Methuselah

"Jurassic Park" aside, it's always neat when a window into the past suddenly appears. There's been quite a few the last several years, from the skeletons of the little "Hobbit" people in Southeast Asia, to the "Ice Man" in the Alps, to the half-blackened blob suddenly discovered in the back of the fridge the other day. Tests on this last item are still being run, and we should discover information about it anytime now.

But I digress... this article mentions the growth of an ancient date palm seed in Israel-- a seed that is estimated to be 2,000 years old. The little sprout has been named "Methuselah" and is so far thriving. Whether it will blossom and lead to the revival of the date palms of the ancient Middle East or not remains to be seen, but I still think it's utterly amazing that something like this has taken place, that we are afforded a chance to revisit life from centuries ago.

Even today, in our modern world where plants, flowers, seeds, and food undergo all kinds of tinkering, grafting, engineering, and manipulation to create the "perfect" look or taste, it's neat to think that we have the potential opportunity to taste dates (that is, assuming Methuselah is female!) as they must have tasted in the days of the Roman Empire, before the Judean Disapora. Although humanity seems determined to pave over the world, it delights me that we still have opportunities to see things not as they are or will be, but as they once were, and in the process, maybe understand better who we are and where we came from.

I'll be quite curious to follow the progress of this seedling, and see if the ancient date palm has truly survived, or if this is just a cosmic fluke.