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80,000 YEAR OLD GRASS COLONIES. "A huge colony of the sea grass Posidonia oceanica in the Mediterranean Sea is estimated to be between 12,000 and 200,000 years old. The maximum age is theoretical, as the region it occupies was above water at some point between 10,000 and 80,000 years ago." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT PLANT CLONAL COLONIES. "Pando is a Populus tremuloides (Quaking Aspen) tree or clonal colony that has been estimated at 80,000 years old. Unlike many other clonal "colonies" the above ground trunks remain connected to each other via a single massive underground root system. Whether it is to be considered a single tree is disputed, as it depends on one's definition of an individual tree." https://lnkd.in/dseQDtg View in LinkedIn

CONTRARIAN. "The quaking aspen clones estimated to be over 10,000 years old, creosote bushes (Larrea tridentate) said to be 11,700 years old, and the 1400 year-old bracken ferns (Pteridium aquilinum) (Oinenen, all suffer from the same criticism." https://lnkd.in/esfPTAR View in LinkedIn

NEGLIGIBLE RISK OF DEATH. ""The combination of modular growth and dormancy in perennial plants, two features individually shared with some animals, increases their plasticity and strongly reduces the potential damage caused by aerobic life, to the extreme that the likelihood of dying from aging is, at best, negligible." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03360.x/full View in LinkedIn

NEGLIGIBLE RISK OF DEATH. ""The combination of modular growth and dormancy in perennial plants, two features individually shared with some animals, increases their plasticity and strongly reduces the potential damage caused by aerobic life, to the extreme that the likelihood of dying from aging is, at best, negligible." https://lnkd.in/d5nsZwQ View in LinkedIn

CORRECTIVE VIEWPOINT. "There is a common belief that Redwood trees and Bristle cone pines can achieve great age. Yet, the cells in these trees, alleged to be thousands of years old, are dead. The living cells in the needles, cambium layer and root hairs are no older than about 30 years. Humans, older than 30 years, who stand in awe of Redwood trees should more accurately stand in awe of their own living post mitotic neurons that are older than the tree’s living cells." https://lnkd.in/esfPTAR View in LinkedIn

HAYFLICK LIMIT CONSENSUS. "Since our first tentative suggestion that the finite lifespan of cultured normal human cells was a manifestation of aging at the cellular level, an enormous fund of knowledge has been acquired about the nature of the phenomenon. Few if any of the experimental results that have been reported are completely incompatible with an interpretation that the finite lifetime of cultured normal cells is aging at the cell level." http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v62/full/62111380.html View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS the first of two weekends dedicated to the curious orchid family. The nuanced strategies employed by these flowers for reproduction by false representation require a close co-evolution. These plants have no centralized brains, no vertebrate eyes, yet they can mirror the needs of a variety of pollinators with ingenious accuracy, and, according to the theory of evolution, all by dumb trial and error. No wonder Darwin was mesmerized by these clever plants. View in LinkedIn

PLANT MODULARITY AND SENESCENCE. "However, maintaining organism integrity with increased complexity in an evolutionary timescale has some costs. In a meta-analysis of plant life-history tables, data provided by Silvertown et al. support the idea that organisms which remain integrated in modules are more likely to senesce than organisms whose ramets separate into unconnected entities." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2010.03360.x/full View in LinkedIn

IMMORTAL REVERTANT. "Turritopsis nutricula (T. nutricula) is the one of the known reported organisms that can revert its life cycle to the polyp stage even after becoming sexually mature, defining itself as the only immortal organism in the animal kingdom." It does not experience aging. https://lnkd.in/djr7U94 View in LinkedIn