Sago misnomer as cycads are not palms. Extracting edible starch from the sago cycad requires special care due to the poisonous nature of cycads. Cycad sago is used for many of the same purposes as palm sago. The fruit of palm trees from which the sago is produced is not allowed to ripen fully. The full ripening completes the life cycle of the tree and exhausts the starch reserves in the trunk to produce the seeds. It leaves a hollow shell and causes the tree to die. The palms are cut down when they are about 15 years old, just before
Sago Mine disaster an underground explosion at a coal mine there." Hundreds of media, reporters, camera crews, satellite trucks and photographers descended on the small community, taking over yards and setting up camp outside the Sago Baptist Church and at the mine's coal processing plant. Officials had turned a small second-story room there into a makeshift briefing room for the media. CNN with Anderson Cooper, Fox News with Geraldo Rivera and MSNBC with Rita Cosby all broadcast live from Sago throughout the night of January 3 and early morning of January 4 as the story continually changed. Shortly before rumors started spreading that