# Ancient Seeds



## AlexanderSen (Mar 23, 2015)

In this article they talk about a 2000 year old seed they planted and it sprouted after 2000 years. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1122_051122_old_seed.html


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## BAYLOR (Mar 23, 2015)

2000 year old seeds still be ing viable ? Fascinating stuff.  

The 32,000 year old plant, that is incredible !


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 23, 2015)

I'm sure I read YEARS ago, about some grains buried/interred in pyramids being viable still. But that may have been a mistake.

32,000 sounds sort of mad. Actually they cheated slightly


> The oldest carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a viable plant was _Silene stenophylla_ (narrow-leafed campion), an Arctic flower native to Siberia. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed an age of 31,800 ±300 years for the seeds. In 2007, more than 600,000 frozen mature and immature seeds were found buried in 70 squirrel hibernation burrows 38 metres (125 ft) below the permafrost near the banks of the Kolyma River. Believed to have been buried by Arctic ground squirrels, the mature seeds had been damaged to prevent germination in the burrow, however, three of the immature seeds contained viable embryos. Scientists extracted the embryos and successfully germinated plants in vitro which grew, flowered and created viable seeds of their own.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed


2009, 10,000-year-old seeds debunked, They were from 1950s!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8142000/8142037.stm


> "The record now for the oldest viable seeds is held by a 2,000-year-old date palm recovered near the Dead Sea," he says.
> 
> In 2002, Russian scientists published a claim that they had germinated a 33,000-year-old seed of a small tundra flower (_Silene stenophylla_).
> 
> But they published their work in a relatively unknown journal, and the claim has received almost no acceptance in the scientific community, Zazula says.


more here: http://worldsoldeststuff.blogspot.ie/2013/04/worlds-oldest-viable-seeds.html

The 32,000 year old claim appears to be from 2002 to  2007 and not universally accepted, nor is it without technological intervention.

So oldest is probably 2,000 year old date palm seeds.

Source of the pre-internet Egyptian Tomb story
http://www.howplantswork.com/2009/1...s-from-ancient-egyptian-tombs-that-germinate/


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## BAYLOR (Mar 23, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> I'm sure I read YEARS ago, about some grains buried/interred in pyramids being viable still.



Ive read  that story too . With nothing to disturb them, no moisture to cause them to go moldy or rats or insects to eat them.  Such a thing is very possible .


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 23, 2015)

It's a myth though. Seeds do use up the food unless frozen.


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## BAYLOR (Mar 23, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> It's a myth though. Seeds do use up the food unless frozen.



But in the Egyptian desert, with a dry arid climate how can the seed do anything without water?


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 23, 2015)

It will dry out and die.
For years I believed it


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## BAYLOR (Mar 23, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> It will dry out and die.
> For years I believed it



I looked up just now , your absolutely  correct. 

I believed it too.  I never bothered to investigate it until now.


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 24, 2015)

I also used to believe that glass flowed, so that it's thicker at the bottom of a Mediaeval church window. It is thicker, because it was made that way, glass can't flow as fast as that.
I used to believe that Mediaeval people or at time of Columbus thought the world was flat (they didn't, that's a myth invented in Victorian era!). The REAL reason for opposition was they knew Japan was FAR further away west than the ships could carry water or food. But Columbus may "really" have been aiming for Americas as he might  have studied Greenland Tithe records to Rome.
I even believed that Kennedy called himself a donut in Berlin. He didn't.
It's amazing the myths one picked up in school days long before the Internet.

I never believed in Fairies or Tinkerbell. Well, not entirely.


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## BAYLOR (Mar 24, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> I also used to believe that glass flowed, so that it's thicker at the bottom of a Mediaeval church window. It is thicker, because it was made that way, glass can't flow as fast as that.
> I used to believe that Mediaeval people or at time of Columbus thought the world was flat (they didn't, that's a myth invented in Victorian era!). The REAL reason for opposition was they knew Japan was FAR further away west than the ships could carry water or food. But Columbus may "really" have been aiming for Americas as he might  have studied Greenland Tithe records to Rome.
> I even believed that Kennedy called himself a donut in Berlin. He didn't.
> It's amazing the myths one picked up in school days long before the Internet.
> ...



The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round .   Eratosthenese without the benefit of modern instruments, deduced the circumference of the Earth around 240- 45  BC . He was off by about 100 miles.


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## Ray McCarthy (Mar 24, 2015)

Indeed, no-one that thought about it much ever believed the Earth was flat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_myth

Kennedy and Donuts
http://www.snopes.com/language/misxlate/berliner.asp

Does Glass flow, Old Church windows show it?
http://www.glassnotes.com/WindowPanes.html
http://io9.com/the-glass-is-a-liquid-myth-has-finally-been-destroyed-496190894

So some days I wonder what other myths I picked up at school?
Either I misheard almost everything the English teachers said, or I had unusually rubbish ones. I've had to unlearn a lot to learn to write.

Maybe we need thread for myths we have believed for years and belatedly been cured of.


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## BAYLOR (Mar 24, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Indeed, no-one that thought about it much ever believed the Earth was flat.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_myth
> 
> Kennedy and Donuts
> ...




That sounds like pretty good idea for a a new topic thread.


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## Stephen Palmer (Mar 24, 2015)

We could call it the "QI Thread"


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## Faisal Shamas (Apr 7, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> The ancient Greeks knew the earth was round .   Eratosthenese without the benefit of modern instruments, deduced the circumference of the Earth around 240- 45  BC . He was off by about 100 miles.



The question is how much common Greek believed this, it does not take mere reason but power to convince people. If science was not accompanied by wonderful technologies that changed the world, a lot of people would discredit it.


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 7, 2015)

Faisal Shamas said:


> The question is how much common Greek believed this, it does not take mere reason but power to convince people. If science was not accompanied by wonderful technologies that changed the world, a lot of people would discredit it.



Believe me Faisal, loads of people even accompanied by the wonderful technologies still discredit science. Tried to explain to someone who sits most of the day in front of a computer that is integral for his job, plays games on consoles, uses a smart phone etc... why understanding Quantum mechanics was worthwhile i.e. look at all these things that you use and are integrated into your life that relied on QM to get going (admittedly for good and bad, but still...) and this process is ongoing and more things will be created from this amazing piece of theoretical and experimental work that says so much about our reality but his reaction was 'so what, they'd be invented anyway' 

I'd probably should have been more eloquent but then it was in a pub so probably wasn't the sharpest by that stage of the night.


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## Faisal Shamas (Apr 7, 2015)

Venusian Broon said:


> Believe me Faisal, loads of people even accompanied by the wonderful technologies still discredit science. Tried to explain to someone who sits most of the day in front of a computer that is integral for his job, plays games on consoles, uses a smart phone etc... why understanding Quantum mechanics was worthwhile i.e. look at all these things that you use and are integrated into your life that relied on QM to get going (admittedly for good and bad, but still...) and this process is ongoing and more things will be created from this amazing piece of theoretical and experimental work that says so much about our reality but his reaction was 'so what, they'd be invented anyway'
> 
> I'd probably should have been more eloquent but then it was in a pub so probably wasn't the sharpest by that stage of the night.



And its not their minds really. I have found people capable of thought. It is just that they are lazy bums who just want pleasure from life and there is a trend towards this sheepishness. A big reason for my misanthropy and nihilism apart from my own failing.


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## BAYLOR (Apr 7, 2015)

Faisal Shamas said:


> And its not their minds really. I have found people capable of thought. It is just that they are lazy bums who just want pleasure from life and there is a trend towards this sheepishness. A big reason for my misanthropy and nihilism apart from my own failing.



In my case , Id like to find out the answers to life the universe and everything.  I just don't think science in of itself is enough to find out those things. Science is a wonderful and very useful tool  for finding  facts ,  mathematical formulas , various laws explaining  light, gravity , magnetism  and why some stars go nova and some don't ect and  why there is only one proper way to set up a lawn chair . But there is  more out then what we can calculate and see.


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## BAYLOR (Apr 8, 2015)

My Favorite Shakespeare Quote " There are more things in heaven Horatio then are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hardly scientific but this quote says a lot.


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