The Etruscans prized amber as highly as gold. The Greeks mythologized it as the tears of Apollo’s daughters, solidified when they cried for their brother. Cultures stretching from Central America to the Far East, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, have used it both as a powerful medicine and as a medium for exquisite jewellery and fine works of art.

Today, scientists value amber even more than artists. 5.1. And unlike ordinary fossils, which are relatively crude rock molds of prehistoric life forms, these specimens are often perfectly preserved, with the most delicate features intact.

Recently David Grimaldi, an entomologist of New York City’s Museum of Natural History, has announced a discovery he calls ‘scientifically the most important of all amber fossils’. 5.2. That makes them the oldest intact plants ever found in a piece of amber, and an important clue to the origin of the plants that now dominate the earth.

The resin that eventually turns into amber comes from a variety of ancient trees, mostly conifers, including pines and extinct relatives of sequoias and cedars, but also some deciduous trees. It probably evolved as a defense against wood-boring insects. As it dripped down the bark, it acted like flypaper and encapsulated them, hermetically sealing the trees’ wounds at the same time. Apart from these creatures, which must have been its target, the resin would also trap anything else that happened to stumble into it. 5.3. Thanks to this abundance of samples surely some important insights into the workings of natural selection can be revealed.

As anybody who has seen the film Jurassic Park knows, plants and animals sealed in amber are a potential source of prehistoric DNA. Scientists have extracted genetic material from, among other things, a 17 million-year-old magnolia and a 120 million-year-old beetle. Yet, no serious biologist believes it will ever be possible to clone a dinosaur from just a few bits of DNA. Even so excellent a preservative as amber apparently can’t keep DNA from breaking down into fragments that may be scientifically interesting but are biologically inert. 5.4. One thing is certain, though. Whereas for artists any piece of amber is an uncut gem, for scientists only ones with a sample of a prehistoric life form trapped inside are exciting.

adapted from Time, 2006