'Cherry tree from space' mystery baffles Japan

So four cherry trees went into space... While there, they were bombarded by comic rays, altering their DNA.

Now they'll fight for the planet Earth, defending it against all forms of menace, both terrestrial and from galaxies unknown.

It's clobberin' time!

Just wait till Monsanto hears about this, we'll be eating space cherries for breakfast!

Any comment from UNIT or Torchwood?

Or the seedlings might have prematurely aged. Its circumstantial without larger sample size and further testing.

Does that mean that the astronaust will also start to pre-maturely age?

Interesting, the article does not touch on electromagnetic radiation from our sun. The affect on the stone and probable genetic mutation from both cosmic radiation and our sun.

Still, in a conservative culture where denial about radiation and genetic distortion is modelled by leadership, why is that surprising?

The symbolism in this ancient cherry tree, it's metaphor and mutated stone raising serious cultural questions. Particularly about the acceptance of a new mythology being created around radioactive contamination.

We know that radiation ages living things. Maybe the scientists should take some samples and look at the tree's telomeres and see how it compares to one of the same age. The Einstein paradox may have a new twist. If one twin goes into space and the other says home for 40 years, the twin that when into space may not have age by time as much as the one on earth but may looks just as old as his earth bound twin.

Must be that space dust fertilizer!

Aliens

Can't wait till cherry trees grow tentacles

I'm not saying it was aliens....but it must have been aliens

"Mutation"??? UV rays, cosmic rays?

More April Fool jokes?

I sense an Evil Dead scenario coming.....

I think its because of a variety of things missing during it's time in space probably threw it's bio clock off. Gravity, solar rays filtered through the ozone layer, and the rotational time period between night and day. This kind of helps let us know what would happen if we started to plant seeds on Mars or some other planet in order to terraform. It will sprout quickly and attempt to make seedlings as soon as possible :). This bodes well in that regard.

How much for a space melon?

Maybe things grow faster in low gravity? Build a moon base and find out.

Next ... let's go to Mars ... and plant some seeds there ... and see if they take root and bloom. Moreover, send seeds from real cherry-bearing trees and see if we can get some real eatable cherries in space.

For those of you young-ones who might end up on Mars sometime down the road in the future, this might lead to "local" grown food on that mysterious Red Planet ...

The seeds were sent to the ISS as part of “an educational and cultural project to let children gather the stones and learn how they grow into trees and live on after returning from space,”

I am not children or even young any more, but this interest me as well. I hope they will publish more research results in the future. (Although I think that this test was supposed to prove that space travel is safe.)

If radiation did it then Fukushima's radiation will bring cherries the size of watermelons.

I shudder at the thought of what else they might bring out there to sprout!!

Proof that radiation really is responisble for fast-growing mutations! Yes Japan, in a few years Gojira is coming to stomp Tokyo flat. In real life.