2,000-Year-Old Seed Sprouts, Sapling Is Thriving

John Roach, writing for National Geographic News (November 22, 2005), reports that researchers in Israel who started with a date seed that's about 2,000 years old now have a plant that's about three feet high and doing well, thanks. As if that weren't a good enough story, the seed was one of a batch of seeds taken from an excavation at Masada, the historic Jewish fortress.

hat tip: Crossing the Rubicon2