In 2005 news first circulated of a palm tree in Israel growing from a seed recovered at Masada, the old Roman fortress taken over by Sicarii Jewish rebels and retaken by Romans in one of the bloodiest, best-known sieges in ancient warfare. The seed was 2000 years old and is thus the most ancient seed known to have germinated.

Then last year another burst of stories (see earlier post, March 1, 2007) described the date palm’s continuing growth.

And now in Science magazine comes results of further radiocarbon dating by Israeli researchers that reconfirms the age of the so-called Methuselah palm. Most outlets treat it as a first break of this story. The art of checking clips – made much easier with the likes of Google – is a fading one. One of the backers of further research plans to test the palm for medicinal properties. She is inspired by Biblical accounts that the trees, which are extinct (or were, depending on whether this one can be propagated) were used for such. Should not such speculation be treated with just a ray of skepticism by hard-nosed reporters? None do.

Stories:

Voice of America Jessica Berman tells the story from scratch, but leaves out that it’s been around for awhile ; LiveScience Clara Moskowitz ; AAAS ScienceNOW Emma Gatti ; Daily Mail (UK) David Derbyshire has it under a hed proclaiming it as the “Jesus Tree.” That seems a tad numbskulled, likely by an editor, as the historic interest revolved entirely around Judaism ; AP Randolph E. Schmid ; Telegraph (UK) Roger Highfield does say the new study confirms the antiquity of the seed, but not that this tree is somewhat famous in Israel already ; Los Angeles Times Wendy Hansen ;

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.