An interest in traditional herbal remedies is what motivated Hadassah Medical Center ethnobotanist Sarah Sallon to search for ancient medicinal plants. What she found were viable 2,000-year-old seeds recovered from Masada and other sites around the Dead Sea. Amazingly, six of those seeds germinated and have grown into viable date palm plants.
To learn more about her astonishing work, read the report from NPR here. Science magazine also reported on her results here.