Scientists used 2,000 year old seeds to regrow an extinct species of date tree. The tree long disappeared from the Judean desert but archeologists found seeds on digs. Surprisingly, the seeds worked and grew a male and female of the species. They hope to use them to produce biblical era dates.

Dates Like Jesus Ate? Scientists Revive Ancient Trees From 2,000-Year-Old Seeds

The world’s most remarkable date palm trees might not exist if Sarah Sallon hadn’t gotten sick while working as a doctor in India in 1986. Antibiotics didn’t help. What cured here, she thinks, were some traditional herbal remedies.

“It was just amazing. It was so incredible,” she says. “And then I got very interested. There’s nothing like a doctor cured of their problem to get them interested in something.”

When she moved back home to Israel, to her job at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, she went looking for medicinal plants there. And she found lots of them. But she also heard about ancient medicinal plants that had disappeared.

“They’re just historical ghosts,” she says. “Like the famous date plantations along the De… Continue Reading (3 minute read)