Monday, March 19, 2012

Ancient Flower Blooms Again

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/03/ancient-flower-blooms-again/

Scientists grew this flower from fruit that had been frozen underground for more than 31,000 years. 
Credit: PNAS Permission granted from PNAS

15 comments:

Emma said...

I thought that it was so interesting that frozen seeds can produce plants again. To me, it seems like the seeds go into hibernation, and it is so amazing that the seeds can be in hibernation for so long. Freezing seeds seems like a good way to preserve plants, since we know that frozen seeds can be revived again. It seems like a good way to prevent the plants' extinction. If only we could find some way to prevent animals from going extinct.

Amanda said...

This was a really interesting and cool article. I thought (and still think) that this is great thing that frozen seeds can still grow. Now that I think about it, it is a little bit like hibernation, just for a REALLY long time. I think we should freeze a bunch of seeds of extinct plants and when there are even less than there are today plant them again

Ben said...

That is interesting that cold can freeze seeds for an amount of time, especially seeds from the Ice Age.

Edie said...

This is really cool. I wonder if maybe one day scientists will find out a way to do the process much faster that 30000 years. Then maybe that'll be the only way that we grow flowers. That flower was really pretty. I find it fascinating that it is almost exactly the same as a flower that we know of today. I agree with Emma and Amanda about the fact that the process is sort of like hibernation.

Cami said...

This is really cool. Being able to freeze a seed is great. Like Emma, Amanda and Edie said, I think it really is like hibernation for a seed. I thought what the woman said about bringing a dinosaur back to life was interesting also.

Ava S. said...

This makes sense to me. After all, why wouldn't a frozen seed grow? I searched Jane Shen-Miller on google and it said she did work at UCLA, so at least that part was true. I'm don't really know if the plant that grew was actually ancient, but I still think this article is very interesting.

Anthony said...

I didn't even know that frozen seeds could grow new plants! When I read this article, I was shocked! As some other kids said, it is like a hibernation of sorts. Also, I read about this vault in I think Norway, where they freeze other seeds for future use. So now that I think about it, it probably would be possible for other plants to sprout seeds again. I also liked what Emma said, about trying to prevent animals from going extinct. I hope that in some period of time, we would be able to save species that are dying. Besides, so many species go extinct each day.

Ava D. said...

Wow! Just to think, this could be the start of resurrecting thousands of preserved extinct plants! If there are more of these underground chambers, which I'm sure there are, there might be other species that we could resurrect. We are on the road to cloning these species and taking them off the course of extinction. I wonder if the seeds would be able to be preserved for longer than 30,000 years. I thought that this article was very informative and interesting!

Kevin said...

Perhaps this freezing technique would be a way to preserve it, just as we experimented the best way to preserve an apple (I don't remember what the results of the experiment was).

Jordan said...

This is so cool! I didn't know that if you froze seeds they would still "work." It's like a hibernation, or like freezing yourself and wanting to wake up in the 22nd century. This is a great way to preserve seeds. I agree with Emma, this would be great if it worked on animals.

Gwen said...

Wow! This article was really cool! I wonder how the scientists figured out how to resurrected the flower from being frozen for 30,000 years old. I mean, that's not your average science experiment! I wonder if they were afraid they were going to mess up and ruin the whole seed...I would be.

Jason said...

This was a really interesting article. It's amazing that frozen seeds can grow into plants again. It is even more amazing that these seeds have been preserved for such a long time and still be able to bloom. I agree with everyone else who said that the process that the seeds go through is sort of like hibernation. I like Emma's idea about preventing animals from going extinct.

Ethan Phillip Villarama said...

Wow! They did the same thing in Jurassic Park. They found insects trapped in tree sap that were sucking dinosaur blood, they found some DNA, then reproduced the dinosaur.

Will said...

Wow. Just wow, I cant believe that something that old can still grow. The seeds must have been so cold that they were put into some type of a cryogenic state. This is a huge advancement, knowing that you can freeze seeds and reanimate them years later.

Gillian said...

I heard about the thing they are doing in Siberia, except in England, but in England I think they are just getting seeds from crops (I'm not sure) so that if a crop goes extinct, like say corn, they would still have it and wouldn't be largely inpacted. I really don't see the point of saving flower seeds because all they give us is eye candy, whereas crops or edible things give us food and chances of survival. I agree with Emma, it would be really good if we could find a way to keep animals from extinction because then we would also still have food sources. We also would not have to worry as much about mad cow disease spreading through livestock because we would always have backup. It would also be important to save African and Asian elephants, because they help humans transport things, and they are not currently thriving. But, as I said before what would the point be in keeping something like a lizard. How do they help the human race? They probably wont go extinct but if they do I wouldn't worry so much about it.