Tree From 2,000-Year-Old Seed Doing Well (Methuselah)

Physorg ^ | 6-12-2008 | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

[blam]

Tree from 2,000-year-old seed is doing well

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID , AP Science Writer
June 12, 2008

(AP) -- Just over three years old and about four-feet tall, Methuselah is growing well. "It's lovely," Dr. Sarah Sallon said of the date palm, whose parents may have provided food for the besieged Jews at Masada some 2,000 years ago.

The little tree was sprouted in 2005 from a seed recovered from Masada, where rebelling Jews committed suicide rather than surrender to Roman attackers.

Radiocarbon dating of seed fragments clinging to its root, as well as other seeds found with it that didn't sprout, indicate they were about 2,000 years old - the oldest seed known to have been sprouted and grown.

Sallon, director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel, updates the saga of Methuselah in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

One thing they don't know yet is whether it's a boy or girl. Date palms differ by sex, but experts can't tell the difference until the tree is six or seven years old, Sallon said.

She hopes there's a chance to use it to restore the extinct Judean date palm, once prized not only for its fruit but also for medicinal uses.

The researchers have had a look at the plant's DNA, however, and found it shares just over half its genes with modern date cultivars.

"Part of our project is to preserve ancient knowledge of how plants were used," Sallon said in a telephone interview. "To domesticate them so we have a ready source of raw material."

Her Middle Eastern Medicinal Plant Project is working to conserve and reintroduce plants to the region where they once lived.

"Many species are endangered and becoming extinct. Raising the dead is very difficult, so it's better to preserve them before they become extinct," she said.

The oldest documented seed to be grown previously was a 1,300-year-old lotus, Sallon said.

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[curmudgeonII]

Date palms differ by sex, but experts can't tell the difference until the tree is six or seven years old, Sallon said.

Tell it a joke.
If he laughs it's a male.
But if she laughs it's a female.

[blam]

Palm resurrected from 2,000-year-old seed

Guy Eisner / Courtesy of Science Magazine

The resurrected Methuselah, shown at age 26 months when it had reached a height of about four feet, is named after the oldest person in the Bible.

[cabojoe]

One of a handful of 2,000-year-old seeds (top) from the fortress of Masada in present-day Israel grew into a date palm plant (bottom) called Methuselah in 2005. A study released in June 2008 confirms the plant is the oldest sprouted seed in the world. Photos by Guy Eisner/Courtesy of Science Magazine

[fanfan]

Life always finds a way.

Nice post.
Thanks.

[Jumper]

I lived in Israel for two years and visited Masada in 2006 - incredible place and with the dead sea just up the road.... Imagine looking down from Masada upon the actual squares that were occupied by the Roman Legions, still and a silent tribute to those for whom, Never Again, is a slogan and national pledge.

[patton]

“and found it shares just over half its genes with modern date cultivars.”

Which half?

[blam]

Oldest Living Tree Found in Sweden

[TASMANIANRED]

Quite cool.

[blam]

" Imagine looking down from Masada upon the actual squares that were occupied by the Roman Legions..."

Must have been a moving experience.

[hosepipe]

All the seeds from that planet wil be worth more than the dates.. I can see it now.. groves of date palms from that little tree.. Growing dates under the MASADA brand name..

[Duke Phelan]

If it does produce seeds I wonder if it’d be possible to get some. I’d like to try and grow a few plants to help spread out the species so they aren’t all located in one area.

[xcamel]

Cool..

[mylife]

Fascinating

[goldstategop]

God will resurrect the dead. They will live again... including palm trees!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Tennessee Nana]

Masada is awesome...

[girlangler]

gardening ping.

[rahbert]

Maybe the Cabinet should eat a few of the dates produced by this tree and meditate on the future of the State...

[Lijahsbubbe]

They're so cute when they're little!

[buck jarret]

Plants are amazing things.

[Inyo-Mono]

The real Methuselah tree, a Bristlecone Pine, some 20 miles east of my home in the White Mountains is the oldest living tree in the world at nearly 5,000 years of age and still growing.

[Ezekiel]

Raising the dead is very difficult, so it's better to preserve them before they become extinct," she said.

Genesis 50:2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

Genesis 50:26 So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Methuselah = מתושלח = met v' salach = [he] died and/yet [he] sent

Genesis 45:25-28

25 And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father,
26 And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not.
27 And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent [salach] to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived:
28 And Israel said, It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

[CarrotAndStick]

The real Methuselah tree, a Bristlecone Pine, some 20 miles east of my home in the White Mountains is the oldest living tree in the world at nearly 5,000 years of age and still growing.

 

The Swedes have it beat... theirs is 9900+ years old:

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080414-oldest-tree.html

 

 

Oldest Living Tree Found in Sweden

James Owen in Stockholm, Sweden
for National Geographic News
 

April 14, 2008

The world's oldest known living tree, a conifer that first took root at the end of the last Ice Age, has been discovered in Sweden, researchers say.

The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) "Christmas tree" isn't ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years, according to a team led by Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University's department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden.

Discovered in 2004, the lone Norway spruce—of the species traditionally used to decorate European homes during Christmas—represents the planet's longest-lived identified plant, Kullman said.

The researchers found the shrubby mountain survivor at an altitude of 2,985 feet (910 meters) in Dalarna Province.

The tree's incredible longevity is largely due to its ability to clone itself, Kullman said.

The spruce's stems or trunks have a lifespan of around 600 years, "but as soon as a stem dies, a new one emerges from the same root stock," Kullman explained. "So the tree has a very long life expectancy."

Radiocarbon Dating

Bristlecone pines in the western United States are generally recognized as the world's oldest continuously standing trees.

The most ancient recorded, from California's White Mountains, is dated to around 5,000 years ago.

Bristlecone pines are aged by counting tree rings, which form annually within their trunks.

But in the case of the Norway spruce, ancient remnants of its roots were radiocarbon dated.

The study team also identified other ancient spruces in Sweden that were between 5,000 and 6,000 years old.

Trees much older than 9,550 years would be impossible in Sweden, because ice sheets covered the country until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago, Kullman noted.

March of the Trees

 

The research forms part of an ongoing study into how and when trees colonized Scandinavia after it had thawed.

"Prior to our studies the general conception was that spruce migrated to this area about 2,000 years ago, so now you will have to rewrite the textbooks," Kullman said.

"Deglaciation seems to have occurred much earlier than generally thought," he added. "Perhaps the ice sheet during the Ice Age was much thinner than previously believed."

The tree study may also help shed light on how plants will respond to current climate change, Kullman said.

"We can see trees have an ability to migrate much faster than people had believed," he said.

(Related: "Arctic Redwood Fossils Are Clues to Ancient Climates" [March 26, 2002].)

In fact, global warming made the ancient mountain conifers easier for the study team to find.

"For many millennia they survived in the mountain tundra as low-growing shrubs perhaps less than a meter high," Kullman said. "Now they are growing up like mushrooms—you can see them quite readily."

Rising Timberline

But climate change could also swamp these living Ice Age relics, he warned.

The treeline has climbed up to 655 feet (200 meters) in altitude during the past century in the central Sweden study area, the team found.

"A great change in the landscape is going on," Kullman said. "Some lower mountains which were bare tundra less than a hundred years ago are totally covered by forest today."

Mountains tend to provide a refuge for the planet's most venerable trees because of reduced competition from neighbors and other plants and because the sparser vegetation around the timberline is less vulnerable to forest fires, Kullman said.

Another factor is reduced human impacts such as logging, said Tom Harlan of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.

"Human activity lower down has demolished all sorts of things that could have been extremely old," he said.

Harlan says the newly dated Swedish spruce trees have "quite an extraordinary age."

"I have no great problems with them having a tree which has been growing there for more than 8,000 years," he said. "The date seems a little early but not out of line with other things we have seen."

For instance, Harlan noted, dead remains of Californian bristlecone pines dating to about 7,500 years ago have been found up to 500 feet (150 meters) higher in altitude than any living bristlecones.

"So there was a time period then when trees were pushing aggressively into areas they had not been in before," he said.

Other tree clones may have an even more ancient lineage than the Swedish spruces, he added.

Research suggests that stands of Huon pines on the Australian island of Tasmania possibly date back more than 10,000 years.

 

[Joya]

Ping.

[bannie]

I don't think we know yet whether or not it will fruit.

Plus...it needs a tree of the opposite “sex.” We'll have to crossbreed, I'm guessing.

BUT some trees don't come to fruition.

(Smacks herself for being negative...but realistic.)

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. Dr. Sarah Sallon... director of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Medical Organization in Israel... hopes there's a chance to use it to restore the extinct Judean date palm, once prized not only for its fruit but also for medicinal uses. The researchers have had a look at the plant's DNA, however, and found it shares just over half its genes with modern date cultivars... The oldest documented seed to be grown previously was a 1,300-year-old lotus, Sallon said. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Squidpup]

Works for me

[r_barton]

Now I’m going to feel guilty when I pop corn or eat peanuts. ;-)

[cake_crumb]

Oh, cool! I hope it THRIVES.

[Dustbunny]

Wow, thanks for that post. It will be really interesting to follow it’s growth. Wonder if they can clone it?

[reagan_fanatic]

One thing they don't know yet is whether it's a boy or girl. Date palms differ by sex, but experts can't tell the difference until the tree is six or seven years old.

Can't they just lift up a palm frond and take a peek?