The world's oldest creature was 507 years old. But scientists killed it. - Polidicks

Are they at least going to eat it? Shellfish are damn tasty!

Who's to say that there isn't another quahog somewhere as old or even older than that one? Why is this getting dumbed? Am I missing something here?

[QUOTE=Trogdon;42857739]wow we could have asked him about [B]christopher columbo [/B]and the revolutionary war way to go science[/QUOTE] "He was a massive genocidal dick and a retard who couldn't navigate or do math and he didn't discover jack-shit that the vikings didn't find five hundred years earlier."

[QUOTE=lemonskunk;42858354]Are they at least going to eat it? Shellfish are damn tasty![/QUOTE] Aged to perfection.

[QUOTE=snookypookums;42857863]That is astounding - when I see old monuments and realize that this happened say, 100 or two hundred years ago, it's impressive, but when I see stuff like this or even those fossilized tree trunks that are millions of years old, my eyes just glaze over even trying to comprehend the things that happened in that vast ocean of time. The earth manages to make you feel insignificant in so many ways - your lifespan is but the blink of an eye and looking at the stars, you realize how truly insignificant you are in scale of the universe. [IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MKDacXZ1Gjw/TyTwVGq7XnI/AAAAAAAAAEc/T08Cii843pw/s1600/calvin.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] A wise man once said if you want to feel significant look at a cell or an atom, if you want to feel insignificant look around you. It's all about perspective imo

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;42858206]but... but yolo??![/QUOTE] It's funny you should say that, because that's the whole idea behind the YOLO shit. Nothing matters, so fuck it let's have fun. It quite noble, though it's a shame about the dipshits that naturally ruin it by taking to the extremes (like any philosophy).

[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;42858564]It's funny you should say that, because that's the whole idea behind the YOLO shit. Nothing matters, so fuck it let's have fun. It quite noble, though it's a shame about the dipshits that naturally ruin it by taking to the extremes (like any philosophy).[/QUOTE] I prefer "carpe diem" because there's less stigma behind it.

[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;42858564]It's funny you should say that, because that's the whole idea behind the YOLO shit. Nothing matters, so fuck it let's have fun. It quite noble, though it's a shame about the dipshits that naturally ruin it by taking to the extremes (like any philosophy).[/QUOTE] It's even funnier because 'You only live once' is such a vauge and hollow statement that you can take it as anything, really. "I better get a good education and a steady income and avoid debt, YOLO" is just as valid as "Let's drink paint thinner, YOLO!".

Oldest? Don't certain types of crustaceans such as lobsters live forever though? I'm sure there are a several thousand year old lobsters somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.

"oops" "zat was not medicine"

Here's another piece of timescale trivia: There are aboriginal peoples in Australia that have names for, and can locate, mountains that have been submerged for 8,000 years. Time is really freaky when you start thinking into multiple-century lifespan scales. Imagine the shape of civilization if we all regularly considered middle age to be 210. How soon would we be willing to end a young person's education and throw them headfirst into the world of work? What would our reproductive cycle look like (socially as well as biologically)? And then you get into deep time and start looking at geological timescales, and you discover the profound gravitas of how truly old everything on this rock hurtling through space actually is, but the wonder of life means that it is forever new again. Here's another piece of trivia to give you an idea of what's been lost to time: In 65 million years, the fossil record will only contain something like 50 human bones. At least 99% of the species that have ever lived left no trace in the fossil record (soft bodies, etc.). So much history has been erased by time. I apologize for veering off track, but it's still at least somewhat related. Thinking outside of our own human moment is a neat exercise. I encourage everyone to try it more often.

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;42858580]I prefer "carpe diem" because there's less stigma behind it.[/QUOTE] I prefer "omelette du fromage."

Just thinking about that 80,000 year old tree colony thing and now I'm just thinking, how slow must their evolution be? I mean, most of the forests are clones of the same tree all joined, then when exactly do they replicate a tree with a modified DNA?

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;42858756]Oldest? Don't certain types of crustaceans such as lobsters live forever though? I'm sure there are a several thousand year old lobsters somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii"]"Immortal" Jellyfish[/URL]