Meteorite That Killed Dinosaurs Responsible For Turning Tomatoes Red

www.messagetoeagle.com...

We all know that tomatoes are red. That's no news, but how did they become red and why are they not blue, purple or have any other color?

New research shows that the meteorite which crashed into the Earth 60 to 70 million years ago, wiping out dinosaurs, gave us large, red tomatoes as well. This can be deduced from a tomato genome analysis.

Scientists who mapped the tomato genome have established that the genome of the original tomato plant suddenly tripled in size about 60 to 70 million years ago.

"Such a big genome expansion points to extremely stressful conditions," says René Klein Lankhorst, the Wageningen UR coordinator of the tomato genome research project.

"We suspect that the meteorite crash and the resulting solar eclipse had created conditions difficult for plants to survive.
A distant ancestor of the tomato plant then reacted by expanding its genome considerably in order to increase its chances of survival."

When conditions subsequently improved again, this ancestor of the tomato got rid of a lot of genetic ballast, but the genetic base for fruit formation had already been developed by then, the tomato fruit acquired its red colour and certain genes which produced toxins disappeared, says Klein Lankhorst.

In this way, the tomato differentiates itself from a family member, the potato, which has no edible fruits.

The plant researchers could "look back" very far into the past by comparing the tomato plant genome with family members in the nightshade and other plant families. And they had the advantage of having almost mapped all the 35 thousand genes of the tomato, which made even small changes noticeable.

For example, a comparison of the locally produced vegetable crop with the wild ancestor Solanum pimpinellifolium (probably brought to Europe by the Spanish) showed that the genome of the Dutch tomato differs by only 0.6 percent from that of its wild ancestor from the 15th Century.

So the tomato's red color was acquired in part because of the meteor crash, as well as its edibility.

Incredibly, the genetic makeup of tomato plants all around the world can be traced to these tomato plant ancestors, proving the link between the dinosaur extinction causing meteor and the common red fleshy fruits.

MessageToEagle.com based on information provided by Wageningen UR

Pffft.

Sometimes science pulls stuff out of their butts. This is one big turd.

There is no way they could make this assumption. They shouldn't even be allowed to publish such a "theory".

Crackpots.

Solanum. tomatoes... Red.... Blood.... ZOMBIES...


SOLANUMMMM ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh




seriously now...



wow that is just WOW. tomatoes are pretty cool! (even if this might be total science blabber fake junk)


maybe eating tomatoes is good for stress relief because they went through lots of stress before and survived?


maybe thats why pasta and tomato sauce tastes so good?


peace.

Just so I got it correct, they theorize the red color of tomatoes started about the time of the theorized destruction of the dinosaurs?

Got it, duly ignored.

reply to post by cheesy


Couldn't it also be postulated that 60-70 million years ago, it wasn't the meteor that caused the red tomatoes, but the fact that all of a sudden they had no one to eat them. Natural selection would therefore ensure that only the biggest most appealing fruit were destined to carry the seed on.

Suddenly instead of any old tomato being food and have their gene carried on, the abundance of the fruit and nothing left to eat it, caused the majority to die without propagating their genetics, as only the appealing ones were eaten?

We still have various coloured tomatoes also, like carrots which also can be a variety of shades.

ANti Cancer Dude...

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska


hahaha.. funy

delicious red fruit..

Originally posted by mainidh
reply to post by cheesy

 

Couldn't it also be postulated that 60-70 million years ago, it wasn't the meteor that caused the red tomatoes, but the fact that all of a sudden they had no one to eat them. Natural selection would therefore ensure that only the biggest most appealing fruit were destined to carry the seed on.

Suddenly instead of any old tomato being food and have their gene carried on, the abundance of the fruit and nothing left to eat it, caused the majority to die without propagating their genetics, as only the appealing ones were eaten?

We still have various coloured tomatoes also, like carrots which also can be a variety of shades.

I believe in evolution of plants, but the one question that always got me, is how do the plants know their seeds aren't getting spread?



M Night Shamalan made a movie about this didn't he?

I'm going to reread the article, because I believe all red Tomatoes are green until they ripen, so I'm curious why the shift to red. Unless it was to help the final stages of it's growth.

reply to post by boncho


Reread the article and found the source from physorg, here, still pretty vague about how they drew their conclusions.

Sequenced Tomato here.

Source of the Genome.

Too much Tomato for me.. One last question... Did the dinosaurs know how to make pizza sauce?

reply to post by boncho


I also thought that red meant danger in the wild, so it's all a bit baffling I know they're green until ripe, I tried to check some other sources but all I could find were tips on choosing tomatoes ha. my luck.

I think that plants/animals that have inferior genes often don't propagate, which means the inferior genes are less likely to become prominent, so only the strongest or more desirable get to pass it on. Not so much a choice really,

Or maybe it is some mutation caused by an organism on the meteor after all! Beware!



oO

reply to post by mainidh


So here is the chemical responsible

Tomatoes have the chlorophyll pigment when they are raw and hence they are green in colour. But as they start ripening, the pigment lycopene becomes dominant and the tomatoes turn red.

Link

That's about as far as I got, most references online are just talking about health benefits.

Wiki on chemical

The only two things that come to mind after reading over a few articles, is 1: Plant produces because lycopene rearranges the positioning of molecules in chemical bonds (perhaps blocking against certain sun rays during this process)

or 2: the chemical is produced to help ripen the fruit and a side effect is red colour, while the plant is just trying to drop its seed at the right time.

Mostly speculation.

Is there a botanist in the house?

Originally posted by boncho

I believe in evolution of plants, but the one question that always got me, is how do the plants know their seeds aren't getting spread?

That's a really great question.


The answer is consciousness. You can say that it's the force that drives evolution as well as all "life." Without any kind of awareness, how can something evolve or know that it needs to evolve? It's aware of it's survival, which means it's aware of itself, therefore it's conscious. Plants don't have a brain, which means that consciousness is not linked to the brain as we tend to think it is. This is why animal evolution is so much more obvious than plant evolution. Plants operate by stimuli and receptors: they've grown to work this way. They learn, they problem solve, they even communicate, but don't have a brain.

Pretty interesting stuff.

reply to post by AdamsMurmur


The answer is not consciousness, evolution is not driven by consciousness. Evolution isn't a choice or decision. There is no thought process behind it.

The plant does not need to "know" whether or not it's seeds were spread. If they were spread well enough, new plants grow and continue to spread their seeds, thus passing on the genetic trait. If they did not spread well enough, no new plants grow, that line of descent is terminated.

Scientists who mapped the tomato genome have established that the genome of the original tomato plant suddenly tripled in size about 60 to 70 million years ago.

Lol. Where did they get a 70 million year old tomato?

Originally posted by cheesy

We all know that tomatoes are red. That's no news, but how did they become red and why are they not blue, purple or have any other color?

Just take a trip to your local fruit stand or farmers market. You will find tomatoes in many different shapes and colors. I have eaten tomatoes that are yellow, orange, and yes purple.

It is the commercially grown tomatoes that most folks are familiar with that are red. In fact the majority of common grocery store tomatoes are not ripe. They are picked while still green and then placed in a chamber filled with ethylene gas that causes them to turn red, but they do not ripen. This is a partially a marketing gimmick, but it is mostly done for shelf life. If the tomatoes are allowed to ripen then they may last long enough to get shipped to market.

Originally posted by rtyfx
Pffft.
Sometimes science pulls stuff out of their butts. This is one big turd.
There is no way they could make this assumption. They shouldn't even be allowed to publish such a "theory".
Crackpots.

I often wonder if ignorance truly is bliss?

Once again I note an alarming propensity to disparage science. I like to call it the "Politics of Duh!"

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by AdamsMurmur

 

The answer is not consciousness, evolution is not driven by consciousness. Evolution isn't a choice or decision. There is no thought process behind it.

The plant does not need to "know" whether or not it's seeds were spread. If they were spread well enough, new plants grow and continue to spread their seeds, thus passing on the genetic trait. If they did not spread well enough, no new plants grow, that line of descent is terminated.

edit on 19-6-2012 by john_bmth because: (no reason given)

I didn't mention a thought process. Being conscious is being aware, not necessarily thinking. A thought process is the result of duality because it typically contemplates and questions itself, it's existence, or it's surroundings as being separate from everything else, and is directly associated with the mind as a result of the mind, "I think therefore I am", while awareness is the primordial acknowledgement of oneself by something within it or without it, "I am." It requires no thought to be, it simply is "something from nothing." The mind and the body is the vehicle of exploration, experience, and discovery, and the better the hardware, the better the journey, while consciousness is what drives that vehicle in whichever direction for the sake of those three things (and most likely a lot more than that). Our lives are significantly more interesting than the life of bacteria or the life of a tomato.

Because consciousness is awareness of something inside or outside of itself, we can say that all life is consciously observing itself, no matter how limiting their sentience is. When it's aware of something, it will either remain as it is, perish, or evolve, depending on the situation. I see choices here. Impulses require no thought, they're just reactions to something. That's how primitive things choose, at least that's how it seems. Not all things need a reason to evolve either, sometimes they just do or they don't. Regardless, there would be no existence if there was no consciousness, because there would be nothing to observe it and nothing to be aware of it. The brain is just a complex (from our vantage point) receiver of consciousness, because consciousness can exist outside of the brain: ask anyone who died.



It's still a mysterious concept, but we're learning to explain it better. I'm grateful for quantum mechanics though.

reply to post by cheesy


How in the hell do some people believe the BS "scientists" spout sometimes?

They have traced tomato's back 70 million years to have tripled in size?? WTF!!

Am I the only one who just can't believe garbage "they" produce daily??!!

Unreal

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by cheesy

 

How in the hell do some people believe the BS "scientists" spout sometimes?

They have traced tomato's back 70 million years to have tripled in size?? WTF!!

Am I the only one who just can't believe garbage "they" produce daily??!!

Unreal

No, you are not the only one noticing that "scientists" pass off their "maybe", "perhaps", "may cause", theories as fact. I'm thinking that they are checking the gullibility meter every time they release a report. A weatherman is yet to forecast tomorrow's weather accurately here in the UK, yet I'm supposed to believe that they can see back 70 million years into a genetic code of a tomato.

Originally posted by rtyfx
Pffft.

Sometimes science pulls stuff out of their butts. This is one big turd.

There is no way they could make this assumption. They shouldn't even be allowed to publish such a "theory".

Crackpots.

Why take science so personally? Have you studied the genome of the tomato? Yeah, they just made it up for the heck of it. Come on now. Stop blindly attacking science.