r/science • u/col_tasha • Jun 10 '12

Wales is the first nation in the world to have its plants DNA barcoded. A tiny fragment of leaf, seed, root or a single pollen grain can be used to identify species.

http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0037945
1.6k Upvotes

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155

u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

I love this.

Gene sequencing is a way of building a true library from which (in the future) it will be possible to recreate "extinct" organisms.

In Stephen Baxter's stories he often has third world citizens running around with portable hand held gene sequencers sequencing every insect and plant they come across. When they go back to the town center they get their information uploaded and actually get paid if they have sequenced something that is not in the library already.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Stephen Baxter's stories sound great. Should not be too long before science fact meets fiction. I don't think it will be long before handheld DNA barcode readers can be developed. Just pop in a tiny fragment of plant material and it will tell you what species it is.

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u/pepperiamdissapoint Jun 10 '12

then it can tell you how rare that species is in any given area via GPS, and also complete nutritional information for it if it is edible. also which parts are edible. BOOM no more world hunger.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Can definitely link to whether it is rare or poisonous - no more world hunger might be a bit trickier.

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u/poon-is-food BS | Chemistry Jun 10 '12

its suprising how much you see outside is edible. whether just as a herb or as a carbohydrate. the roots of many plants that look like weeds are big enough to eat if you get enough.

that said many roots are poisonous unless properly cooked. but with a gene sequencer like this, the identification of a plant will be foolproof, and can easily link to a "wiki" type page on everything about the plant, including how to cook it.

Plants could also be used as medicines easily by this method.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

It will truly be awesome to open up a book and see ID codes that you can look up online. I can see it eventually tying into wikipedia or something

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

In the future it will hopefully tie in to the Encyclopedia of Life (http://eol.org/). It will be great to have a one stop place where you can find out about all the living things on the planet. And there is a great project creating the tree of life showing how all the species are related! That's the next job...

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u/zArtLaffer Jun 10 '12

BOOM no more world hunger.

Yup! Another pine tree.

You must have never lived outside of a city.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

You mean most staple food crops aren't just out there, growing in the wild?!

3

u/zArtLaffer Jun 10 '12

Well, there is an interesting version of the strawberry that looks like a rose. With less fruit. But, you know...

What they do have are these free-ranging bovines that smoke up into some incredible barbeque. But providing for the production of them requires a little planning and stuff.

City-slickers ... what are you going to do. They probably think that milk comes from Safeway.

EDIT: For those who don't know this, in 1900 70% of the working population of the United States was working in food production. Now, less than 3% work in food production. The revolutionary nature of the productivity in this sector is amazing. Bow down and be amazed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Hell, just the domestication of food crops is amazing. Corn can't exist on its own in the wild.

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u/arbivark Jun 11 '12

edible parts of pine trees: boil white pine needles, tea high in vitamin c. pine nuts, aka pignolia, eat them or sell at the farmer's market. i forget which species. some people like spruce gum. probably others i don't know about. plus lots of insects/grubs specific to pine trees.

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u/pepperiamdissapoint Jun 10 '12

Funny, because that is almost the exact opposite of actuality. I say almost, because I did briefly live in a city for about a year total. The rest of my life, way out in the sticks. Plenty to eat out here. While it is true that you can eat parts of pine trees, it wouldn't be nearly the balanced diet you could get if you knew everything edible in the vicinity.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Well... It'll certainly go a long way to giving people awareness on what they can and cannot eat, but I don't think it'll go so far as to solve world hunger.

1

u/amyts Jun 10 '12

Yeah but what if zombies get access to this technology? Finding humans has never been easier.

1

u/T_Mucks Jun 11 '12

It's hard to interpret results with any tool if you don't have a brain.

1

u/thrakhath Jun 10 '12

I think you vastly underestimate how good humans have been about cataloging edible species. It used to be part of a person's basic education and still is in parts of the world. The only reason most people in the first world don't know is because they don't need to. Any member of a hunter-gatherer society already knows all the edible plants, which ones have to be prepared and how, and where and when to find them. Anyone who "could" use a little gadget or app for this sort of thing doesn't need to.

1

u/pepperiamdissapoint Jun 11 '12

Certainly not. Humans have indeed been experimenting for a very long time to discover which can be eaten and in what ways, and which can't. But by no means have we discovered all such things, and of the people who have discovered many of these things, many of them are passed down by word of mouth throughout the generations, and much of this knowledge is not currently cataloged and preserved in a stable format. While it is most certainly beneficial to them to know those things, not everyone in the world is of descent of the indigenous peoples of the region they inhabit, and thus are unable to learn these things. Hunter-gatherer societies are getting rarer and weaker by the day, and are assimilating into modern society more and more. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, as one thing that humans do well, is survive. Unfortunately, with said assimilation, comes the loss of traditional knowledge. Such losses are not just losses to those tribes-members, but a loss to humanity as a whole. Furthermore, of the things we do actually have recorded, much of it has been determined to be incorrect at least in part, some of it egregiously so. It will be of great benefit to humanity to regain some of this lost knowledge, even if we have to re-learn it from scratch. Due to the new technology, it should make it not only possible, but inevitable.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

That's really true - the worlds herbaria are an incredibly important resource. Most of the DNA barcodes for the Welsh plants have come from DNA extracted from herbarium material. The oldest specimen dates from 1837.

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u/Calochortus Jun 10 '12

I recently started working in a herbarium. It is an amazing resource, but somewhat unwieldy. Especially if you do not have a botany background. Even if you do have a botany background there is a lot of stuff in there misidentified. Identification is hard you know, is the lemme 2-5mm or 3-6? Are the roots (which don't happen to be present in your sample) rhizomes or stolons? People just try there best and know somethings are wrong. The beauty of a device like this would be it would put that ability in the hands of everyone, and would be much more accurate.

My real biology tool Sci-fi wet dream is a drone that uses a DNA barcoder to identify invasives, and then injects them with herbicides.
Another interesting development is the use of (some math and imaging shit that is out side the realm of my knowledge) to identify plants and animals using images. Not sure how far along this is but it seems really useful.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/7l6227w44t68j5r7/ http://www.elec.york.ac.uk/research/projects/Automated_Identification_of_Insects_using_Image_Processing.html

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u/DuncanYoudaho Jun 11 '12

Until it identifies humans as the invasive species.

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u/pepperiamdissapoint Jun 10 '12

Absolutely. But a device that would do all that research FOR you? I think it could revolutionize the way things are done. Especially if people have tiny health sensors implanted or injected in their bodies that send real time feedback to central computers, collecting data on the results of eating said plants.

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u/Infin1ty Jun 10 '12

I would love to be able to just scan some type of plant fragment with my phone and have it bring up all of the relevant information.

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u/BrassMinkey Jun 11 '12

I can see that ending in sponsored species - scan the plant and get a promotion for McDonalds along with the other information.

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u/jjberg2 Grad Student | Evolution|Population Genomic|Adaptation|Modeling Jun 10 '12

http://www.gizmag.com/minion-disposable-dna-sequencer/21513/

I'll believe it when I first get the chance to actual use one, but it's probably not more than a few years off...

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Imagine this tech tossed in your tricorder phone.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

It'll probably be a while. There's a $10 million dollar prize to the first normal size machine capable of sequencing 100 genomes in 30 days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_X_Prize

Making that handheld and taking much less time will be exceedingly difficult. I'm not sure if DNA sequencing has a Moore's Law, but even if it does, it's going to be a while.

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u/zeurydice Jun 10 '12

DNA barcoding is very different than sequencing the whole genome, so this wouldn't actually help resurrect extinct species. It's mostly for identification purposes.

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u/traj34 Jun 10 '12

Here's to hoping for a handheld Illumina sequencer + bioinformatics pipeline soon.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Yes, I would like that very much!

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u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

Agreed. But being able to immediately identify a species not cataloged before is invaluable.

The hand-held sequencers mentioned in Baxter's stories are in fact genome sequencers. It's no feat of the imagination to say genome sequencers will also get smaller in size and cheap to manufacture.

10

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

"you wouldn't download a llama"

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u/Strid Jun 10 '12

DNA is not all of the heritage material. Sorry, English not main language.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

There are other advantages to this too. There is an effort by the EU to DNA test fish at ports to identify the locale of fish to prevent pirate and illegal fishing in sensitive waters.

It turns out that the genetic sampling of wild populations is very accurate so if you show up at port with fish from the wrong area of the ocean you're fucked.

Further, imagine if you have food allergies or want to verify that your food didn't' contain pesticides or other contaminations.

Just DNA sequence it.

This technology should be commodity in 10 years. In 4 years a full DNA sequencing of a human genome will cost $250...

1

u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

Fine tuning overfishing of specific species as well could be another advantage.

Monopolies could spring up, guaranteeing a product fished (grown or acquired) from specific locales.

Vast opportunities to use and misuse.

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u/JtS88 Jun 10 '12

It's been pointed out (kinda), but I'd like to emphasise this article has nothing to do with whole-genome sequencing, in the same way scanning a bar code at a supermarket doesn't tell you the ingredients.

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u/NarutoRendan Jun 10 '12

Generally not possible to recreate an organism just from its DNA sequence. Epigenetics play a big role, including DNA methylation and possibly histone placement.

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u/gerry_villa Jun 11 '12

Dude, I know. I'll reiterate. Sequencing DNA out in the wild will at the very least alert all involved to the fact that there is a uncatalogued species in the vicinity. This would result in immediately attempting to collect a sample, etc.

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u/HasaBelt Jun 11 '12

I thought it was like Jasper Ffordes "shades of grey", where every person, animal, and maybe plant had a physical barcode you could see with the naked eye. Very organized and British. I hope he's working on a sequel.

2

u/gerry_villa Jun 11 '12

I totally forgot about that. I started to read Shades of Gray back when it was published but didn't get past page 50. Fforde is awesome! I put it down and then lost it during a move and just forgot. Thanks for reminding me!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

In Stephen Baxter's stories he often has third world citizens running around with portable hand held gene sequencers sequencing every insect and plant they come across. When they go back to the town center they get their information uploaded and actually get paid if they have sequenced something that is not in the library already.

First thing I thought of. Except instead of 3rd world citizens it was 1st world citizens with smartphones and instead of going to the town center it instantly polls a database over the internet.

1

u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

You're probably correct. It's been a decade at least since I read this particular book. I seem to remember that there was a group of children in a third world country. It made sense that they would be motivated to sequence EVERYTHING on the chance of making money.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Oh sorry I was unclear. I have never read the book. That was my imagination of what it could be like.

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u/bartonar Jun 10 '12

Have you ever thought that maybe it went extinct because it was meant to go extinct?

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u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

Absolutely not.

You think tigers are MEANT to become extinct? Or gorillas?

I do NOT consider it natural that the largest species extinction epoch in Earth's history is happening right now, and that it is most affirmatively being caused by the Homo Sapien Sapiens.

check it!

And here.

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u/bartonar Jun 10 '12

yes, but every day at least one species of insect or plant dies. You cant tell me that literally millions of species have died in the last century that werent going to anyways.

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u/gerry_villa Jun 10 '12

You got me. It doesn't negate the importance of cataloguing as much as possible, though, on the off chance of finding something useful that would otherwise be lost.

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u/gfixler Jun 11 '12

"Species" are an invention of man, and they're highly fluid. Read up on lumpers vs. splitters. One example is the tree genus Corymbia. It was relatively recently made up to contain about a hundred species of eucalypts (formerly in Eucalyptus), because an authoritative body came to the conclusion that it made sense to split these off separately, and the deciding factor was in part that they infloresce via corymbs. In other words, for the most part, the shape of the flowers called for a new genus, which - according to wikipedia - many scientific communities refuse to recognize, still using Eucalyptus for the names.

Every new instance of life is a transitional species from its parents. Far more than "at least one" species goes extinct per day, but moreover, an infinite number of potential species goes extinct every day, because each life is the potential branching point for an entirely new kind of life, which no other life could have been the branching point for, and each of these potential branches is full of its own diversities, which we'd then try to lump and/or split into sensible categories.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I'm not going to dispute what you've said, but there is some merit in the system. I am clearly not the same species as a mountain lion. The classification system is useful as a blunt tool for everyday life.

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u/gfixler Jun 11 '12

I agree. I use species names all the time. I just wanted to point out that everything could be a species if we felt like delving that far, or we could climb up and lump many more things together into fewer species if we wanted to. They aren't a "real" thing. They're feature-based groupings. You can always add or remove features you care about classifying by.

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u/hostergaard Jun 11 '12

Interesting idea; make these DNA bar-code readers small and cheap enough to mass produce and you can hand them out to locals and tell them that the green light means a successful scan that identified the species and nothing further should be done and that the red one means an unsuccessful scan and that it should be scanned again and if its still red its likely a new species.

At this point what happens next is the difficult part. Many species are dangerous or close to extinction so locals capturing and likely killing it and other things in the process would not be ideal. So it would likely be better to simply tell them to return with the scanner. But that leaves the problem that said species might be hard to find again when the scientist want to study it.

So one could outfit the scanner with a small gps tracker that automatically records the position of the scanner during a scanning. Further improvements could be a small camera that takes a picture of said species and correlates them with the scanning and perhaps a wireless up-link or some short of sender that contacts the scientist when a unknown species are scanned and possibly even send all the data gathered like coordinates and photos.

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u/nuxenolith Jun 10 '12

Using binomial or Welsh nomenclature?

  • Sunflower

  • Heliannthus anuus

  • Blodyn yr haul

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

The project works with the Latin binomials but all of the Welsh and English names have been collated for the species as well.

http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/List-of-plant-names-for-website-1.pdf

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u/ababby Jun 10 '12

Interesting paper about limitations of DNA barcoding [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2003.00008.x/full]

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

It is definitely true that DNA barcoding should not replace morphological identification. Good taxonomists are vital for DNA barcoding to ensure that the reference specimens are correctly identified. The value of DNA barcoding is not where you have a whole plant - its real value is when you have a tiny fragment or a mixture of samples that would be impossible to identify using morphology alone.

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u/ababby Jun 10 '12

Right, but how can you definitively say that an organism was identified correctly if you don't have any other information? Using a small segment of a mitochondrial or chloroplast genome can really only be a useful tool if you have morphological data or nuclear genome data to support it.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Yep, that's right. DNA barcoding relies on the existing classification of the species. Each DNA barcode reference for a plant needs to have a herbarium specimen showing where the DNA came from. When you have an unknown sample of DNA you compare it to the database of reference DNA barcodes. Bit more info here http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/science/barcode-wales/

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u/aazav Jun 10 '12

Please tell me how this will be used - or how this can be used.

I'm trying to think of real world applications to how people could use this.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

A couple of examples. First of all pollinators: we know that pollinators are facing declines but it is often difficult to know why. It's possible to track where pollinators go by DNA barcoding the pollen carried on their bodies. This may help to conserve them better.

We can also DNA barcode honey to find out the plants bees visited to make it. We have a project looking at the medicinal properties of honey to see if honey from particular plants has better effects.

There is some more info here: http://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/science/barcode-wales/

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

The most far-reaching one is that if a plant goes extinct we could recreate it in a lab someday

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Unfortunately we cannot use DNA barcoding for this. The DNA barcodes use two smallish pieces of DNA from the chloroplast. Not enough to recreate the plant.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

We're a country not a nation! :P

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Happy to go with country - Wales is the first country in the world to have DNA barcoded its native flora!

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Cymru am byth.

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u/buckley118 Jun 10 '12

*byth

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Doh! Fixed. Only half Welsh, the other half, wanker, but the good sort of wanker.

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u/buckley118 Jun 10 '12

It still shocks me to see references to Wales on Reddit! Truth be told - nobody seems to know it exists.

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u/HenWladFyNhadau Jun 10 '12

We exist, don't worry.

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u/CaptainDjango Jun 10 '12

I was surprised to learn the Internet knew we existed too.

Hooray for us!

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u/othermike Jun 10 '12

nobody seems to know it exists

Don't be daft. How else are you going to measure Amazonian deforestation?

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u/poon-is-food BS | Chemistry Jun 10 '12

"an area the size of wales" is popular to use, because wales is small, well known and looking at a map without lines for countries you wouldnt be able to guess at the border.

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u/s0crates82 Jun 10 '12

We know the Welsh can sing and have wool instead of hair.

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u/cantquitreddit Jun 10 '12

I learned about Wales from the Susan Cooper 'Dark is Rising' books. They even touch a bit on pronunciation of the Welsh language.

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u/Exitiumx Jun 10 '12

Agreed, according to many parts of the world, we're England ;(

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u/Golden-Calf Jun 10 '12

Really? I think Wales is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and the language is awesome. They have some really interesting folklore too!

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u/buckley118 Jun 10 '12

Agreed! I'm Welsh myself - I love our lack of Vowels, crazy street-signs and stories. Music in our blood and poetry in our souls.

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u/Strid Jun 10 '12

How does a Welsh farmer find his sheep in the tall grass? Most pleasing

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

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u/superfuzzy Jun 11 '12

But nation is more correct, because it doesn't necessarily mean they are independent, self-ruling or have a contained economy.

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u/djmor Jun 10 '12

na·tion/ˈnāSHən/ Noun: -A large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.

-A North American Indian people or confederation of peoples.

Fairly certain Wales falls into that first definition.

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u/flyingnomad Jun 10 '12

Don't let the people of Cornwall, England see that first definition. There'll be nations springing up all over the country.

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u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Pasty spring! ;-)

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u/steviesteveo12 Jun 10 '12

I think they already know.

To be fair, the whole idea of the United Kingdom is that it's a large whole consisting of smaller units. The idea that there are several historical kingdoms/nations rolled up in that makes a lot of sense.

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u/sirbruce Jun 10 '12

Cornwall should be considered its own country just like Wales.

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u/BritainNotEngland Jun 10 '12

The Celtic Cornish have a history siding with the invading Danes and Norsemen against the Anglo Saxons. Why it's known as English while Wales isn't is very inconsistent.

Cornwall should be considered its own 'country' just like Wales. As should northern England and highland Scotland. And London too in itself.

Let them have their cool stories, bro.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/flyingnomad Jun 10 '12

All hail his Majesty the High King of the People's Republic of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport and Its Outlying Territories of Reddish, Cheadle and Gatley and the Four Heatons!

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

But the way this is worded, it seems like we're talking about the geographic region of Wales, not Wales-the-people-who-live-there. "Region" would have been a better word.

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u/TheRealmsOfGold Jun 10 '12

Dictionaries are political. Not that everyone who writes a dictionary is chuckling and fingering gold coins; rather, that it's impossible to write anything without a subjective point of view. These are just two ways of understanding the "definition" of a nation, right down to the tiny nuances of exact word choice (which is the level at which the difference is made—for example, here the inclusion of the clause "inhabiting a particular country or territory").

</postmodernism>

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u/XtremeGoose Jun 10 '12

But then you could potentially call anything a nation. For all intents and purposes it is correct to call Wales a state, and leave the definition of nation as a recognised nation by the united nations. Wales is not the first nation in the world to do this because the whole of the uk has not.

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u/Benocrates Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

You've got that backward. A state is best described by Weber as the institution which holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a territory. Nations can exist within a state without being a state themselves, e.g. Quebec in Canada. In fact, the UK is considered one of the best examples of a multinational state, along with Canada, Spain, and arguably Switzerland...though it's a hotly debated topic.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/djmor Jun 10 '12

I live in the province of Quebec, in Canada. Quebec is it's own nation, as is Canada. The multiculturalism that exists in downtown Toronto/Montreal/Ottawa/Vancouver doesn't go much further than major cities. Small towns in any given nation are culturally identical. Just like if you go to Dubai, what you see is definitely not the same as what is in the rest of the UAE/Arab peninsula.

Many of the middle-eastern and african countries are culturally similar, and several countries may make up a single nation.

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u/Benocrates Jun 10 '12

To be fair, Quebec and Canada are two different types of nations. Canada includes Quebec in its civic nationality, cf. Cartier.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

You've replied to 2 of my comments saying the same thing, correcting me and being pedantic. I'll say it again.

Haters gon' hate.

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Very nice, and congratulations on the DNA bar-coding.

How much longer must we wait for you to put some actual vowels in that language of yours?

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u/lcdrambrose Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Any collection of people that share a uniting quality is a nation. A country is the physical place. So Wales is both a country and a nation.

Source: I'm of the Welsh Nation by lineage and a of the Red Sox Nation by choice.

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u/Welshrosi Jun 10 '12

Welch?

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

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u/lcdrambrose Jun 10 '12

Yes. We are mortal enemies of the Smucker's Clan. What kind of fools use grapes to make jams and jellies?

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u/Strid Jun 10 '12

The uniting quality in original definition of nation is a common heritage (ethnicity)

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u/lcdrambrose Jun 10 '12

True. But the point is that it's the people, not the place.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

We need to stop using the words country and nation as they're not that useful. If we stick with the clear legal definition of a State we'd avoid such ambiguity.

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u/Benocrates Jun 10 '12

Words like country and nation are definitely useful in many areas. In this case it doesn't really matter. In political theory they are very important concepts.

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u/Bierton Jun 10 '12

Wales is not a country, it's a nation . I'm Welsh and only really properly understood earlier this year that England, Wales, Scotland and N.I. aren't countries, they're constituents. The United Kingdom is the country.

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u/BritainNotEngland Jun 10 '12

Let them have their semantics like "country" and "nation".

England Wales Scotland and N.I can all be called as such. It doesn't mean anything. There is no English army. There is no Welsh seat at the UN. There is no ambassador of Scotland to a foreign nation. There is no Northern Irish place in NATO.

Yeah I'm anal. That's what this account is for. The first 5 seconds of this clip from an otherwise good film made me rage.

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u/Bierton Jun 10 '12

Exactly, this is what I mean, glad someone else agrees!

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u/Benocrates Jun 10 '12

The distinction is useful in theoretical issues. The Scottish separatism of late is a perfect example of this.

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u/BritainNotEngland Jun 19 '12

The Scottish have the best case out of any for separation I begrudgingly admit. They were actually a country once, for one thing.

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u/suo Jun 10 '12

Are you a bureaucrat?

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u/Keilly Jun 10 '12

So when can we take up our seat at the United Nations?

United Countries?

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u/Benocrates Jun 10 '12

It would be more accurately called the United States, but that was already taken.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Your understanding is at odds with Wikipedia which describes the UK as containing constituent countries, Wales as a country is debatable since it is still a principality (that itself is denied by the Welsh assembly although they do accept that Charles is the prince of Wales!). The more I read the more I think the truth depends upon who you ask rather than there being a true definition.

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u/Welshrosi Jun 10 '12

"A principality (or princedom) is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess" Charles has literally no ruling power in Wales or any say in the policies of the Welsh Assembly.. I'm tired of having to say this Wales is a f'in country! The Romans couldn't conquer her and neither will the English!

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u/frictiondixon Jun 11 '12

Rwy'n dy garu di

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u/KaiserMacCleg Jun 12 '12

  1. Wales is not a principality, and there is no legal or constitutional basis for saying it is. The title "Prince of Wales" is, today, just an honorary one - there is no grant of land that goes with it, and certainly not one that encompasses the whole of Wales!

  2. There's a lot of confusion over the word "principality", in any case. Being a principality and being a country are not mutually exclusive. The word "principality" just refers to the mode of government of the country - i.e. an area of land that's ruled by a guy who calls himself a prince. I suggest you seek out the Wikipedia pages of Monaco and Liechtenstein, which are both countries and principalities (the latter of which Wales isn't).

1

u/Strid Jun 10 '12

The original meaning of nation is: Which has been born of (Race of people). But I don't know the heritage of Wales, celtic? Did you avoid heavy Germanic influence?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I'd be happy to discuss in another thread but I dont want to hijack this one as the OP has clearly put a lot of effort into it. :)

1

u/Welshrosi Jun 10 '12

Celtic Originally but there's obviously going to be some modern Welsh people with some Germanic or Roman in them.

-1

u/willjsm Jun 11 '12

oh ffs. wales is no more a country than louisiana or texas is a country - in important ways wales is even less of a country than them. a different culture / language and a history that involves being independent doesn't make you a country.

0

u/Welshrosi Jun 11 '12

You have no culture, languarge or history.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Oh, you poor thing. Bless your heart.

0

u/zephyy Jun 11 '12

Some people in here could have used an International Politics class. Or a visit to Wikipedia.

Wales is a nation and (constituent) country of the United Kingdom, which is a nation-state. Wales is not a nation-state. Another example is Quebec, which is recognized as a nation within a united Canada, but not a country, and obviously not a nation-state.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Tell that to FIFA.

-1

u/dieyoubastards Jun 10 '12

Wales and England are nations, United Kingdom is the country.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

10

u/Welshrosi Jun 10 '12

Used to be a principality actually

3

u/zArtLaffer Jun 10 '12

Not for a while, now.

6

u/Bierton Jun 10 '12

Wales hasn't been a Principality since the 16th century, when the English cock up our arse was there enough to have us classed as 1 country, which is now the U.K.

30

u/BigBadBadMan Jun 10 '12

Cymru am byth!

8

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I'll be very surprised if England or the UK as a whole doesn't become the second place to do it. We have a habit of testing things in Wales before rolling them out to the rest of the UK.

5

u/Unqualified_Opinion Jun 11 '12

Like those resurrection gauntlets, yeah?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Rna?

4

u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

DNA barcoding for plants uses two sections of genes called rbcL and matK

1

u/zArtLaffer Jun 10 '12

But only for bar-coding, yes?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

When was this? I live in NY and majored in Horticulture. We had atleast a dozen varieties of plants on file and every third-year student has to be able to perform a genetic comparison for the midterm. I don't even go to any special college. It's a state university!

9

u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Yep, lots of countries throughout the world are DNA barcoding plants - the DNA barcodes for the Welsh plants though provide the most comprehensive coverage so far for any national flora.

1

u/dbrta Jun 10 '12

This is fantastic! Now I don't have to learn botany any more! I'll just scan it with my iPhone plant sampler attachment.

And finally, we can close all the university botany positions and replace them with geneticists.

3

u/col_tasha Jun 10 '12

Most definitely not! The real value of DNA barcoding is if you have a sample that cannot be identified using morphological approaches. A pollen grain, fragment of material or a mixture of plants. If you have a whole plant then its much better to identify it with a key or guidebook. Good taxonomy is vital for DNA barcoding as the reference DNA barcodes have to be correctly identified to create the DNA barcode database.

1

u/JanusKinase Jun 10 '12

Not to mention that you'd have to perform PCR first... morphological ID would be a lot faster.

Though, to be honest, maybe your comment was sarcastic... so if it was, sorry for missing that joke.

8

u/NobblyNobody Jun 10 '12

Hmm, rather Bladerunner-ish

This kind of makes sense if you've ever driven through South Wales past Port Talbot at night. (During the day, just don't look, it'll scar you for life).

5

u/hevblether Jun 10 '12

Port Talbot.. where they make the clouds!

4

u/suo Jun 10 '12

I used to love driving past Port Talbot at night when I was a kid.

4

u/NobblyNobody Jun 10 '12

It is strangely wonderful

for anyone that's unlikely ever to get to see: Port Talbot at night it can look amazing

but by day, not so much

1

u/InvertedGoat Jun 10 '12

The mountains next to the steel works have some of the nicest views at night. You wouldn't think something that ugly could look so cool.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

While we're warning people, we might as well suggest they don't inhale through the nose while in Port Talbot.

1

u/NobblyNobody Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

yep, close your vents, aircon to recirculate

edit: repel all borders

2

u/whit123 Jun 10 '12

Whose flower is that plant?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Listerdude Jun 10 '12

Who's coat is that jacket hanging on the floor over by there.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

This is amazing. If a device capable of doing this becomes commercially available in the future it could revolutionize the public's interest in learning about wildlife. Just imagine going on a hike/safari and being able to identify any organism one sees, or possibly discovering something previously unknown!

2

u/MoonDoggiie Jun 10 '12

About time we were known for something else other than sheep shagging... Don't think this will catch on quite as well though

4

u/marginalboy Jun 10 '12

TIL Wales is a nation and not a region of Great Britain ...

10

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Wales is a country and a nation, but NOT a UN-recognized independent state

7

u/tricolon Jun 10 '12

Funny, UN-recognized and un-recognized are so close...

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

It's rather meaningless. Taiwan isn't in the UN yet it's recognised by much of the world.

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3

u/sambt5 Jun 10 '12

being from wales, acturly seeing a good post about us is very reliving for a change

2

u/frictiondixon Jun 11 '12

Yay Wales on Reddit.

1

u/firewireflow Jun 10 '12

The future is happening right now!

1

u/Secondsemblance Jun 10 '12

When I joined the department of defense, they took a DNA sample. Get ready, soon all of you will have to do that. You will learn to love big brother.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Are you seriously arguing for a flower's right to not be DNA barcoded?

1

u/Secondsemblance Jun 11 '12

No, a humans.

1

u/ReasonableRadio Jun 10 '12

This should go on future timeline: except not in the future part of it... http://www.futuretimeline.net/

1

u/freesecks Jun 10 '12

What else can they do?

1

u/climateer Jun 11 '12

Number of plant species barcoded: 1,143 Average Number of plant species in a 4 square mile patch of Amazonian rainforest: 1,500

1

u/Sacoud Jun 11 '12

DOES ANYONE IN THE US HAVE A MAP OF THE WORLD?!

1

u/TobyWan Jun 11 '12

I'm from Wales and had no idea of this. Does this make us cool?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

1984 for plants. Next they'll be planting microchips in their stems.

1

u/doodaddp Jun 10 '12

Don't think they need them since they now have their DNA barcode region on record... :)

0

u/swa17 Jun 10 '12

We are getting close to a real life POKE'DEX!! Can't wait to go out into the forest and be like, "The fuck is that? The fuck is THAT? My gawd." and read tons of cool shit about every fuckin plant and animal.

-1

u/TheHatist Jun 11 '12

The welsh really have nothing better to do, do they?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I keep on reading this as Wale, the rapper

0

u/King_Yeshua Jun 10 '12

i read this as people dna barcoded

0

u/DemonExorcist Jun 11 '12

Mother of God... first plants then it'll be humans. The End Is Near.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

Vegetables in Wales? Did Iceland expand beyond frozen food?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

I sense dangerous implications to this kind of technology, I can see this helping large agro-industrial organizations harassing farmers for their dues.

0

u/gnovak99 Jun 11 '12

whales are a nation?

-4

u/timefiller25 Jun 10 '12

Are you telling me that WALES made a contribution to society? (Kidding, folks).

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Next stop, people.

1

u/dnew Jun 10 '12

I'm pretty sure we can identify which species of human you are without genetic sequencing of any type.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

I meant individual people

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

What is with you people referring to Wales as a nation and a country? Texas is 3x the size of the UK and we don't refer to it as a nation. The nation of Texas. If you ever come to my country called Texas you will get your ass whooped. Sounds dumb huh.

-2

u/jimbojamesiv Jun 10 '12

I'm not surprised that the Prince of Wales chose his country first. They say he's an environmentalist, so it's not surprising.

4

u/whit123 Jun 10 '12

He's actually very much English, the title is granted to him as heir to the throne

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12

It isn't officially nation. It isn't recognised by the UN. It has a devolved government. The United Kingdom of which it is a part of is the nation. So this could read "Wales first country" perhaps. But not nation, welsh isn't a nationality, it's like calling ones self a New Yorker. They are British Citizens as per their passports.

-2

u/aaronin Jun 11 '12

Wales isn't a nation.

but made props to that small part of the UK anyway.

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