Frozen prehistoric plant brought to life

Researchers have revived a fertile plant from the remains of its 32,000- year- old fruit found deep in the Siberian ice and buried within the fossilized burrows of ancient squirrels.

The resurrected plant, from an era of woolly mammoths and sabre- tooth cats, is the oldest viable multicellular living organism, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is also the first plant returned to life from permafrost conditions, researchers said.

The discovery raises the possibility of reviving other frozen organisms with prehistoric gene pools. Using a horticulture technique called micropropagation, researchers grew the plant from fruit tissue in a test tube of nutrients. The ones that grew roots were transferred into pots with soil and light, where they developed flowers and seeds.

“There is abundant permafrost in northern Alaska and Canada,” said Buford Price, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who edited the paper. Finding an organism that could produce a plant with dark green leaves and small white flowers shows the benefit of pursuing goals that seem impossible, he said.

Price said he expects researchers to “get increased funding levels to expand this work, going deeper and looking at other likely locations of animal burrows where plants were stashed.” The fruit was found preserved 38 metres deep in permafrost, ice at below- freezing temperatures that hadn’t melted or been disturbed since the late Pleistocene epoch.