32,000-Year-Old Plant Brought Back to Life—Oldest Yet

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7greeneyes

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Told you guys to hang on to those extraneous mj seeds, never know WHEN they'll get round to being planted. :confused2:...:giggle:

url: hMPp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/120221-oldest-seeds-regenerated-plants-science/


32,000-Year-Old:eek: Plant Brought Back to Life—Oldest Yet


The oldest plant ever to be regenerated has been grown from 32,000-year-old seeds—beating the previous recordholder by some 30,000 years. (Related: "'Methuselah' Tree Grew From 2,000-Year-Old Seed.")

A Russian team discovered a seed cache of Silene stenophylla, a flowering plant native to Siberia, that had been buried by an Ice Age squirrel near the banks of the Kolyma River (map). Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the seeds were 32,000 years old.

The mature and immature seeds, which had been entirely encased in ice, were unearthed from 124 feet (38 meters) below the permafrost, surrounded by layers that included mammoth, bison, and woolly rhinoceros bones.

The mature seeds had been damaged—perhaps by the squirrel itself, to prevent them from germinating in the burrow. But some of the immature seeds retained viable plant material.

The team extracted that tissue from the frozen seeds, placed it in vials, and successfully germinated the plants, according to a new study. The plants—identical to each other but with different flower shapes from modern S. stenophylla—grew, flowered, and, after a year, created seeds of their own.

"I can't see any intrinsic fault in the article," said botanist Peter Raven, President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, who was not involved in the study. "Though it's such an extraordinary report that of course you'd want to repeat it."

Raven is also head of National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

Plant Study May Help Seed Vaults?

The new study suggests that permafrost could be a "depository for an ancient gene pool," a place where any number of now extinct species could be found and resurrected, experts say.

"Certainly some of the plants that were cultivated in ancient times and have gone extinct or other plants once important to ecosystems which have disappeared would be very useful today if they could be brought back," said Elaine Solowey, a botanist at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel.

Solowey resurrected the 2,000-year-old date palm that previously held the title of oldest regenerated seed.

Her palm seed, though, had been buried in a dry, cool area, a far cry from the S. stenophylla seeds' permafrost environment.

Regenerating seeds that have been frozen at 19 degrees Fahrenheit (-7 degrees Celsius) for so long could have major implications, said Solowey, who was not involved in the new study.

That's because all seed-saving projects—the most famous being perhaps Norway's so-called doomsday vault, aka the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (see pictures)—depend on freezing seeds.

"Any insight gained on seeds which have been frozen and how to thaw them and sprout them is very valuable," she said.

The Missouri Botanical Garden's Raven added that, if we can uncover the conditions that kept the seeds viable for 32,000 years, then "if you were doing it yourself, you'd be able to preserve [seeds] for longer."
 
hxxp://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/11/ancient.cannabis/

ancient chinese secret:fly:

ancient stash.jpg
 
Dan K. Liberty said:
hxxp://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/11/ancient.cannabis/

ancient chinese secret:fly:

yeah that was posted awhile back...world's oldest stash found. That was an epic find, anthropharmacologically speaking...

okaaaayyy....so they didn't quite germinate the 32k+ old seeds, but they did germinate the seeds from the tissue regenerated plants. Pretty frickin cool the embryonic dna stayed vital enough tho to do so(reconstitute).....
 
tried to germ some old mj seeds this week and they got mold on them in water cup. nasty funk. i hate to toss seeds, but i can't have that hot mess in my rooms. i tried to wash em with h202 to no avail. pure butt crack funk. i'll have some cheese please dan...:)
 
yeah that funk has been over for a visit at my house too irish. Seems like I stored those too early. I went to letting em age about a month, then super-dessicating with silica gel packs, even rice, then storing at 30f -1c

maybe the pressure of the icepack on top of the squirrels nuts increased their longevity also?
 
that spam post made me LOL
..just so random


OT; pretty cool, can't help but feel a little jurassic park-esque about reviving extinct species though (evolution, natural selection, and all that ;) )

:)
 
Holy...... Hahahaa second thread I read in a row has me baked laughing my arse off... Ham and cubinoids? Hah
 
HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA :rofl: ditto ston

wangpanpan needs velly good english . . . "used ham hocks" not goin over real well in any of my american recipes lately . . .

"Long, gradually planning allows the cuboid to launch all its Fifa Coins"

DUDE, WHAT IS UP WIT THAT ????????????????? :rofl:
 
I would love to smoke a super old strain of MJ. That would be awesome!
 

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