Ice Age Flower Resurrected

The Sylene stenophylla inbloom (Pic: Institute of CellBiophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

SKY News, 12:07pm UK, Tuesday February 21, 2012

Using a pioneering experiment, the Sylene stenophylla has becomethe oldest plant ever to be regrown and it is fertile, producing white flowersand viable seeds.

The seeds date back 30,000 to 32,000 years and raise hopes thaticonic Ice Age mammals like the woolly mammoth could also eventually beresurrected.

The researchers, who published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in theUS, said the results prove that permafrost serves a natural depository forancient life forms.

"We consider it essential to continue permafrost studies in searchof an ancient genetic pool, that of pre-existing life, which hypothetically haslong since vanished from the earth's surface," the scientists said in thearticle.

Canadian researchers had earlier regenerated some significantlyyounger plants from seeds found in burrows.

Svetlana Yashina of the Institute of Cell Biophysics of theRussian Academy Of Sciences, who led the regeneration effort, said the revivedplant looked very similar to its modern version, which still grows in the samearea in northeastern Siberia.

The Russian research team recovered the fruit after investigatingdozens of fossil burrows hidden in ice deposits on the right bank of the lowerKolyma River in northeastern Siberia.

They were firmly cemented together and often totally filled withice, making any water infiltration impossible - creating a natural freezingchamber fully isolated from the surface.

The burrows were located 125ft (38m) below the present surface inlayers containing bones of large mammals, such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros,bison, horse and deer.

"The squirrels dug the frozen ground to build their burrows, whichare about the size of a soccer ball, putting in hay first and then animal furfor a perfect storage chamber," said Stanislav Gubin, one of the authorsof the study, who spent years rummaging through the area for squirrel burrows."It's a natural cryobank."

"If we are lucky, we can find some frozen squirrel tissue,"said Mr Gubin. "And this path could lead us all the way to mammoth."

NOTE:  

Although I am sure many peoplehave already read this remarkable pre-Easter tale of rebirth, I definitely thought it was worth reposting for those who haven't.  Thanks to Eudora Linde of WTVM for first alerting me to this.