Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

A tree stump that should be dead is still alive; here's why
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-tree-stump...alive.html

EXCERPT: Within a shrouded New Zealand forest, a tree stump keeps itself alive by holding onto the roots of its neighboring trees, exchanging water and resources through the [natural] grafted root system. New research, publishing July 25 in iScience, details how surrounding trees keep tree stumps alive, possibly in exchange for access to larger root systems. The findings suggest a shift from the perception of trees as individuals towards understanding forest ecosystems as "superorganisms." (MORE - details)

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Organic Apples Have Way More Beneficial Bacteria Than Conventional Ones
https://www.livescience.com/66035-organi...biome.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalto...-benefits/

EXCERPT: : Next time you chomp into a crunchy apple, in addition to enjoying the sweet taste, you can think about all the possibly beneficial bacteria you are consuming. New research suggests an apple is teeming with about 90 million bacteria. And if you're looking for the best "bugs" for your gut, you may want to go organic.

[...] Most of the bacteria, they found, live in the core of the apple, which includes the seeds (about 38 million), the calyx end (22 million) and the stem end (10 million). The fruit pulp holds about 20 million bacterial cells, while the peel is host to just 1.6 million. That's why the researchers suggest eating the entire apple [do not eat the seeds!], including the bacteria-packed core, said Birgit Wassermann, first author of the paper, which was published June 24 in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. (MORE - details)

[...] while organic and conventionally grown apples harbored about the same numbers of bacteria ... Organic apples contained a more diverse array of bacteria, and a greater number of the beneficial ones, like Lactobacillus, which are plentiful in yogurt and often used in probiotic supplements. Conventionally grown apples had more strains of bacteria that aren’t so healthy.

“Controversially, Lactobacillus, which is frequently used within probiotics, was one of the core taxa of organic apples,” the authors write in their paper. “The highly diverse microbiome of organically managed apples might probably limit or hamper the abundance of human pathogens, simply by outcompeting them….In contrast, Ralstonia and Erwinia, frequently described for adverse impact on plant health, prevailed in conventional apples.” (MORE - details)

(UPDATE) Bad Science Promoting Organic Apples
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...ic-apples/

EXCERPT: Are we eating apples wrong? An ABC news headline reads, “If you aren’t eating the whole apple, you might be eating it the wrong way, a study finds.” This reporting is based on this study...

[...] All the usual problems I often complain about are present with this conclusion, starting with the fact that it is absolutely not justified by the actual data. First, this is a small preliminary study, of the sort that the media should not even report on. At best this type of study can generate a hypothesis to be tested. The researchers compared a grand total of four apples each from two orchards, one organic and one conventional. Right there you can probably see the problem.

All the apples were of one cultivar, so we cannot generalize the findings to other cultivars. But even worse, only two orchards were compared. Even if you sampled a thousand apples from each orchard, you are still only comparing two orchards. [...] So essentially the results of this study are uninterpretable when it comes to organic vs conventional apple growing.

Further still, the authors try to draw conclusions about the favorable health effects of consuming the bacterial species in the organic apples vs the conventional ones. The problem here is that existing data absolutely do not support any such conclusions. While there is active research into the use of probiotics, this research remains preliminary and the benefits so far have been extremely modest. There are really only two conditions for which there is reasonable evidence of benefit, and even here the benefits are highly limited- antibiotic associated diarrhea (AAD), and irritable bowel syndrome.

[...] the bottom line is that there is absolutely no reason to think that there is any health difference between consuming different kinds of apples loaded with different species and amounts of bacteria. This study does not alter that conclusion, and the reporting of this study is highly misleading and irresponsible.

And don’t eat the apples seeds. They contain amygdalin, which is converted into cyanide with digestion. [...] In the end this is another poor study that doesn’t really show anything conclusive, but it is presented to promote a narrative, that organic produce is more healthful than conventional produce. Over half a century of research, however, has failed to demonstrate any clear health benefit to organic food, yet that is the number one reason people choose it and pay more for it. Terrible reporting about studies like this is a major reason. (MORE - details)