New
York Times: Russian scientists claim to have grown plants
from the fruit of a campion flower that died 32 000 years
ago. Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky, of the Russian
Academy of Sciences research center at Pushchino, near Moscow,
and colleagues published their
findings
today in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The
fruit had been excavated several years ago from an arctic
ground squirrel's burrow in northeastern Siberia. To grow the
plants, the scientists used cells from the fruit’s
placenta after failing to germinate the seeds. They obtained
the radiocarbon date from the seeds, however. If the group's
claim is true, it would enable scientists to study evolution in
real time by comparing the ancient and living campions, writes
Nicholas Wade for the
New York Times.
