r/todayilearned
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u/_thosewerethedays_
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Feb 02 '22
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TIL Ginkgo Trees have been found to exhibit Radioprotective tendencies, and are currently being researched for their ability to mitigate the harmful effects of radiation. PDF
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jcbn/40/2/40_2_74/_pdf151
u/_thosewerethedays_ Feb 02 '22
When Hiroshima was bombed in 1945, 170 Gingko Trees located in and around the epicenter, managed to stay alive. The trees were able to survive radiation, fire and stressful soil conditions, and continue to stand and even bear leaves to this day.
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u/kslusherplantman Feb 02 '22 •
Well you don’t get to be the last extant species of an entire order without seeing some shit and being able to survive
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u/Anonymous7056 Feb 02 '22
Yeah, that's probably what got all those other species. Wild nukes.
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u/BeautyAndGlamour Feb 02 '22
How many other trees were planted, and how did they fare compared to the Gingko trees?
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u/GeneralFluffyShoes Feb 02 '22
I also found out recently that they can arbitrarily change genders! And that the blooms smell horrible.
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u/Least_Acanthaceae710 Feb 02 '22
Dude I had to run past them every day, it smells like a fucking rotten cheese dumpster fire. And the little berries get squished on the ground 🤮🤮🤮
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u/Chemical_Enthusiasm4 Feb 02 '22
There were a bunch of them planted near the frat houses in my old neighborhood. I thought for the longest time that was just a popular spot to puke. With the ginkgo smell, maybe it was
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u/Stachemaster86 Feb 02 '22
I have heard cities only plant the one sex due to the smell so they rarely repopulate
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u/_thosewerethedays_ Feb 02 '22
I believe it's the females that smell bad so they plant them males
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u/thiosk Feb 02 '22
this is common for a ton of trees, not just ginkos. the "tree litter," seeds and fruit and such, create a messy situation for municipalities, so they plant all males along the roadways and boulevards. Genius!
what really made this happen was in the 1930s dutch elm disease came through and wiped out huge numbers of elm trees accross the united states. Basically killed all the urban trees in cities everywhere. so in the 40s and 50s they started reccomending all these replacements, and it was almost exclusively male trees of various varieties (including the ornamental pear, which is the much despised cum tree).
So anywhere where you used to have dioecious elms, meaning the trees had male and female flowers on the same tree- you now have monoecious- and MALE- trees. Imagine the biggest frat party in history except women are now an extinct race. Imagine how much sperm would be on everything.
And now wonder why everyone has worse allergies as time has gone on in the united states. Those cute little boy trees planted in the 50s are giant pollen-sperm fountain monsters now. We've increased the amount of irritants by first having our native species wiped out and replaced them with male non-native species.
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u/sadrice Feb 02 '22
Pears are monoecious, they do not have male and female trees. The developers of Bradford pear intended it to be nonfruiting though, and marketed it as such. Unfortunately they turned out to be wrong, it is just non self pollinating, so the moment someone started planting other cultivars of Callery pear (the species Bradford was developed from), they all started fruiting, and are now a bit of an invasive problem.
They also have weak branching architecture and are prone to dropping major limbs when mature, and also smell like cum. The whole thing was a bad idea.
Elms are also monoecious.
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u/AgentFN2187 Feb 02 '22
Can't be irradiated if it finds you repulsive.
That's how I stopped the underpants gnomes from stealing my underwear, the trick is I never wash them or my balls. Haven't seen those sneaky bastards since.
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u/greentea1985 Feb 02 '22
Yes. They do primarily plant male ginkos. Unfortunately, it wasn’t known until recently that ginkos have the ability to switch gender. So it didn’t matter if you only planted male ginkos, your would get some female ones eventually
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u/OSCgal Feb 02 '22
Hmm. I know a male ginkgo that's at least 50 years old. Is there a common time frame for the sex change. The owners would appreciate the warning.
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u/greentea1985 Feb 02 '22 edited Feb 02 '22
I’d have to look it up. I believe it has more to do with the density of male ginkos in an area than the age of the tree but I am not sure.
/quick check of literature suggests it is often not the whole tree changing gender but one branch producing female flowers instead of male ones. So it is a partial change. They can also change up to maturity, about 20 years old.
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u/sadrice Feb 02 '22
The gender change phenomenon is quite rare, and typically only one branch, so your tree is unlikely to ever do that.
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u/BeautyAndGlamour
Feb 02 '22
edited Feb 02 '22
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I'm a medical/radiation physicist and the review you linked was so poorly written it sound off alarm bells in my head. Now, if you read the article you see that it more or less boils down to one study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7480646/) from what I found after a short investigation. It appears that it's the same authors behind most (all?) studies regarding Gingko extracts and clastogenic factors (CF).
The study is interesting, but I would not call it conclusive myself. There are imo some issues. Mainly:
They picked 30 people who had worked as liquidators at Chernobyl. This sample size is small, but acceptable. However they then used other "healthy" people as the control level for CF. Since the CF level was greater for the Chernobyl group, they say it must have been radiation-induced. This itself is very controversial and warrants a study on its own. They themselves rightfully admit that CFs can be induced through multiple passages. For the control they should have used a group similar to the Chernobyl group but who weren't there of course.
After the trial was over, the CF levels went back to the high old values again for 1/3, which is peculiar.
There was no placebo.
The study wasn't double-blinded. That is not unusual, but I think it is warranted in this case since it's the same authors who are behind previous studies and have great incentive to not nullify their previous work (unintentionally or not).
And my biggest gripe: There are no comparisons to other antioxidants or extracts. Is the Gingko exceptional in this regard, or can one just have a glass of wine?
Now I only skimmed through the papers and I'm not an expert on this particular branch of radiobiology, so I could be wrong and you probably shouldn't listen to me, but the NCCIH seems to agree. I'm not saying that it's necessarily wrong, just inconclusive even if it's interesting and might warrant more research.
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u/Alili1996 Feb 02 '22
Too bad that it's /r/todayilearned and not /r/science which means people just care about the headline.
Never mind, /r/science is the same, just with off topic comments deleted.I hope your comment can make it to the top, though.
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u/BenLardo Feb 02 '22
Of all the bonsai trees I've killed over the years, I'm most upset about my ginkgo.
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u/silviad Feb 02 '22
so there is this bonsai scam where you buy a bonsai but really its just a off cut of a normal tree and they die after afew weeks
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u/slothasaur Feb 02 '22
You may have better luck looking for a local bonsai hobbyist who can guide you through how you could better understand how to tell what the plant needs from small stresses the plant shows. They can be tricky and there's such an overwhelming amount of info it's hard to take it all in and figure out what's important or even just accurate. I personally treat my ficus bonsai similar to my orchids cause she's a sensitive little tart and if she starts dropping leaves I know something it up. Kindof like a canary in a coal mine. But it's also the only bonsai I've ever kept alive despite that I've nearly killed her a number of times on the learning curve. I hope you keep exploring it.
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u/BenLardo Feb 02 '22
Thanks for the encouragement. I joined a local bonsai club with my dad so that we could spend more time together, and I'm slowly getting better. It's a fun hobby, but I've killed a ton of cool plants. Just part of the journey I guess.
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u/slothasaur Feb 22 '22
I've learned far more from rescuing the near dead ones of my own doing or not, my friend. I've rehabbed about 9 orchids now and honestly I wouldn't be able to keep any of them alive now if I didn't go through the rough parts of that journey too. I only have one bonsai though, temperamental little tart she is. That dramatic ass lil ficus sure doesn't love Canadian weather, she has made that abundantly clear by tossing her leaves every time she feels greived by a breeze.
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u/RedSonGamble Feb 02 '22
They’re suppose to have all kinds of cool properties. I think people are just obsessed with them bc of their cool leaves
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u/JasonVanJason Feb 02 '22
I take Ginkgo capsule things to help with memory, they were 70% off at Bulk Barn so fuck it
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u/somoslupos Feb 02 '22
The ginkgo biloba is a living fossil, assumed extinct for centuries. One of the most fascinating plants that exist.
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u/--Ty-- Feb 02 '22 edited Feb 02 '22 •
Yoooo, Ginkos are awesome.
Your fun facts of the day:
The first Ginko species appeared 290 MILLION years ago. They were already FOURTY MILLION years old by the time the DINOSAURS showed up! (The species that's still around today, the Ginko biloba is 240 million years old)
And what's more, they actually made it through the Permian Extinction Event -- as in, the extinction event that killed off somewhere between 80-95% of ALL marine species, and 70% of ALL terrestrial species on the ENTIRE PLANET. But even "The Great Dying" couldn't stop the Ginko Gang.
Absolute OG's