Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday March 29 2015, @07:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the very-very-long-courtship dept.

A Judean date palm — a variety that was wiped out in the 6th century — has been grown from a 2,000 year-old seed found in an archeological excavation ten years ago, and is now reproducing:

Talk about perseverance, not to mention the mastery of nature’s design when it comes to plants. Decades ago a 2,000-year-old seed was plucked from an archaeological excavation near the Dead Sea. After many years lingering in a researcher's drawer in Tel Aviv, Elaine Solowey, director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, decided to give germination a go. Ten years later, and “Methuselah” (why don’t all plants have names?) is thriving. And not only thriving, but reproducing. Mazel tov!

Methuselah is a Judean date palm, a variety that was wiped out sometime in the 6th century, making the lonely male long the only one of its kind. Genetic testing reveal that Methuselah is closely related to an ancient variety of date palm from Egypt called Hayany – which corresponds with the legend indicating that dates came to Israel with the Exodus, Solowey says.

No word on the nutrition and flavor of its dates, but it's a good argument for projects like the Global Seed Vault.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @08:35AM (#163748)

    Too bad the Global Seed Vault will not survive the inevitable destruction the globe. Praise Xenu!

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:22AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:22AM (#163760) Homepage

    That's the People's Date Palm of Judea.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:34AM (#163763)

    Who do these researchers think they are, to question God's plan for this extinct tree? They only invite God's wrath to rain down upon us all!

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:38AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday March 29 2015, @10:38AM (#163765) Journal

      Just start eating Methuselah. Eat the last date it produces, and you will have ended the specie.

      • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:04PM

        by JNCF (4317) on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:04PM (#163886) Journal

        Just start eating Methuselah. Eat the last date it produces, and you will have ended the specie.

        Nope. TFA says they found a "small stockpile" of seeds in a jar.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:42AM

      by tathra (3367) on Sunday March 29 2015, @11:42AM (#163776)

      according to religious teachings, humans were made in God's image, thus it is within our nature to mimic God. as God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being, if we were truely running afoul of God's plans, He would absolutely stop us. the lack of divine interference shows that not only is God allowing this, but it must in fact be His plan for us to do this. cloning, genetic modifying, etc, the lack of divine interference proves that it is God's plan for us to do all these things, for if it was not, He would absolutely stop us from doing them (either that or you're admitting that your god is not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and thus by definition not "God").

      how arrogant can you religious nutjobs be, claiming to speak for God, when in fact your own teachings explain how "meddling in God's affairs" is exactly what He wants us to do.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @01:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @01:26PM (#163801)

        Hello?! Hurricane Katrina. The AIDS. These are just some of God's punishments for not following His word.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:48PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @05:48PM (#163882)

          Per the Book of Job, those are not "punishments" but "tests of faith". It appears that the only people who read The Bible are non-Christians; if they ever did read The Bible, they would know that the smiting of Sodom and Gomorrah was for inhospitality, that God's First and Second commandments make Christianity nothing short of blasphemy, that Jesus of Nazareth was a communist and capitalism is evil, that their endless hate for their fellow humans is extremely sinful, and that those who claim to speak for God, like you are, are the worst of sinners and shall burn eternally in the pit of fire.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @03:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 29 2015, @03:40PM (#163823)

        You make an interesting point. Wasn't Noah supposed to have taken a male and female of every living thing aboard the ark? Why didn't he take the male and female date palms then?

        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:27PM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday March 29 2015, @09:27PM (#163946) Journal

          Or even dragons and unicorns ...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @10:21PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @10:21PM (#166226)

          Stupid trolls are stupid. :p

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:12PM

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday March 29 2015, @06:12PM (#163887) Journal

        continuing your train of thoughts, you cannot even prove divine interference occurs at all, whatever miracle occurs could be by a knowledgeable enough entity, and OTOH even if you discovered all universe history and evolution and find nothing out of the ordinary, the interference might have been implemented in "the ordinary" itself.

        --
        Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 30 2015, @05:37PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday March 30 2015, @05:37PM (#164383) Journal

        according to religious teachings, humans were made in God's image, thus it is within our nature to mimic God. as God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being, if we were truely running afoul of God's plans, He would absolutely stop us.
         
        I thought He did already, what with ejection from the garden and all.
         
        It just proves to me that God is a dick. Designs us to mimic him then punishes us for doing so.
         
        It's so ridiculous that it almost makes you wonder if there is any truth to it in the first place...

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @10:30PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2015, @10:30PM (#166232)

          Even viewing Genesis as allegory, to mimic something or someone would mean that the original object or person did the mimicked action first. Tell us where God listened to and was subsequently tricked by the devil, committed a sin by doing something he should not have, and hid from himself...

          Your logic is flawed, and you need to read up on free will.

  • (Score: 2) by ticho on Sunday March 29 2015, @12:46PM

    by ticho (89) on Sunday March 29 2015, @12:46PM (#163792) Homepage Journal

    Things like this make me feel very, very humble in the face of both history and nature. Now, let's hope that this palm has the time to reproduce sufficiently before seed sharing and exchange is banned globally.

  • (Score: 2) by DNied on Sunday March 29 2015, @01:10PM

    by DNied (3409) on Sunday March 29 2015, @01:10PM (#163799)

    Its "children" will be hybrids anyway, since there is no female of the exact same variety. In fact, they pollinated some closely related wild palm.

    However, one of the linked articles mentions that a small stash of seeds was found in the excavation back in the 60s, so I wonder if/why they didn't try planting several in order to get more genetically pure offspring.

    • (Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Friday April 03 2015, @10:34PM

      by nightsky30 (1818) on Friday April 03 2015, @10:34PM (#166233)

      Why no female producing seeds? Strange they would hoard a bunch of male palm seeds.

      Perhaps I should rephrase this...