{"id":249605,"date":"2024-07-31T10:42:42","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T10:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/31\/midwood-we-have-discovered-an-entirely-new-kind-of-wood\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:13:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:13:32","slug":"midwood-we-have-discovered-an-entirely-new-kind-of-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/31\/midwood-we-have-discovered-an-entirely-new-kind-of-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwood: We have discovered an entirely new kind of wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A scanning electron microscope image of nanoscale wood structures in tulip trees<\/p>\n

Jan J Lyczakowski and Raymond Wightman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Scientists have discovered an entirely new kind of wood, a finding that could turbocharge trees\u2019 ability to store carbon.<\/p>\n

Tulip trees feature a nanoscale wood structure that sits somewhere between hardwood and softwood, dubbed \u201cmidwood\u201d, which may explain why they are so effective at storing carbon.<\/p>\n

Jan \u0141yczakowski<\/a> at Jagiellonian University in Poland and his colleagues investigated the nanoscale structure of live wood samples taken from 33 species of trees in the botanic garden at the University of Cambridge in the UK.<\/p>\n

They froze each sample in a \u201cslush nitrogen\u201d that held specimens at a temperature of \u2013210\u00b0C, before studying each one under a low-temperature scanning electron microscope. \u00a0This allowed them to anlayse the size of each wood type\u2019s macrofibrils, tiny rod-like filaments that house wood cells.<\/p>\n

They found that hardwood trees, such as oak or birch, have macrofibrils about 15 nanometres in diameter, whereas softwood trees, such as pine or spruce, have larger macrofibrils of 25 nanometres or more in diameter.<\/p>\n

But there was one \u201csurprise\u201d exception, says \u0141yczakowski.\u00a0The two surviving species of the Liriodendron<\/em> genus, the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera<\/em>) and the Chinese tulip tree (Liriodendron chinense<\/em>), had macrofibrils of around 20 nanometres, midway between softwood and hardwood. \u201cLiriodendron, for some unknown reason, has a different macrofibrial structure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe knew then there was something special about the <\/span>liriodendrum,\u201d says Raymond Wightman<\/a> at the University of Cambridge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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A Liriodendron tree in the autumn<\/p>\n

garfotos\/Alamy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Previous research has demonstrated that Liriodendrons<\/em> are fast-growing with high carbon sequestration rates<\/a>, making them popular candidates for carbon plantation schemes.<\/p>\n

Liriodendrons<\/em>\u00a0diverged from their close relative Magnolia\u00a0(Magnoliids<\/em>) around 30-50 million years ago, a point in Earth\u2019s history when atmospheric CO2 concentrations dropped sharply from 1000 parts per million (ppm) to around 320ppm.<\/p>\n

The trees may have developed larger macrofibrils to make them more effective at drawing carbon from the atmosphere as concentrations fell, \u0141yczakowski suggests. \u0141yczakowski now wants to test that theory, by bioengineering trees to have midwood-sized macrofibrils and then testing their carbon sequestration rate. If it turns out midwood-sized macrofibrils are best suited for carbon sequestration, it may be possible to breed other tree species with those optimum-sized macrofibrils to boost their carbon storing capacity, he says.<\/p>\n

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[ad_1] A scanning electron microscope image of nanoscale wood structures in tulip trees Jan J Lyczakowski and Raymond Wightman Scientists have discovered an entirely new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}