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“Jurassic Park,” and its genetically modified dinosaur escapees, is pure science fiction — it’s never going to happen. But it doesn’t mean that scientists aren’t interested in bringing the past back to life in some form.
Projects to resurrect animals that have gone extinct more recently — the mammoth, dodo and Tasmanian tiger — are reaching an inflection point, although the goal is to create a hybrid approximation of those creatures, not carbon copies.
Researchers are also mining ancient DNA for a potential source of new molecular-based drugs. Still others are reviving historical plants to study their evolution and genetic diversity, which could one day help humans benefit from long-lost species with medicinal properties.
Dig this
In the 1980s, archaeologists unearthed a pristine seed in a cave in the Judean Desert. Decades later, Dr. Sarah Sallon, founder of the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center in Jerusalem, formed a different study team that planted it to see what would happen.
To the researchers’ surprise, five weeks later up popped a tiny shoot, a fragment of which the scientists were able to date: The seed was a staggering 1,000 years old.
Remarkably, the tree thrived and now stands 10 feet (3 meters) tall, although it has never flowered or produced fruit.
Using DNA sequencing, the researchers identified the mystery tree as part of the Commiphora genus, but its exact species is unknown and likely extinct. The team believes it might have a link to a healing plant mentioned in the Bible.
Once upon a planet
Mount Everest towers more than 29,000 feet (8,850 meters) above sea level.
Its origin story began about 40 million to 50 million years ago when landmasses on two slabs of Earth’s crust — the India and Eurasian plates — collided in slow motion and crumpled the terrain, raising rocky peaks that over millions of years became the Himalayan mountain range.
That ancient collision is still lifting the Himalayas, but Everest is growing faster than expected — at a rate of about 0.08 inch (2 millimeters) per year, rather than the expected 0.04 inch (1 millimeter) per year.
According to new research, this extra boost results from a more recent geological incident — an act of “river piracy.”
A long time ago
Archaeologists in Åsum, Denmark, have excavated a large Viking-era burial ground, first spotted during work to renovate the electrical grid.
The team has unearthed more than 50 extraordinarily well-preserved skeletons, including the remains of a woman buried in a wagon with a glass bead necklace, an iron key and other fine trappings.
Also uncovered were an intricately ornate bronze brooch and artifacts from far beyond Denmark’s borders, suggesting Vikings traveled extensively for trade.
Scientists aim to extract DNA from the remains to learn more about those buried there and whether they were related.
Trailblazers
Some of the sharpest minds in science will be thrust from academic obscurity into the spotlight next week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine are announced.
The accolades, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, celebrate transformative work that is often decades in the making.
It’s notoriously tricky to predict who will win a Nobel Prize. The short list remains secret, as do the nominators, and documents revealing the details of the selection process are sealed from public view for 50 years.
However, there is no shortage of Nobel-worthy discoveries: Here are five life-changing breakthroughs that haven’t clinched a prize — at least not yet.
Fantastic creatures
Once found on three continents, the northern bald ibis was one of the rarest birds in the world by the 1990s. By then, hunting, habitat loss and the use of pesticides reduced the species’ global population in the wild to just 59 pairs — all in Morocco.
Today, tenacious conservation efforts have increased the population to more than 500, resulting in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species changing the birds’ status in 2018 from critically endangered to endangered.
Thanks to a reintroduction program, the distinctive birds are back migrating in Europe for the first time since the 1600s, with a managed population of around 270 birds.
However, the zoo-raised ibises didn’t initially know where to go. Austrian biologist Johannes Fritz, who leads conservation and research group Waldrappteam, devised an ingenious solution that involved personally teaching the migration path by leading the flock in an ultralight aircraft.
Explorations
Make time for these astonishing reads:
— Voyager 2 is down a scientific instrument but not out. NASA hopes the 47-year-old spacecraft will continue to operate into the 2030s.
— Undersea investigators found the wreck of a US Navy destroyer known as the “Ghost Ship of the Pacific,” saying it was in “exceptional” condition.
— When a massive asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, ants began farming a food source that became widely available in the aftermath.
— Marvel at these striking images of this week’s annular solar eclipse and learn the next opportunity to witness a solar event.
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