
Wild flower blooms again after 30,000 years on ice (2012) - jackgavigan
http://www.nature.com/news/wild-flower-blooms-again-after-30-000-years-on-ice-1.10069
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DigitalSea
Every day we inch one step closer to bringing back dinosaurs, thus making
Jurassic Park a reality.

~~~
perseusprime11
I agree. One of these days, one of the icebergs will crack revealing a massive
dinosaur that will come out of it's cryo-sleep.

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grondilu
When talking about megafauna resurrection, it is often said that it's not
possible because DNA degrades too much after a few thousand years. Yet
apparently the DNA of this plant was still viable. What am I missing?

~~~
whyenot
A seed is a living organism essentially in suspended animation. Cells in the
embryo have intact plasma membranes, DNA repair mechanisms are present
(although working very slowly), each cell is surrounded by a cell wall, and
the entire seed has an outer protective seed coat.

When people talk about DNA degrading, they are usually referring to DNA that
is no longer inside living cells, and that doesn't have these multiple levels
of protection.

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tdy721
Plant's also generally contain much more DNA than animals. (fun fact of the
day)

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cpach
Why is that?

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osoba
Plants are usually polyploid

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cpach
Cool!

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marcusgarvey
Nice to read about a new breakthrough in botany. The field doesn't get much
attention at all. Maybe now it will benefit from the popularity of Martian,
the movie.

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whyenot
As is true in many areas of organismal biology, botany is a field in decline.
There are not a lot of jobs anymore, and in academia, not a lot of grant
money. In spite of this, every year universities continue to pump out more and
more graduates trained for careers that no longer exist. Some of the best
botanists these days are citizen scientists who have day jobs at the
Cheesecake Factory or driving limos in Las Vegas.

~~~
Tomte
I've recently read a (German-language) article, that botanical gardens in
Germany are an endangered species.

That's because they are expensive to maintain, professorships have been faded
out and biology students and post-grads are usually not so much interested in
real plants and systematics anymore, but more in genetics and laboratory work.

The small state of Saarland doesn't have a single publically accessible
botanical garden anymore. Across Germany the outlook is dim.

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adrianN
The Saarland University has a (pretty small) botanical garden that is open to
the public.

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dalke
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanischer_Garten_der_Univers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanischer_Garten_der_Universit%C3%A4t_des_Saarlandes)
says it closed April 1, 2016. More details (in German) at [http://www.uni-
saarland.de/nc/aktuelles/artikel/nr/14351.htm...](http://www.uni-
saarland.de/nc/aktuelles/artikel/nr/14351.html) .

~~~
adrianN
Man, that really sucks. I spent many nice afternoons there.

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rubyfan
Reminds me of an episode of Futurama where they revive xmas trees which were
accidentally were cross contaminated with bio-weapons. _Spoiler_ , the
Christmas trees shoot exploding pine cones that multiply until the entire
earth is covered in pine trees.

Amy: "What's that splork on them? It's not germs, is it?"

* [https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:The_Futurama_Holiday_Sp...](https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:The_Futurama_Holiday_Spectacular)

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erikb
Please tell me that virusses and bacteria can't be revived after 30k years in
ice, or that our imune system is able to remember its defenses against
virusses and bacteria it hasn't seen for 30k years.

~~~
adrianN
Our immune system is pretty good at identifying all kinds of foreign proteins.
Unless a virus or bacterium has specifically evolved to evade our immune
system, its chances are pretty bad. I wouldn't be too worried.

~~~
anotheryou
and if we find natural antibiotics there is a good chance they work even
better today, because adaption of the germs reverts over time.

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dgudkov
Can it be considered a one more proof supporting the Panspermia [1]
hypothesis?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia)

~~~
spacecop
What does the resurrection of a flower have to do with the origin of life?

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TheSpiceIsLife
Nothing. But, _Panspermia is not meant to address how life began, just the
method that may cause its distribution in the Universe._ \- from the
Panspermia Wikipedia article

~~~
spacecop
I'm sorry, I still don't understand the connection. Aliens buried the flowers
under the tundra in the ice age? Why bring it up?

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wpears
If the DNA in a seed is still in good enough shape to support blooming after
being frozen 30,000 years, perhaps a seed frozen in a meteorite [1] could also
survive long enough to be spread between solar systems.

[1] maybe after glancing off a planet or created by the collision of two large
objects

~~~
pvaldes
Could survive long enough to be toasted when the meteorite finally falls to
the promised land planet, in form of fireball.

~~~
dgudkov
Inner ice of sufficiently large comets can survive atmospheric entry.

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pvaldes
I'm not an expert on comets, so I might be wrong, but I guess that we talk
about recycled ice; that would be sterilized each time the comet orbit pass
closest to the sun and the water is (partially?) boiled, to become frozen
again later.

There would be probably other consequences if a such large comet will fall in
a planet. I can't see any happy ending for this organism to surviving its
travel just by chance. If the comet is small or disintegrates in smaller
pieces the plant is roasted and dead. Otherwise if fallen in one piece, all
the life in the impact area of such large comet should be crushed by the
pressure wave and vaporized also, including our plant

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jacquesm
Surprised to see spam in the comments there, nature should do a better job of
keeping their pages clean from trash like that.

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Steeeve
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they
didn’t stop to think if they should.

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exabrial
Im likely allergic. Thanks.

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jrockway
I guess it's all about freeze/thaw cycles, if the plant can handle one 6 month
freeze, it can probably handle one 30,000 year freeze. The freezing is what
causes damage, not the being-frozen. I guess.

~~~
kseistrup
Even though the seed is frozen, respiration still goes on -- albeit slowly --
and eventually the seed will run out of fuel and die.

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Aelinsaar
Somewhat misleading title, but a very interesting read nonetheless.
"Welcome... To Neolithic Park!"

~~~
rcthompson
What's misleading about it? Did you read it as saying the flower bloomed
naturally after thawing without human help?

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Aelinsaar
The flower itself didn't so much bloom after being frozen, as cultivated
tissue was worked in vitro to produce a viable flower. It's not exactly
clickbait given the payoff, but it's still less than truthful IMO.

~~~
rcthompson
I guess I automatically assumed it was a human-assisted process since the link
was to nature.com, although in hindsight it would have been equally
publishable, if not more so, if the flower bloomed on its own.

