What You Never Knew About Trees | SciShow Compilation

TL;DR

Learn about the significance of trees and how a campaign called #TeamTrees aims to plant 20 million trees by the end of 2019.

Transcript

Hey everybody, got a special video for you today. I, you may not know this, love trees they're tall and they're skinny just like me and they do so much for us from making oxygen so we can breathe to cooling urban environments with their shade the literally holding the ground together to prevent erosion so when we here at scishow heard that Mr Beast... Read More

Key Insights

• 👻 Avocado trees owe their survival to early farmers who cultivated them in Mesoamerica.
• 💨 Genetically modifying trees like American chestnuts could be a way to restore populations affected by diseases.
• 🧑‍🏭 The shapes of trees in the dancing forest and crooked forest remain a mystery and might be due to natural factors or human manipulation.
• 🌲 Some trees, like the Bristlecone pine and Pando, can live for thousands of years and offer valuable insights into the past and the choices we make for the future.
• 🌲 Efforts like #TeamTrees are crucial for planting trees and ensuring a sustainable future for the planet.
• 🌲 Trees not only provide oxygen and shade but also contribute to the ecosystem and help prevent erosion.
• 🌲 Protecting and planting trees is an important step towards combating climate change and preserving biodiversity.

Questions & Answers

Q: Why are avocados considered unique among fruits?

Avocados have a creamy texture due to their higher fat content, making them calorific but nutritious. They also contain high levels of potassium, folate, and vitamins C, E, and K. Additionally, avocados have a single large seed, distinguishing them from fruits with multiple small seeds.

Q: How did the chestnut blight fungus affect American chestnut trees?

The chestnut blight fungus infected the trees, blocking the flow of nutrients and water by attacking the water-transmitting cambium tissues. This led to the trees' death, with nearly 4 billion American chestnut trees dying due to the fungus.

Q: How do trees in the dancing forest and crooked forest achieve their unusual shapes?

The exact cause of the unusual shapes in both forests is unknown. In the dancing forest, it is speculated that strong winds, unstable soils, or human manipulation influenced their growth. In the crooked forest, some believe humans shaped the trees for various purposes, while others attribute the shape to natural forces like winds and cold temperatures.

Q: What are the two contenders for the oldest tree in the world?

The oldest known individual tree is a Bristlecone pine in California, estimated to be 5063 years old. The oldest living organism, however, is a clonal colony of quaking aspen in Utah called Pando, with a root system estimated to be at least 80,000 years old.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Avocado trees almost went extinct when their evolutionary partners, megafauna, became extinct thousands of years ago. Luckily, early farmers in Mesoamerica cultivated them, leading to their survival.

• The American chestnut trees faced near-extinction due to a fungus brought from Asia. Scientists are now trying to bring back the species by genetically modifying them.

• The dancing forest in Kaliningrad and the crooked forest in Poland are examples of trees with unusual shapes, which remain a mystery. Humans may have manipulated the trees, but natural factors like winds and pressure from weight could also be responsible.