What Makes You Yourself: Earth’s Largest Living Organism and the Paradox of Personhood
· themarginalian.org · popularity 21/100 · 0 similar stories today · Biology & Life Sciences (Science)
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Summary
Bigger than Manhattan, Earth’s largest living organism sways in the surf south of Australia: Posidonia australis — a species of seagrass that, unable to flower, clones itself. Older than mathematics and the written word, it has been cloning itself since before the pyramids were built — a kind of immortality. And while I kiss my lover on the fresh-cut grass under the Manhattan Bridge, it goes on cloning itself as we go on dying and passing between our lips the heat of our mortality. An organism is a mortal unit of matter distinct from other organisms by its genome —… read article
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