

Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived - reneherse
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/science/new-life-from-an-arctic-flower-that-died-32000-years-ago.html

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kreek
Only half-joking, isn't this how disaster movies start?

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adriand
This is a common reaction to stories about resurrecting ancient species, but I
wonder if it really just means that disaster movies are silly, rather than
that these activities are risky.

After all, when we consider ancient, extinct species, the organisms in
question are likely ill-adapted to survive in the present day. By virtue of
having gone extinct, it is a truism that they were ill-adapted to survive the
past era in which they disappeared as well.

In this case, the plant is nearly identical to its modern relative, but even
if we brought back to life a plant or animal that disappeared thousands of
years ago, it would be incredibly difficult for it to survive. For one thing,
it would typically need other members of the opposite sex with which to breed.
It would also be adapted to thrive in a much different environment than
today's. These are substantial challenges.

Of course, it's possible that reintroducing an ancient species to the present
day would be similar to introducing a non-native species to, say, Australia.
I'm also not keen on the prospect of reviving ancient microbes and viruses.
But I'm not worried about this plant, or about dinosaurs, for that matter.

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baddox
You seem to be claiming that the ancient specimen would likely not thrive; I
think we all agree. The sci-fi disaster movie angle would probably be that the
ancient specimen is carrying a disease that isn't particularly special except
for the fact that no current species (or at least humans) have any immunity
whatsoever.

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daviddoran
This stood out for me: "If the claim is true, then scientists should be able
to study evolution in real time by comparing the ancient and living campions."

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rcthompson
Yes, this allows them to directly sequence the genome of an "internal" node of
the tree of life, whereas normally we only get to sequence the leaf nodes
(extant species).

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ceol
Is there a benefit to bringing long-lost plants back to life? I assume there's
potential for this technology to be applied elsewhere, and it's a truly
awesome achievement, but could the plants themselves be used for something?

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wisty
Often, blue sky research has the best ROI. You get smart people working really
hard on it. There's a lot less crap to deal with, so they are totally focused
on solving the problem. And the problems are actually quite clear cut (is the
plant back from the dead yet?), so a lot of management issues disappear. A
well defined (yet useless) goal is easier to manage than a wishy-washy
"improve it, but don't change anything".

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netcan
They broke an Israeli record to do this. This could end up with a who made the
biggest dinosaur very quick:
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34767635/ns/world_news-
mideast_n...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34767635/ns/world_news-
mideast_n_africa/t/latest-hummus-war-israel-doubles-record/)

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moonchrome
This is cool but :

>with improved methods has produced spectacular results like the
reconstitution of the Neanderthal genome.

Now that cloning a Neanderthal would be really interesting.

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captaincrunch
How is it that this got up to #3? I'd down vote this if I could, only because
I hate logging into a news site to read articles that shouldn't be hidden.

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stephengillie
Instead of just complaining about the problem, let's help ourselves to read it
and support non-paywalling sources.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/32-000-year-old-
pla...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-20/32-000-year-old-plant-reborn-
from-ancient-fruit-found-in-siberian-ice.html)

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captaincrunch
bravo!

