Life Story Worth Holywood! by Milota Sidorova

Story of 'Methuselah', date palm, grown from the oldest seed in the world is surely worth knowing.However, half of my 'life interests' belong to the plants, let me pour you into the interesting journey of this resurrected giant.In 1963, when a group of archaeologists, digging out the King's Herod fortress in Judea desert, found out a place, where a gathering of hunted Jews had committed massive suicide, small part of findings were ancient date seeds. During the intensive Roman's occupation in Israel, desperate prisoners in Masada had chosen honourable death, rather than a menial slavery.Abandoning all those sad destinies, the seeds rode straight ahead to the laboratory. Almost 40 years spent under intense examination, the age of the seeds was finally proved. Recarbon dating method has attested that the original palms grew between 2110 and 1995 years ago. Under leading of Dr. Sarah Sallon, the director of Louis L. Borick National Medicine Center, the seeds have been included into the Middle Eastern Medical Plant Project with an aim to resurrect the ancient palm species. Sallon, in last week's issue of Science journal claimed, that they wanted to be absolutely sure about the age of samples. They also examined its DNA, that had less than half of a genetic information of today's modern cultivars.Despite several doubts, the seeds have been planted and after three years, the center proudly claims four feet high date palm, named after the oldest Biblical person. According the reports, Methuselah is doing well, although its sex is not known yet. Palms usually differ into male and female ones between the ago of three and six years. Indeed, it would be much better if Methuselah would be 'a girl'. Than the breeding would have more chance to success.But still, leaving the sex problem, scientists will have to mix an ancient DNA with the most similar modern one. And this will be even more critical issue.Going back to the history, the seeds were just a glimpse of the biggest business in Judea desert. Date forests produced extra sweet fruits, that had been used to treat respiration problems and depressions. Judea's dates were famous for many centuries, until a period of fever war conflicts hasn't erased the colonies of farmers and businessmen. It all happened around 13th century A.D.Sallon's project aims to grow, reintroduce and domesticate ancient cultivars into their original homeland. Growing Methuselah is interesting not only because of fruits, but even their medical impacts. That way, Methuselah proves amazing vitality of palms, one of the first terrestrial plant branches ever, overrunning the Lotus plant, grown from 1,300 years old seed.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080612/ap_on_sc/sci_ancient_tree;_ylt=AiC.xDyUWGcl_vAQ_DiFtrus0NUE

by Milota Sidorova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova