this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm guessing they're talking about clones?

Yeah, lots of living beings do that.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not clones, more of a ship of Theseus scenario. A fungal network can be "one thing" because we see it as a single interconnected system. But parts grow and die over time. It doesn't have individual cells that are infinitely old, but the one wholistic fungal organism, as we define it, can live forever through regrowth. There are types of jellyfish that can also "live forever" in this same way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Botanists call this "cloning".

Like when you cut a bit off one plant and make a new plant you have 2 plants but they're genetically identical.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's never two fungi here though, the mycelium is always continuous. There's never another individual structure either, like ribosomal cloning, it's just more hyphae.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Words are violence