Biblical tree brought back to life: date palm seed recovered from Masada germinates.[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Five date pits were found in the 1960s in the Dead Sea region of Israel at Masada--a Herodean palace and later a last stronghold of Jews under siege in the first century A.D. In 2005, one of the seeds was planted, and sprouted. Now, in the June 12 Science, a team reports that the sapling is indeed the germination germination, in a seed, process by which the plant embryo within the seed resumes growth after a period of dormancy and the seedling emerges. The length of dormancy varies; the seed of some plants (e.g. of the oldest known seed. The palm some ancients called the "Tree of Life" has been revived from a 2,000-year sleep, genes and all, says coauthor Mordechai Kislev of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. The sapling's genetic fingerprint genetic fingerprint n. See DNA fingerprint. suggests it is the once-extinct Judean date palm The Judean date palm cultivar is a cultivar of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera). The cultivar was thought to have become extinct sometime around 150 AD, but in 2005, a preserved 2,000-year-old seed was used to revive, & grow the Judean palm's offspring. . Radiocarbon ra·di·o·car·bon n. A radioactive isotope of carbon, especially carbon 14. radiocarbon Noun a radioactive isotope of carbon, esp. age dates of the original seeds and seed fragments clinging to the sapling's roots give calendar dates ranging between 206 B.C. and A.D. 392. This date palm opens a window into the past, comments Paul Gepts, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis, commonly known as UC Davis, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and was established as the University Farm in 1905. . "A small window, but a window nonetheless." |
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