Mysterious 1,000-year-old seed grown into 10-foot-tall tree and the species could even have been mentioned in the Bible

From tinsel to Tamagotchis, rampant nostalgia has become the new normal — and even scientists aren’t immune from taking a wistful look backward.But their nerdy passion for the past is driven by a sense of real purpose.There’s the “world’s first de-extinction company,” a celeb-backed bioscience outfit aiming to return the “wooly mammoth” by 2028, said to possibly help in “reversing the rapid warming of the climate.” Experts are also working to revive plants from Biblical times to “study their evolution and genetic diversity,” that could in turn advance modern medicine, CNN reported.Back during the era of Ronald Reagan, heavy metal music and Aqua Net, archeologists in Israel uncovered what is said to have been a “pristine seed” in a cave in the Judean desert, according to the outlet.Dr.Sarah Sallon, who founded the Louis L.

Borick Natural Medicine Research Center in nearby Jerusalem, oversaw the planting of the seed much later on, roughly twelve years ago — in hopes that it might grow.Five weeks later, a shoot appeared, and after undergoing testing, the seed was dated at a whopping 1,000 years old.The test results revealed the so-called “mystery tree” to be part of Commiphora genus, or a member of the myrrh family.Myrrh is mostly known in the modern era as a player in the biblical account of the three wise men paying tribute at Jesus’ birth.And though they’re not exactly sure of the specific origins, researchers say their little time traveler could be the source of a medicinal extract historically associated with the era and mentioned in the Bible, known as “tsori.”The tree, which the team has named “Sheba,” has grown to be ten feet tall, though it has yet to flower or produce any fruit, the outlet shared.The leafy findings were published last month in the journal Communications Biology....