Whenever I hear the words "one radish weighs a thousand pounds, two donkeys can't pull it", I feel that it is very unrealistic, but there are several "giant vegetable valleys" in the world, namely the Matanaga Valley in the northeast of Angola in Alaska, the former Soviet Union on the Pacific Ocean Sakhalin Island, and Indonesia Sumatra.
The mystery of the Valley of Giant Vegetables.
As for why the vegetables in the Giant Vegetable Valley grow so huge, scientists have put forward many hypotheses and conducted many verification tests.
However, all kinds of hypotheses put forward were proved wrong in the end, and many scientists have personally investigated the giant vegetable valley and put forward different conjectures, but there is still no theory that can explain this phenomenon clearly, which further deepens the mystery of the giant vegetable valley.
The truth behind the Valley of Giant Vegetables.
Scientific studies have shown that the phenomenon of plant growth in the Valley of Giant Cabbage is similar to that of plant growth in prehistoric times.
But from about 60 million years ago to the present, plants have evolved to the age of more advanced angiosperms, which are supposed to grow faster, more luxuriant, and taller, but this is not the case, and plants are growing at a much lower rate than before.
From the global plant growth in prehistoric times, to the current plant growth phenomenon in only three special places, the Giant Vegetable Valley. What exactly is the mystery behind the scenes?
Since factors such as plant species, light, temperature, and soil cannot explain the phenomenon of plant growth in the Giant Vegetable Valley, let alone the global plant growth in prehistoric times, scientists have gradually turned their attention to water, another important factor on the survival of life on Earth.
Water is the cradle of life, and nearly 71% of the planet is covered by water. Is there any difference between the water in the Giant Vegetable Valley and other places?The peculiarity of the water in the Giant Vegetable Valley is that the heavy water content is extremely low.
As we all know, water is composed of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and hydrogen has three isotopes - deuterium, deuterium, tritium, the water composed of deuterium and oxygen is called light water, that is, the water commonly used in our daily life, and the water composed of deuterium and oxygen is called heavy water. At the end of 1931, the American scientist Dr. Harold first discovered the first isotope of hydrogen, deuterium, for which he was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Heavy water is not much different from ordinary water in appearance, and the main difference is reflected in some physical properties, and the density of heavy water is 11079g cm3, freezing point of 382 with a boiling point of 10142, while ordinary water is 1g cm and 100. In addition, ordinary water can nourish life and nurture all things, but heavy water is harmful to the growth and reproduction of organisms, the higher the content of heavy water, the greater the harm, because in natural water, the content of heavy water and super heavy water is insignificant, so people do not have to worry about drinking ordinary water will harm health.
Scientific experiments have proven that it is indeed water that causes the wild growth of the Giant Cabbage Valley plant. Russian scientists watered two identical tomato plants with light water with 25% lower levels of ordinary water and heavy water (other test conditions were the same), and the results of the tomato plants irrigated with light water were about 1 times higher than those with ordinary water, which also verified the scientists' conjecture.
The mystery of the Valley of Giant Vegetables.
In fact, there is always heavy water mixed with water in nature that is harmful to living organisms, but it is only a matter of quantity. And the deuterium content on the earth is also increasing all the time, about every 70 million years or so, and studies have shown that the older the earth, the lower the deuterium content, which explains the reason for the wild growth of plants on the earth in prehistoric times.
Although heavy water is harmful to living organisms, it plays a huge role in the application of atomic energy technology. In 1933, the American physical chemist Gilbert repeatedly electrolyzed 10 liters of electrolyzer waste liquid, and obtained a concentration of about 657% of 05 microliters of heavy water, and then electrolysis to obtain near-pure heavy water. For the first time, he artificially made heavy water droplets and successfully determined some of the physical constants of heavy water. Since the 40s of the 20th century, due to the discovery of nuclear fission, heavy water has become an important material for nuclear reactors and has begun to be produced on an industrial scale.