> research grants -> pointless projects.

[@harveyts3]

for my part I thought this we informative and enjoyable. I have do some looking into this myself online and was not aware of several of these. Very interesting, very well spoken.

[@kielbasa737]

what are the red flags on the South East coast of Australia? out in Victoria... I WANA KNOW! I LIVE THERE!!!

[@saadasim]

@stevendlevitt I think he dates anything that moves.

[@FreedomValentine]

Some of the most kickass things I have ever seen...

[@Pasteldqueijo]

It's age power is over 9.000 !!! AAAAAARRRRGHHH !!

[@kielbasa737]

@h2inuyasha2 what u mean the world isnt that old?

[@bradq]

wow. a fungus as destructive as corporate America

[@HONGNGUYEN-fx4tr]

Can anyone help me? I'm trying to practice my listening skill through this speech. At 0:57 I heard is " And I'm also trying to create a means in which to step outside the box quotidian experience of time", but in the subtitle, that is " And I'm also trying to create a means in which to step outside our quotidian experience of time". Can anyone tell me I heard right or wrong? Thanks so much.

[@P1ranh4]

cool, I was in that Baobab tree drinking a coke at the bar inside :D couple of years ago.. amazing tree

[@TalynCo]

@CptMcClain Except anything remotely aquatic.

[@HAngeli]

acho que esse é o ted talk que eu assisti mais vezes. adoro.

[@kristellyann6691]

I can listen to her all the way! Very interesting project. 😍😍 I really want to join her if given the opportunity. 😊😊😊

[@pinochska]

@AgentWD400 jajajajajaja lol'd so hard man

[@McPrfctday]

That 'one tree forest' is amazing! 80,000 years!

[@YesItsMeGuys68]

what is better than TED on the internet !

[@RetroSpectrumEntertainment]

Yew; Ewe. I get it.

[@ouroborosoroboruo]

considering the extremes that these organisms are willing to endure in order to survive makes me think that they know the alternative to be utterly terrifying

[@wiseye61]

@mrblisterfist its because it's true

[@filmup]

such a cool project - such an amazing topic - so interesting... but... extremely bad photographical work. thats just too bad.

[@hansspiegl8684]

Fascinating! Thank you 😊

[@roidroid]

@MasterMark123 TED on a cake.

[@peterbriers]

She has a very soothing voice imo.

[@tty23]

@Kurtconradt13 growth rates, or in the case of tree by its rings

[@clearmenser]

@profjaykay Lichen? I love 'em!

[@elomoose1169]

That dress is a bad length,,,

[@aerobique]

TED

[@wiseye61]

this woman's voice is booooring

[@kwaal]

That you don't get the joke doesn't make me a moron. It was a reference to The Onion's brilliant Ted Talk parody, which this - despite it's interesting content - made me think of. Jesus, I know this is the internet, but why the hostility?