Ancient flower blooms again
Fruit frozen underground for more than 31,000 years produce plants
Scientists grew this flower from fruit that had been frozen underground for more than 31,000 years. Credit: PNAS Permission granted from PNAS
Imagine putting a seed in a freezer, waiting 30,000 years, and then taking the seed out and planting it. Do you think a flower would grow?
Amazingly, scientists have just managed to do something very similar. They found the fruit of an ancient plant that had been frozen underground in Siberia — a region covering central and eastern Russia — for about 31,800 years. Using pieces of the fruit, the scientists grew plants in a lab. The new blooms have delicate white petals. They are also the oldest flowering plants that researchers have ever revived from a deep freeze.
“This is like regenerating a dinosaur from tissues of an ancient egg,” University of California, Los Angeles biologist Jane Shen-Miller told Science News./.../
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