A bit of history in space

Very cool -- from the UK Guardian:

Isaac Newton's apple tree to experience zero gravity � in space
A British astronaut is planning a unique test of Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravity � by taking an original piece of the scientist's famous apple tree on a 5m-mile journey into space.

Sussex-born Piers Sellers plans to release the 10cm fragment in zero gravity during his 12-day mission at the international space station, as a tribute to Newton's discovery in 1666, when he watched an apple fall to the ground in his garden.

"I'll take it up and let it float around for a bit, which will confuse Isaac," said the 55-year-old Nasa astronaut, a veteran of two previous shuttle missions and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh.

"While it's up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple on it, the apple wouldn't fall � Sir Isaac would have loved to see this, assuming he wasn't spacesick, as it would have proved his first law of motion to be correct."

The tree fragment, engraved with the scientist's name, is stowed aboard the shuttle Atlantis at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting Friday's blast-off.

This is a fragment cut from the original tree. A very cool thing is that Apples do not breed true from the seed -- if you have a Cameo apple and plant the seeds, you will get something entirely different. In order to make new Cameo apple trees, you need to get a bit of the branch and graft it onto some suitable rootstock. The rootstock determines the size and climate tolerance the tree will have and the Scion (fancy name for the bit of branch) will determine the kind of fruit. This leads up to the bit of info that you can buy apple trees that are grafted from Newton's original tree -- a bit of fun history to own...