This photo does not show the discovery -- Russian scientists revived a different plant in 2012
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 29, 2020 at 10:40
- 3 min read
- By AFP Sri Lanka
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The image was published in this post on June 22, 2020, and has been shared more than 2,300 times.
The Sinhala-language text superimposed on the image translates to English as: “Russian scientists these days are working on resurrecting a variety of flowers that bloomed in the vicinity of the polar caps, some 32,000 years ago. As a squirrel that lived in the ice age had taken a seed of the plant to another location, the scientists have been able to breed the plant using that seed.”
The same image was shared here and here alongside a similar claim.
The photo has been shared in a misleading context.
A reverse image search on Google for the photo found this Getty Images picture. It is captioned: “Purple Arctic Flowers and Icebergs from Jakobshavn Glacier - stock photo.”
The caption goes on to state: “Icebergs from the Jacobshavn glacier or Sermeq Kujalleq drains 7% of the Greenland ice sheet and is the largest glacier outside of Antarctica. It calves enough ice in one day to supply New York with water for one year. It is one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world at up to 40 meters per day (19 meters per day before 2002) and has also receded rapidly (40 km since 1850) due to human induced climate change as temperatures have risen in Greenland by 9 degrees fahrenheit in the last 60 years. An underwater moraine at the mouth of the fjord grounds the largest icebergs causing a backlog of ice completely blocking the entire length of the fjord with ice.”
There is no mention of the purported study by Russian scientists.
The purple arctic flower, also known as the purple saxifrage, is among one of the earliest flowers to bloom in the Arctic during spring.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in the misleading posts (L) and the Getty Images photo (R):
A keyword search on Google found the reference to a study by Russian scientists relates to a breakthrough in resurrecting a 32,000-year-old flower in 2012. This New York Times article published on February 20, 2012, is titled “Dead for 32,000 years, an Arctic plant is revived.”
According to the piece, scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences were successful in reviving the Arctic flower.
The article reads: “Living plants have been generated from the fruit of a little arctic flower, the narrow-leafed campion, that died 32,000 years ago, a team of Russian scientists reports. The fruit was stored by an arctic ground squirrel in its burrow on the tundra of northeastern Siberia and lay permanently frozen until excavated by scientists a few years ago.
“This would be the oldest plant by far that has ever been grown from ancient tissue. The present record is held by a date palm grown from a seed some 2,000 years old that was recovered from the ancient fortress of Masada in Israel.”
National Geographic also published a piece on February 20, 2012, on the same success. The article quotes one of the lead scientists, Svetlana Yashina, who said the successfully revived plant variety -- S.Stenophylla -- is still around, but the ancient plants are “subtly different to their modern counterparts”.
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