Do you ever walk around your neighborhood, spot a particularly tall, thick tree and wonder how old it might be? (You can find out, of course, by chopping the tree down and counting the rings inside. Not that I’m suggesting you should actually do this, as it would prematurely end the tree’s life…)
Well, there’s a tree in Israel that’s both 3 years old and 2000 years old. Sort of. See, the actual tree–a date palm–was planed just over three years ago and today stands around 4 feet tall. But the seed from whence it sprung was at least 2000 years old.
The seed was found at Masada, an ancient fortress in the Judean desert where a small band of Jews resisted a Roman battalion for several months before committing suicide. Scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine that the seeds found on Masada were around 2000 years old. And when planted, one of them actually sprouted.
The report I read on physorg.com doesn’t get into how a seed can sprout after lying dormant for so long. I’m not clear on whether this is fairly common or a one of a kind phenomenon. The article does claim that the seed is the oldest known seed to have given rise to a plant.
And then, of course, there’s the tree, the only one of its kind in existence. The Judean date palm had been extinct and now the researchers have effectively resurrected the species. It makes me wonder how many other extinct plant and possibly even animal species we could resurrect via old seeds and DNA manipulation. (Although in the case of animals, reviving extinct species has never been accomplished. Recently, though, scientists did activate a mouse gene using DNA from the extinct Tasmanian tiger…”
Jeremy said “It makes me wonder how many other extinct plant and possibly even animal species we could resurrect via old seeds and DNA manipulation. (Although in the case of animals, reviving extinct species has never been accomplished. Recently, though, scientists did activate a mouse gene using DNA from the extinct Tasmanian tiger…”
Remember that manipulating genes etc, of extinct life-forms: even if you have a full genome of the organism, will almost certainly NOT produce a living example of an extinct life-form. It can give you the approximation of how the genes of an extinct form would look. Suggest reading Nature article from this year on Platypus genome. Living organism can illuminate past forms, but not re-create them.
Thank you for your thoughtful blog