The Cherry Tree that has been in space

[Honza]

This morning I read about a Cherry Tree which has grown from a pip which was in space for 8 months aboard the International Space Station.

The pip was taken from a 1200 year old tree, which has not produced any saplings in years. The sapling from the 'space pip' has grown rapidly and has started to flower before it has reached maturity. Not only that the flowers have five petals only instead of the normal 30 or so.

How weird is that? Is it the influence of cosmic rays?

[linen53]

Now this is really cool!

Here is a link to the story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ing-early.html

Best part is this tree was planted next to a Buddhist temple. Wonder what the significance of all this is.