image transcript:
the lichen knowledge iceberg i have constructed on request.
jhanettesticle replies:
we cant make lichen happen in a lab? have we tried taking the parts that make up a lichen and throwing them together in a petri dish?
bogleech replies:
The deranged fucked up dark sided thing about lichen is that the exact species comprising it don’t even necessarily determine the type of lichen. You can have what seems to be the same lichen in two different locations using different symbiotes, or two different looking lichen turn out to have the very same symbiotes. So it’s not even that they form when the right component species meet up, because that doesn’t always have a predictable result. Something in the environment tells them to build a lichen. Something that makes sense to them but has no meaning to us yet. Whatever it is cannot be imitated by us, in fact if you move a lichen indoors - or move it at all, really - it’s all but guaranteed to stop being a lichen or just due, even if you try to recreate the climate you found it in!
Only one truth is certain:
Lichens are things.
end of transcript
reposted from tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/bogleech/756047802259341312
- randomsnark ( @randomsnark@lemmy.ml ) English45•28 days ago
For anyone else who was curious about lichens covering “a not insignificant amount” of the earth’s surface, a quick google tells me it’s about 7% (according to e.g. new york times, scientific american, etc)
Edit: oh and estimating the age of an exposed surface by lichen diameter is called lichenometry. I’m seeing stuff about it being used in geological contexts but it makes sense that it could work for old buildings too
- Generous1146 ( @Generous1146@beehaw.org ) English41•28 days ago
Id watch a 2h youtube video about this 👀
- Biezelbob ( @deuleb_biezelbob@programming.dev ) English27•28 days ago
I’d sink a months worth of time and ADHD medication on this
- Biezelbob ( @deuleb_biezelbob@programming.dev ) English18•28 days ago
oh my god @nicknonya@lemmy.blahaj.zone what gave you done. here goes my free time
i’m sorry, i know not the power i wield
- JackbyDev ( @JackbyDev@programming.dev ) English41•28 days ago
We can’t even grow most bacteria in labs. It’s a pretty small subset that work with the traditional agar petri dish set up.
- stelelor ( @stelelor@lemmy.ca ) English25•28 days ago
Gotta love oligotrophy. Some lichens grow inside rocks… definitely can’t replicate that in a lab (although not for lack of trying).
- nickwitha_k (he/him) ( @nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ) English15•28 days ago
We can’t even grow most bacteria in labs.
And that doesn’t even get to the level of Archaea. Some of which we only know about because of genetic material.
- Cyrus Draegur ( @Draegur@lemm.ee ) English32•28 days ago
i imagine alien hivemind organisms looking at earth and our cities upon it and thinking “what are these growths and why aren’t the samples we collect producing them?”
- jet ( @jet@hackertalks.com ) English17•28 days ago
- Shhalahr ( @Shhalahr@beehaw.org ) English11•28 days ago
So, I opened this without looking at the source community. I’m on an RPG meme community as well. I was actually predicting a pun on a certain phylactery-using undead. Only as it was loading did I realize I had a chance for the science memes sub instead.
i did try to work a lich joke in the title but i couldn’t think of anything natural or forced enough to be funny. submissions are open though
- leftzero ( @leftzero@lemmynsfw.com ) English11•28 days ago
Is a forest with a good mycorrhizal network a huge lichen…?
- dylanmorgan ( @dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net ) English5•28 days ago
Technically? Maybe.
- Swedneck ( @Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ) English2•23 days ago
the real lichen is the friends we- oh god, oh god no jerry not you too
- fossilesque ( @fossilesque@mander.xyz ) English10•28 days ago
Meanwhile, it’s BFF moss is something like 90% dead plant matter and just a derpy slow sponge. Pinky and the brain.
- MonkderVierte ( @MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ) English7•28 days ago
- friendly_ghost ( @friendly_ghost@beehaw.org ) English3•28 days ago
What I got out of this is that Dax from DS9 was probably a lichen