Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Russian scientists discovered a cache of fruit and seeds that had been preserved in a squirrel burrow on the frozen banks of a Siberian river. It may seem like science fiction, but a newly published research paper recounts how an ice age flowering plant was regenerated using modern agricultural technology.
The paper was published in the Feb. 21 issue of the U.S. "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The researchers work was also reported in the English version of Pravda.
According to journal reports, Russian researchers were able to bring back to life an extinct flower from frozen plant tissues said to be more than 30,000 years old. It is the oldest plant to have been regenerated. Amazingly, it was still fertile and able to produce viable white flowers and seeds. The plant is called Silene stenophylla.
The remarkable preservation of the plant material was attributable to an ice age squirrel who lined his burrow with hay and then animal fur, inadvertently forming a perfect storage chamber in the Siberian permafrost. The ice age squirrel burrow was about the size of a soccer ball. Stanislav Gubin, one of the researchers, said he believes it's "a natural cryobank."
This development paves the way for a long-awaited possible regeneration of large mammals like mammoths, using modern lab techniques.
Archeologists routinely excavate fossilized squirrel burrows to identify food sources and plant materials available in a specific region during archeological digs. However, the twist in the Russian research was that because of the permafrost, the materials excavated were still vital.
The excavated burrow yielded a treasure trove of preserved fruit and seeds. Scientists, using modern agricultural propagation technology, were able to regenerate the ice age plant and re-grow it.
The research was conducted by the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Lead researcher Svetlana Yashina led the work of tissue regeneration. She said, “(it is) much like its modern version (of the plant), which continues to grow in the same area of Siberia.”
"It's a very viable plant, and it adapts really well," Yashina said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press in the Russian town of Pushchino, where her lab is located.
This development paves the way for a long-awaited possible regeneration of large mammals like mammoths, using modern lab techniques.
Russian scientists have been searching for a suitable mammoth specimen in the permafrost. They hope to bring back to life a mammoth, since the technology to accomplish regeneration is already advanced enough to accomplish the task.
The Russians are not the only country hoping to find a mammoth to regenerate. They have also allowed Japanese scientists who also are on the same quest into Siberia. In effect, it is a friendly competition to see who will find a mammoth first and succeed.
Gubins said, "It's our land; we will try to get them first."
Mel Borup Chandler is a science contributor. His E-mail address is [mbccomentator@roadrunner.com](<mailto: mbccomentator@roadrunner.com>).
