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Scientists Find World’s Largest Plant In Australia And It’s 4,500 Years Old

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Researchers have made a startling discovery beneath the waters off Western Australia. A meadow of sea grass stretching more than 110 miles long was actually a single plant that had spent the past 4,500 years cloning itself to carpet an area three times larger than Manhattan.

The findings, published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, make the colony of Posidonia australis, or ribbon weed, the largest known plant on Earth, scientists said.

Elizabeth Sinclair, a senior research fellow at the University of Western Australia and a lead author of the study, said her team has been testing seagrass meadows around Australia for genetic diversity for years to see how they respond to climate change. When her team visited an area known as Shark Bay, a relatively pristine landscape untouched by development, they went beneath the waves to collect samples of seagrass to see what types of plants were growing across the ocean floor.

The answer was one.

“It’s quite bizarre when you think about it, there’s this plant in one end of the bay and then you move 100 kilometres down to the other end and it’s the same plant,” Sinclair said.

Scientists say the meadow of ribbon weed is all genetically identical after cloning itself to cover an area three times larger than Manhattan.
Scientists say the meadow of ribbon weed is all genetically identical after cloning itself to cover an area three times larger than Manhattan.

Rachel Austin/University of Western Australia

Her team hypothesised that thousands of years ago, a single seagrass seedling landed in the bay. It was particularly suited to survive in different oceanic environments due to its unusual genome.

Most comparable plant offspring contain 50% of each parent’s genes. But Posidonia australis has 100% from each parent, making it a polyploid, meaning it has double the usual number of chromosomes.

“Polyploid plants often reside in places with extreme environmental conditions, are often sterile, but can continue to grow if left undisturbed, and this giant seagrass has done just that,” Sinclair said in a statement. “Even without successful flowering and seed production, it appears to be really resilient, experiencing a wide range of temperatures and salinities plus extreme high light conditions, which together would typically be highly stressful for most plants.”

The ribbon weed has slowly grown through a series of runners — like a normal turf lawn — to stretch nearly 80 square miles. The researchers estimate its age at about 4,500 years, based on the species’ size and growth rate.

Like other delicate oceanic structures, namely corals, seagrass meadows are susceptible to climate change. A severe heat wave in 2010 and 2011 sparked widespread damage to the Shark Bay meadows, killing about a third of the seagrasses. Underwater meadows are also home to many different species and serve a key role in an area’s biodiversity.

An aerial view of the seagrass meadow in Shark Bay.
An aerial view of the seagrass meadow in Shark Bay.

Angela Rossen // University of Western Australia

“You lose a plant that creates this whole environment and you lose all the biodiversity that goes with it,” Sinclair said, adding that the 2010-2011 event had calamitous effects. “The turtles were going hungry, the dolphins weren’t getting enough fish, the whole network is connected.”

Although the ribbon weed has already begun to recover and spread since that event, Sinclair cautioned that climate change still poses a threat to region.

She also noted that it was “scary” how researchers had only just discovered the remarkable colony hiding beneath the waves, noting climate change could rip such species away before humans had a chance to discover them.

“It’s scary because we might lose it before we find out about it,” Sinclair said. “It might be gone before we even know.”

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Star Wars Defends Moses Ingram Against Racist Attacks From Obi-Wan Kenobi Viewers

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After Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Moses Ingram revealed on social media the onslaught of racist harassment she’s received since the Disney+ series premiered last week, the Star Wars franchise stepped up Monday to show support for Ingram.

Moses plays Reva Sevander, also known as the Third Sister, who is hunting Obi-Wan Kenobi for Darth Vader in the new series.

The Emmy-nominated actor shared on her Instagram the hateful messages fired at her from fans of the series, including atrocious messages using the N-word and claims that she’s part of the show only as a “diversity hire.”

“There’s nothing anybody can do about this. There’s nothing anybody can do to stop this hate,” Ingram said in a video posted to her Instagram story. “I question my purposes in even being here in front of you saying that this is happening. I don’t really know.”

She spoke on the pain of being targeted by racist harassment and thanked supporters who have stuck by her: “The thing that bothers me is this feeling inside of myself, that no one has told me, but this feeling that I have to shut up and take it, that I have to grin and bear it. And I’m not built like that. So, I wanted to come on and say thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and the places that I’m not going to put myself. And to the rest of y’all, y’all weird.”

The official social media accounts for Star Wars issued a statement late on Monday backing Moses against the abominable online attacks.

“We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva’s story to unfold. If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist,” the statement said.

“There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist,” the message concluded.

Other actors of colour in the franchise, including Kelly Marie Train and John Boyega, also experienced toxic and racist backlash from fans when they joined the cast.

Before Obi-Wan aired on Disney+, the Baltimore actor told The Independent that executives on the show cautioned her that racist “Star Wars” trolls could be on the horizon.

“It was something that Lucasfilm actually got in front of and said, ‘This is a thing that, unfortunately, likely will happen. But we are here to help you; you can let us know when it happens,’” Moses said at the time.

She added: “‘Obi-Wan’ is going to bring the most diversity I think we’ve ever seen in the galaxy before. To me, it’s long overdue. If you’ve got talking droids and aliens but no people of color, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s 2022, you know. So we’re just at the beginning of that change. But I think to start that change is better than never having started it.”

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds actor Anson Mount also headed to social media on Tuesday to share his support for Ingram.

“This is Moses Ingram. She is a singular talent and a recent addition to the @starwars universe. She has also been targeted by racists pretending to be fans because her mere existence threatens a skewed, dystopian fantasy that selectively omits the likes of @therealbillydee and others. We, the Trek Family, have her back,” he wrote.

New episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi stream on Wednesdays on Disney+.

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