Four Leaf Clovers

Two hats 🎩 I like to think they were identical twins performing an act called The Fine Brothers and then they poofed out of existence

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, I'm doing an investigation into Four Lead Clovers. I promise this won't take long. I'm doing this because I would rather do work I create for myself than the work I have to do. Anyway, I have never found a four lead clover in my life, and I have always wondered well, why can't I? I've always been a little frustrated by it. I think I have a lot of friends who are able to find them easily. My own personal hypothesis about this is I think when if you're a kid and you can find one, it gives you this sense of self-confidence for being able to find them. You develop a better pattern recognition for them just because you feel more confident in your ability to find them. But that's besides the point. Four leaf clovers are actually three leaf clovers because the clovers are trifolium plants. Tri as in three. They’re commonly called white clovers because they're green, but they have this little white line going through the four leaflets. So the actual clover itself is just a leaf with three leaflets. Having four is somewhat - I don't think it’s - not that rare. It's one in 10,000, about, and you know, there's so many of these plants everywhere. There are patches and patches and patches of them. And if you were to look at a patch, kind of glance your eyes over at it, like 10,000 of these little trifulium guys. It's not that many out of, you know, regular patch of clovers. So your odds aren't terrible. Um, but my odds have always been excruciatingly bad. So when you look at a four leaf clover, you'll find that one of the leaflets is a bit smaller than the other three. And that's because having four leaflets is a mutation because three is the norm. Now, why is three the norm? Basically, there's a study, I think it was from University of Georgia. I don't know if that's true and I'm sorry if it's not, but I'm sure they like me shouting them out anyway. Um, they studied these clovers and their genome and basically found that when this gene is expressed, it suppresses the creation of the additional leaflet, right? And so the gene is almost always expressed, right? That's why it's one in 10,000, and it's recessive if it's not expressed. As you guys know, people who have blonde hair, people who have blue eyes, you know, even though, I mean, there's a lot more that goes into it than a punnet square. But we’re less likely to have those traits because they're not dominant. But if they do have the trait, then as the recessive one, if it's paired up with another recessive, it's much more likely to have another four leaf clover, right? So if you find one four leaf clover, you're much more likely to find another in the similar area of the patch of clovers. Yeah, and it doesn't just extend to four, like, if you put two four leaf clovers together and you reproduce them, you could get up to like 50 leaflets, something crazy like that. But, you know, there's typically four or five, I think people have found like six and seven leaflets. The most four lead clovers a person has ever recorded in their life of finding that I think has been verified is 110,000 and then the most in a single period was 887 four leaf clovers in eight hours. Now, I think that's just Guinness records, but I could be wrong. I'm just finding this information. Going back to the study, what I found interesting is that they separated it by clovers found in the summer and winter, and then clovers found in a greenhouse, like grown in a greenhouse versus in a field, right? And so what they discovered with that is that the gene that if expressed makes the three leaflets, um was like in varying locations. I mean, all somewhat close, but in varying locations on the genome, depending on the space and the time that they're found in. So in the field, if it was winter, it'd be like - imagine a genome is like a cylinder. It'd be like at the top, right? And then if it's in the summer in the field, it would be all the way at the bottom. And then if it was in a greenhouse, it'd be kind of like - in the winter, it'd be like kind of like a fourth of the way through the cylinder and then in the summer, it's like three fourths of the way through the cylinder. So it's just interesting where it shows up, I think it showcases like how environmental pressures can contribute to genetic abnormalities that can cause these mutations. And so I think that's how they can occur like originally, if there's a fields full of only three leaves, three leaflet clovers, and then these conditions start the four leaflet frenzy. um yeah. So I guess I kind of hope that me learning about this will allow me to look at these guys more and find one. I think the best strategy is to just kind of glance over it and not really look super deep, just kind of look for something that looks out of place. Like I think instinctually is the best way to go about it. But I could also be wrong because I've never found one. But I don't know. um let me know your thoughts and yeah, bye, sorry all over the place today.