I think that not only is this an amazing clam, I also think that it even helps us in many ways. One of the ways is that it shows the temperature of the oceans changing. If we know this, then we can help change the ocean life. Even though this is just for the oceans, it also occurs for other things. The reason why the ocean temperatures are changing are because of global warming. Global warming happens in many other cases such as making it too hot and having not enough ice for polar bears. I find it interesting that finding the age of a clam is the same way as finding the age of a tree. I also find it great of how they named this amazing clam Ming. Figuring out it was alive around the Ming Dynasty, they named this clam Ming. I find this very clever and creative. I wonder how Ming could live this long! If I were to live this long, I would experience so much that is going on, that has been going on, and that will be going on! I wonder what this clam experienced during its 507 years being alive. If these scientists wouldn't have killed this amazing clam, who knows how much longer it might have lived!
I was surprised that the clam could live this long. It even lived longer than the bowhead whale that lived 130 years. It is amazing that we have the technology to figure out how old Ming is. (In fact carbon dating has been around since 1949). We originally thought that the clam was 405 years old, but now we are certain that Ming is 507 years old. Though Ming lived for 507 years, it is possible that other creatures including clams lived even longer. While reading the article I didn't know what the carbon-14 method was, so I looked it up. Here is an explanation: When a living thing dies, it stops taking in carbon. The ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 at the moment of death should the same as in every other living animal, but carbon-14 decays over time and cannot be replaced. It has half-life of 5,700 years. By looking at the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the dead animal and comparing it to the ratio in a living one, it is possible to determine the age of a dead animal fairly precisely.
At first, I was wondering why the scientists were going around killing clams. We don't typically think about clams telling us much about the world. After reading the article, I realized that each animal has its own story to tell, and a 507 year old clam has plenty to tell us. Clams can tell us a lot about our world, including climate change-- for example how warm the oceans were. Scientists made a graph that tells us the changes in ocean temperatures over the last 507 years. Interestingly enough, these findings correspond closely to the information that was already known about the oceans from other sources. The most alarming of the findings is that for the past hundred years the temperatures have been rising steeply to levels that have never been seen before. Rising temperatures across the globe are associated with the deaths of coral reefs, which leads to the death of fish. This causes a negative chain reaction across the whole ocean food chain and could lead to serious problems with the world's food supply. Another feature of global warming that the clams might tell us about is rising ocean levels. In other words, these clams might just serve as a prediction device for our future.
A clam that lived 507 years! Thats amazing! I never new that any animal could live that long, so to find out that it could was interesting all by itself. I find it very strange that you find out the age by counting the rings for both clams and trees. I would think that because they are so different that you wouldn't be able to find out the age the same way. I also think that it is weird that a clam could survive that long because of predators. I think that it is interesting that all of the clams that live for a long time live in the same oceans. I wonder why this is. Over all I would give this article a 10.
I think that it is amazing that a clam can live up to 507 years. I really enjoyed reading how they figured out how old the clam was. I learned that the way that you know how old a clam is, is just like a tree. you count the number of rings on the shell. Clams have rings on both the inside and outside. I also thought that how this one clam can determine the change in ocean temperature. As Erica said, the oceans temperature has changed because of Global warming, and causing the ocean to get hotter. This amazing clam should be treated very well because it could lead us to many answers. I wonder how Ming lived this long!
I think that it is amazing that this clam, which was named Ming, survived for five-hundred and seven years! Ming was around when Columbus discovered North America, when the Ming Dynasty was in power over China in the fifteen hundreds! It is very interesting that we find the age of clams by counting the rings on its shell. I have heard that this is also true for trees. I think that it's strange that clams and trees have the same methods for their ages to be counted. The article also mentions that this is the oldest animal ever recorded by humankind. That does not mean, though, that it is the oldest animal. There could be others, even older than Ming, waiting to be discovered.
It is truly incredible for a clam to live that long. I thought that it was really cool for the age of clams to be counted like the age of trees. This really sparked my interest because if Ming was out there, can we find more and more about ancient ocean life? I always wondered how life was before technology. No cars, computers, phones, or even clocks. If scientists learn more about this, we can learn so much about my question. I thought that Ming was a really cool and clever name. 507 years-old, Ming is still in great condition. It was really interesting because she was so old, that some of her rings were half faded. If the scientists figure out what could have caused such a long life, maybe humans can adapt that way of life. I really enjoyed reading this article because there is so much more out there. We could learn so much because of this one clam, Ming. You can learn so much from one amazing discovery.
I thought that this article was really fascinating! How could an animal have lived such a long life! I cannot imagine how long it might have lived if it had not been killed. I also researched and found that water in Iceland (the place where Ming was found) has some of the cleanest water supply in the world. Also, I had some questions. One thing I wondered was: Does the rise of temperature make the clams' environment worse or better? On this website, http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&country=0&special=&monthyear=&day=&id=57163&ndb=1&df=0, it said that the global climate change affected clams, but not mussels. However, since I found this information on just 2 websites, I am not sure about its credibility. Also, I looked up quahogs(Ming's species) and found that they have hard shells. During the 507 years of its life, this shell probably protected it from predators. However, it is still amazing that the clam survived this long, and I wonder if there are any older ones still in the ocean.
I think after this scientific study we will know so much more about animals, and sea animals specifically. I am wondering how they got the clam without destroying it, because most old things get broken right away. I still have some questions about how counting the rings works, so could someone could answer them please?
I really was blown away from this article information. I never thought that an animal could live more than 200 years at the most, let alone more than 500 years! What also surprised me was they way that you figure out how old clams are. I didn't think that the clams have rings on the outside and the inside of their shells. I did a little research about the oldest animals on Earth and learned that the Ocean Quahog (Ming) is the oldest, then comes the Bowhead Whale at 211 years old, and in third is the Rougheye Rockfish at 205 years old. I noticed that these three animals live in the ocean, which means that the ocean is a more supportive environment to live if you want to live for a long time.
I also stumbled upon another piece of interesting information. There is a type of jellyfish that is "immortal" called the Turritopsis dohrnii. According to my understanding, this jellyfish apparently ages younger until it is on its first stage of life, and then grows again. It does this same thing over and over again. However, we don't know how old any of the jellyfish really are because since they grow young again, they don't "really" age. I definitely want to research this jellyfish more.
This article was so interesting. How amazing is it that a clam could live for that lenghty of a time period? I knew that many animals had extremely long lifespans, but clams were not among the ones that I thought of. I also think it is interesting that the growth rings got squished because of how many of them there were. I was also surprised and shocked to hear that all of these long lifespan bearing clams lived in the same region of the sea. Is this because the predators in that area don;t come after these types of clams? Or maybe because the climate there is better suited for these creatures. I also find it interesting that the next oldest animal is an Aldabra Giant Tortoise named Adwaita, at a shocking 256 years. This is just over half of Ming's age. How is it that a small clam could live longer than a 550 pound giant tortoise? A study even shows that larger animals tend to live longer than small ones. This also makes me wonder if there are any older large animals out there that are even older than Ming. This article really intrigued me, and I would love to learn more about Ming and other quahogs. Overall, I give this article 5/5 stars.
Jacob, to answer your question a thin muscular tissue sticks to the inside of the shell called a mantle. Then a thicker rim of tissue at the edge of the mantle produces another layer of shell so a ring forms at the edge of the shell. In Ming's case, I am guessing that the rings all got compressed as it created more and more, for the article stated that it was hard to count Ming's rings because of her age. I hope this helps answer your question!
I found another interesting animal while looking for more information. There is an animal called the Tuatara which is believed to be closely related to dinosaurs. It is still alive today and was alive in the Mesozoic era, although it has changed a lot since then. It also has a long lifespan of 100-200 years. Jut wanted to share another cool animal with everyone.
Wow, I never knew clams, or any animals could live for 507 years. It was also a coincidence that they happened to find "Ming" frozen, on the side of the ship. One other unusual fact I found interesting was that the by counting the ridges on the clam, you can tell how old it is.
As I was reading the article about ming the 507 year old clam I thought it was so interesting how all you had to do was count the rings on the clams shell. Before this I thought the rings on the shell was just how it is made. Most clams are pretty old them because most clams have more than 75 rings on them. I was shocked when I realized clams live longer than humans. It was surprising that ming was around even when Columbus came to america. Next time I see a clam I will positively look at the rings. I rate this article a 9. I thought that it had great information and I will definately look into.
Wow, this clam has lived for so long, 507 years old (first thought that it was 405 years old)! I never knew that you could determine how old a clam is by counting the number of rings. But sadly, in this way the scientists must kill the clam first. But the carbon-14 method seems much more accurate than counting the rings which can be hard to do when the animal is extremely old (especially when they are 507 years old!) Like Erica said, I wonder how long Ming would have lived if the scientists had not killed it. I think that it wouldn’t have lived for much longer due to global warming. Especially because Iceland (where Ming was found) is one of the frontal lines for global warming. In all, this clam is amazing and I wished that it would have lived longer.
This article was really cool. It is a amazing that a clam lived for 507 years when they live 100 years on average. In the article, it said at first they thought the clam was only 405 years old and then proved it was 507. It is really weird that scientist could find the age of this clam just by counting the rings. Besides that it lived for 507 years, I'm surprised it survived for that long. If it has some predators like birds and starfish it must have hid so those animals couldn't find it.
This article was really cool. It is a amazing that a clam lived for 507 years when they live 100 years on average. In the article, it said at first they thought the clam was only 405 years old and then proved it was 507. It is really weird that scientist could find the age of this clam just by counting the rings. Besides that it lived for 507 years, I'm surprised it survived for that long. If it has some predators like birds and starfish it must have hid so those animals couldn't find it.
This article is extremely informative, and can provide key help in our journey to find the secret of longevity. Besides this, there are quite a few other ways it helps. First, like I mentioned previously, it lived for 507 years. This clam could be considered ancient, and if our modern day scientists came up with something to tap into that age, it would be great. If we were able to find the secret of long life, given by this clam, some people would be able to live life to the full potential. Second, the article mentioned something about the water it was in. I did research on whether or not Icelandic water provide ideal conditions for a longer life. I found that: Iceland does well in many things, including the fact that Icelandic water is without contaminates or heavy metals. I found one interesting thing, though. Apparently, only the cold water is safe, because the hot water contains traces of sulfur for bathing only. This comes from Geothermal heating (no comments there). Maybe Ming survived so long is because she was in cold Icelandic waters, not hot. For those Icelandic people, try cold baths. If you want to see more info on Iceland and every other country, visit this website:
My one question is how did this clam live this long? What helped it to keep it alive and how did it die? It would be so great if someone found out the answer to this question. What would be even more amazing is how someone would find this out.
This article (and the clam) are amazing! I never thought a clam could live up to 507 years old! And, like the article said, at first they thought Ming was 400 years old (which I think is very impressive), but then they recounted, using the carbon-14 method, and they found out that Ming was not 400, but 507 years old! The only thing that I did not like about this article was that they had to kill Ming to find out how old she was because if they had kept her alive she may have lived longer. Also, it was incredible how they can now use Ming to find out about ocean temperature. In conclusion, I thought that Ming gave her life for science, and we should all thank her for that.
23 comments:
I think that not only is this an amazing clam, I also think that it even helps us in many ways. One of the ways is that it shows the temperature of the oceans changing. If we know this, then we can help change the ocean life. Even though this is just for the oceans, it also occurs for other things. The reason why the ocean temperatures are changing are because of global warming. Global warming happens in many other cases such as making it too hot and having not enough ice for polar bears. I find it interesting that finding the age of a clam is the same way as finding the age of a tree. I also find it great of how they named this amazing clam Ming. Figuring out it was alive around the Ming Dynasty, they named this clam Ming. I find this very clever and creative. I wonder how Ming could live this long! If I were to live this long, I would experience so much that is going on, that has been going on, and that will be going on! I wonder what this clam experienced during its 507 years being alive. If these scientists wouldn't have killed this amazing clam, who knows how much longer it might have lived!
I was surprised that the clam could live this long. It even lived longer than the bowhead whale that lived 130 years. It is amazing that we have the technology to figure out how old Ming is. (In fact carbon dating has been around since 1949). We originally thought that the clam was 405 years old, but now we are certain that Ming is 507 years old. Though Ming lived for 507 years, it is possible that other creatures including clams lived even longer. While reading the article I didn't know what the carbon-14 method was, so I looked it up. Here is an explanation: When a living thing dies, it stops taking in carbon. The ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 at the moment of death should the same as in every other living animal, but carbon-14 decays over time and cannot be replaced. It has half-life of 5,700 years. By looking at the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the dead animal and comparing it to the ratio in a living one, it is possible to determine the age of a dead animal fairly precisely.
At first, I was wondering why the scientists were going around killing clams. We don't typically think about clams telling us much about the world. After reading the article, I realized that each animal has its own story to tell, and a 507 year old clam has plenty to tell us. Clams can tell us a lot about our world, including climate change-- for example how warm the oceans were. Scientists made a graph that tells us the changes in ocean temperatures over the last 507 years. Interestingly enough, these findings correspond closely to the information that was already known about the oceans from other sources. The most alarming of the findings is that for the past hundred years the temperatures have been rising steeply to levels that have never been seen before. Rising temperatures across the globe are associated with the deaths of coral reefs, which leads to the death of fish. This causes a negative chain reaction across the whole ocean food chain and could lead to serious problems with the world's food supply. Another feature of global warming that the clams might tell us about is rising ocean levels. In other words, these clams might just serve as a prediction device for our future.
A clam that lived 507 years! Thats amazing! I never new that any animal could live that long, so to find out that it could was interesting all by itself. I find it very strange that you find out the age by counting the rings for both clams and trees. I would think that because they are so different that you wouldn't be able to find out the age the same way. I also think that it is weird that a clam could survive that long because of predators. I think that it is interesting that all of the clams that live for a long time live in the same oceans. I wonder why this is. Over all I would give this article a 10.
I think that it is amazing that a clam can live up to 507 years. I really enjoyed reading how they figured out how old the clam was. I learned that the way that you know how old a clam is, is just like a tree. you count the number of rings on the shell. Clams have rings on both the inside and outside. I also thought that how this one clam can determine the change in ocean temperature. As Erica said, the oceans temperature has changed because of Global warming, and causing the ocean to get hotter. This amazing clam should be treated very well because it could lead us to many answers. I wonder how Ming lived this long!
I think that it is amazing that this clam, which was named Ming, survived for five-hundred and seven years! Ming was around when Columbus discovered North America, when the Ming Dynasty was in power over China in the fifteen hundreds! It is very interesting that we find the age of clams by counting the rings on its shell. I have heard that this is also true for trees. I think that it's strange that clams and trees have the same methods for their ages to be counted. The article also mentions that this is the oldest animal ever recorded by humankind. That does not mean, though, that it is the oldest animal. There could be others, even older than Ming, waiting to be discovered.
It is truly incredible for a clam to live that long. I thought that it was really cool for the age of clams to be counted like the age of trees. This really sparked my interest because if Ming was out there, can we find more and more about ancient ocean life? I always wondered how life was before technology. No cars, computers, phones, or even clocks. If scientists learn more about this, we can learn so much about my question. I thought that Ming was a really cool and clever name. 507 years-old, Ming is still in great condition. It was really interesting because she was so old, that some of her rings were half faded. If the scientists figure out what could have caused such a long life, maybe humans can adapt that way of life. I really enjoyed reading this article because there is so much more out there. We could learn so much because of this one clam, Ming. You can learn so much from one amazing discovery.
I thought that this article was really fascinating! How could an animal have lived such a long life! I cannot imagine how long it might have lived if it had not been killed. I also researched and found that water in Iceland (the place where Ming was found) has some of the cleanest water supply in the world. Also, I had some questions. One thing I wondered was: Does the rise of temperature make the clams' environment worse or better? On this website, http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&country=0&special=&monthyear=&day=&id=57163&ndb=1&df=0, it said that the global climate change affected clams, but not mussels. However, since I found this information on just 2 websites, I am not sure about its credibility. Also, I looked up quahogs(Ming's species) and found that they have hard shells. During the 507 years of its life, this shell probably protected it from predators. However, it is still amazing that the clam survived this long, and I wonder if there are any older ones still in the ocean.
I think after this scientific study we will know so much more about animals, and sea animals specifically. I am wondering how they got the clam without destroying it, because most old things get broken right away. I still have some questions about how counting the rings works, so could someone could answer them please?
I really was blown away from this article information. I never thought that an animal could live more than 200 years at the most, let alone more than 500 years! What also surprised me was they way that you figure out how old clams are. I didn't think that the clams have rings on the outside and the inside of their shells. I did a little research about the oldest animals on Earth and learned that the Ocean Quahog (Ming) is the oldest, then comes the Bowhead Whale at 211 years old, and in third is the Rougheye Rockfish at 205 years old. I noticed that these three animals live in the ocean, which means that the ocean is a more supportive environment to live if you want to live for a long time.
I also stumbled upon another piece of interesting information. There is a type of jellyfish that is "immortal" called the Turritopsis dohrnii. According to my understanding, this jellyfish apparently ages younger until it is on its first stage of life, and then grows again. It does this same thing over and over again. However, we don't know how old any of the jellyfish really are because since they grow young again, they don't "really" age. I definitely want to research this jellyfish more.
To add to my previous comment, the reborn jellyfish is genetically the same as the previous one.
This article was so interesting. How amazing is it that a clam could live for that lenghty of a time period? I knew that many animals had extremely long lifespans, but clams were not among the ones that I thought of. I also think it is interesting that the growth rings got squished because of how many of them there were. I was also surprised and shocked to hear that all of these long lifespan bearing clams lived in the same region of the sea. Is this because the predators in that area don;t come after these types of clams? Or maybe because the climate there is better suited for these creatures. I also find it interesting that the next oldest animal is an Aldabra Giant Tortoise named Adwaita, at a shocking 256 years. This is just over half of Ming's age. How is it that a small clam could live longer than a 550 pound giant tortoise? A study even shows that larger animals tend to live longer than small ones. This also makes me wonder if there are any older large animals out there that are even older than Ming. This article really intrigued me, and I would love to learn more about Ming and other quahogs. Overall, I give this article 5/5 stars.
Jacob, to answer your question a thin muscular tissue sticks to the inside of the shell called a mantle. Then a thicker rim of tissue at the edge of the mantle produces another layer of shell so a ring forms at the edge of the shell. In Ming's case, I am guessing that the rings all got compressed as it created more and more, for the article stated that it was hard to count Ming's rings because of her age. I hope this helps answer your question!
I found another interesting animal while looking for more information. There is an animal called the Tuatara which is believed to be closely related to dinosaurs. It is still alive today and was alive in the Mesozoic era, although it has changed a lot since then. It also has a long lifespan of 100-200 years. Jut wanted to share another cool animal with everyone.
Wow, I never knew clams, or any animals could live for 507 years. It was also a coincidence that they happened to find "Ming" frozen, on the side of the ship. One other unusual fact I found interesting was that the by counting the ridges on the clam, you can tell how old it is.
As I was reading the article about ming the 507 year old clam I thought it was so interesting how all you had to do was count the rings on the clams shell. Before this I thought the rings on the shell was just how it is made. Most clams are pretty old them because most clams have more than 75 rings on them. I was shocked when I realized clams live longer than humans. It was surprising that ming was around even when Columbus came to america. Next time I see a clam I will positively look at the rings. I rate this article a 9. I thought that it had great information and I will definately look into.
I really like this article, because I never knew that a clam can live up to 507 years. I think this was a great article to suggest.
Wow, this clam has lived for so long, 507 years old (first thought that it was 405 years old)! I never knew that you could determine how old a clam is by counting the number of rings. But sadly, in this way the scientists must kill the clam first. But the carbon-14 method seems much more accurate than counting the rings which can be hard to do when the animal is extremely old (especially when they are 507 years old!) Like Erica said, I wonder how long Ming would have lived if the scientists had not killed it. I think that it wouldn’t have lived for much longer due to global warming. Especially because Iceland (where Ming was found) is one of the frontal lines for global warming. In all, this clam is amazing and I wished that it would have lived longer.
This article was really cool. It is a amazing that a clam lived for 507 years when they live 100 years on average. In the article, it said at first they thought the clam was only 405 years old and then proved it was 507. It is really weird that scientist could find the age of this clam just by counting the rings. Besides that it lived for 507 years, I'm surprised it survived for that long. If it has some predators like birds and starfish it must have hid so those animals couldn't find it.
This article was really cool. It is a amazing that a clam lived for 507 years when they live 100 years on average. In the article, it said at first they thought the clam was only 405 years old and then proved it was 507. It is really weird that scientist could find the age of this clam just by counting the rings. Besides that it lived for 507 years, I'm surprised it survived for that long. If it has some predators like birds and starfish it must have hid so those animals couldn't find it.
This article is extremely informative, and can provide key help in our journey to find the secret of longevity. Besides this, there are quite a few other ways it helps. First, like I mentioned previously, it lived for 507 years. This clam could be considered ancient, and if our modern day scientists came up with something to tap into that age, it would be great. If we were able to find the secret of long life, given by this clam, some people would be able to live life to the full potential. Second, the article mentioned something about the water it was in. I did research on whether or not Icelandic water provide ideal conditions for a longer life. I found that: Iceland does well in many things, including the fact that Icelandic water is without contaminates or heavy metals. I found one interesting thing, though. Apparently, only the cold water is safe, because the hot water contains traces of sulfur for bathing only. This comes from Geothermal heating (no comments there). Maybe Ming survived so long is because she was in cold Icelandic waters, not hot. For those Icelandic people, try cold baths. If you want to see more info on Iceland and every other country, visit this website:
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/iceland/
My one question is how did this clam live this long? What helped it to keep it alive and how did it die? It would be so great if someone found out the answer to this question. What would be even more amazing is how someone would find this out.
This article (and the clam) are amazing! I never thought a clam could live up to 507 years old! And, like the article said, at first they thought Ming was 400 years old (which I think is very impressive), but then they recounted, using the carbon-14 method, and they found out that Ming was not 400, but 507 years old! The only thing that I did not like about this article was that they had to kill Ming to find out how old she was because if they had kept her alive she may have lived longer. Also, it was incredible how they can now use Ming to find out about ocean temperature. In conclusion, I thought that Ming gave her life for science, and we should all thank her for that.
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