A team of Russian scientists have resurrected a plant from 30,000-year-old seeds discovered in the Far Eastern permafrost in an unprecedented experiment marking a step towards unveiling the secrets of ancient life on Earth.
The plant, the Silene Stenophylla, the oldest to be regenerated, is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds, the scientists said in an article published on Tuesday in the biweekly U.S. magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We consider it essential to continue permafrost studies in search of an ancient genetic pool, that of pre-existing life, which hypothetically has long since vanished from the earth's surface,” the article reads.
No comments:
Post a Comment