50 years ago, a 550-year-old seed sprouted
Since then, much older seeds have proved resilient

OLD GROWTH Fruit frozen for more than 30,000 years in a squirrel burrow in Siberia yielded this healthy, flowering plant in 2012.
S. Yashina et al/PNAS 2012
This article is only available to Science News subscribers.
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address to access our archives.
