And what about the effect of Fukushima radiation? They don't like to
talk about that.
On 04/12/2014 11:30 AM, salyavin808 wrote:
They've grown a lot on the ISS, one of the original objectives was to
see if things are better nutritionally or grow faster in space. After
a quick google:
Research Overview
* The Advanced Plant Experiment - Canadian Space Agency 2
(APEX-CSA2) provides insight into the fundamental processes by
which plants produce cellulose and lignin, the two main structural
materials found in plant matter. The experiment will be conducted
using Canadian white spruce, Picea glauca.
* On Earth, various portions of a plant can have physically
different compositions including different ratios of lignin and
cellulose. This will affect the sensitivity of the plants to
environmental conditions, to disease and infection and will have
an influence on the type of industrial application plants can be
used for. It is expected that growth of the trees for 30 days in
microgravity will affect their growth rate, composition, tissue
organization and gene expression.
* The results of this experiment will include improvement of the
technology to grow trees in a spacecraft, enhancement of our
understanding of tree physiology in the space environment and
identification of genes related to specific plant characteristics.
It is expected that these genes can be used as markers for plant
selection in various Earth applications and to improve
sustainability of the forest.
This is the sort of thing they do, but they've have also sentsome
plants to the moon to act as a sort of canary in the coal mine, if
they survive the cosmic rays we might.
Maybe this cherry tree is has had a perfectly normal type of mutation
like the four leafed clover? It just happened to be on the ISS at the
time. Way beyond my meagre ken.
---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote :
*What puzzles me a bit is that they've been taking seeds into space
for a long time to see what happens to them. On the ISS, I think they
even /grow/ stuff. Have there been no other signs of accelerated
maturation or other genetic mutation besides with the cherry trees? I
haven't heard of any.*
The mysteries of nature. Could this be evolution caught in
action? People have often speculated cosmic rays could have forced
some of the huge leaps in life on Earth but I don't think anyone has
ever documented it.
Thing is, you wouldn't expect radiation to produce this much change in
one go, normally radiational changes are destructive but who knows?
Whereas most things get mutated too much and die, one gene in the
right place gets zapped and two major differences occur.
---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote :
Tokyo (AFP) - A cosmic mystery is uniting monks and scientists in
Japan after a cherry tree grown from a seed that orbited the Earth for
eight months bloomed years earlier than expected -- and with very
surprising flowers.
The four-year-old sapling -- grown from a cherry stone that spent time
aboard the International Space Station (ISS) -- burst into blossom on
April 1, possibly a full six years ahead of Mother Nature's normal
schedule.
Its early blooming baffled Buddhist brothers at the ancient temple in
central Japan where the tree is growing.
"We are amazed to see how fast it has grown," Masahiro Kajita, chief
priest at the Ganjoji temple in Gifu, told AFP by telephone.
"A stone from the original tree had never sprouted before. We are very
happy because it will succeed the old tree, which is said to be 1,250
years old."
The wonder pip was among 265 harvested from the celebrated
"Chujo-hime-seigan-zakura" tree, selected as part of a project to
gather seeds from different kinds of cherry trees at 14 locations
across Japan.
The stones were sent to the ISS in November 2008 and came back to
Earth in July the following year with Japanese astronaut Koichi
Wakata, after circling the globe 4,100 times.
Some were sent for laboratory tests, but most were ferried back to
their places of origin, and a selection were planted at nurseries near
the Ganjoji temple.
By April this year, the "space cherry tree" had grown to around four
metres (13 feet) tall, and suddenly produced nine flowers -- each with
just five petals, compared with about 30 on flowers of the parent tree.
It normally takes about 10 years for a cherry tree of the similar
variety to bear its first buds.
The Ganjoji temple sapling is not the only early-flowering space
cherry tree.
Of the 14 locations in which the pits were replanted, blossoms have
been spotted at four places.
Two years ago, a young tree bore 11 flowers in Hokuto, a mountain
region 115 kilometres (70 miles) west of Tokyo, around two years after
it was planted.
It was of a variety that normally only comes into flower at the age of
eight.
Cosmic rays
The seeds were sent to the ISS as part of "an educational and cultural
project to let children gather the stones and learn how they grow into
trees and live on after returning from space," said Miho Tomioka, a
spokeswoman for the project's organiser, Japan Manned Space Systems
(JAMSS).
"We had expected the (Ganjoji) tree to blossom about 10 years after
planting, when the children come of age," she added.
Kaori Tomita-Yokotani, a researcher at the University of Tsukuba who
took part in the project, told AFP she was stumped by the
extra-terrestrial mystery.
"We still cannot rule out the possibility that it has been somewhat
influenced by its exposure to the space environment," she said.
Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/cherry-tree-space-mystery-baffles-japan-085044593.html
