seeds have been used as beads in necklaces and rosaries including Job's tears, Chinaberry, rosary pea, and castor bean. However, the latter three are also poisonous. Other seed uses include: Seeds once used as weights for balances. Seeds used as toys by children, such as for the game Conkers. Resin from Clusia rosea seeds used to caulk boats. Nematicide from milkweed seeds. Cottonseed meal used as animal feed and fertilizer. Seed records The oldest viable carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005. (A reported regeneration of Silene stenophylla (narrow-leafed campion) from material preserved for 31,800 years in the Siberian permafrost was achieved using fruit tissue, not seed.) The largest seed is produced by the coco de mer, or "double coconut palm", Lodoicea maldivica. The entire fruit may weigh up to 23 kilograms (50 pounds) and usually contains a single seed. The smallest seeds are produced by epiphytic orchids. They are only 85 micrometers long, and weigh 0.81 micrograms. They have no endosperm and contain underdeveloped embryos. The earliest fossil seeds are around 365 million years old from the Late Devonian of West Virginia. The seeds are preserved immature ovules of the plant Elkinsia polymorpha. In religion The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament begins with an explanation of how all plant forms began: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. The Quran speaks of seed germination thus: It is Allah Who causeth the seed-grain and the date-stone to split and sprout. He causeth the living to issue from the dead, and He is the one to cause the dead to issue from the living. That is Allah: then how are ye deluded away from the truth? See also Biological dispersal Carpology Genetically modified crops List of world's largest seeds Recalcitrant seed Seed company Seed enhancement Seed library Seed orchard Seed paper