The Israel Antiquities Authority is collaborating with Google to put all of the Dead Sea Scrolls online for free.  From Device Magazine:

As part of the celebrations on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its establishment, the Israel Antiquities Authority is launching a unique project – The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library – to document the entire collection of  the Dead Sea Scrolls. A major lead gift from the Leon Levy Foundation, with additional major funding from the Arcadia Foundation and the support of Yad Hanadiv Foundation, will enable the Israel Antiquities Authority to use the most advanced and innovative technologies available to image the entire collection of 900 manuscripts comprising c. 30,000 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments in hi-resolution and multi spectra and make the digitized images freely available and accessible to anyone anywhere in the world on the internet.  This is the first time that the collection of Scrolls will be photographed in its entirety since the 1950’s. The IAA announced this morning that it is collaborating with the Google R&D center in Israel in this milestone project to upload not only all of the digitized Scrolls images but also additional data online that will allow users to perform meaningful searches across a broad range of data in a number of languages and formats, which will result in unprecedented scholarly and popular access to the Scrolls and related research and scholarship and should lead to new insights into the world of the Scrolls.

The full story is here.  Many other similar articles can be found here.

A few years ago, scientists succeeded in raising a date palm tree from a 2,000-year-old seed found at Masada.  Now botanists are attempting to revive the balsam plant.  From an article published last week in Haaretz:

Saplings of the balsam plant that have been cultivated in Kibbutz Ein Gedi’s botanical garden for the past two years are a first test of the possibility of bringing the legendary bush, which flourished in the Second Temple period, back to the Dead Sea region, two scholars told a Jerusalem audience yesterday.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Elad association in Jerusalem’s City of David, Prof. Zohar Amar and Dr. David Iluz of Bar-Ilan University described their research into the plant’s identity.
Since the 1970s, there have been several failed attempts to acclimate the plant believed to be balsam, one of ancient Palestine’s most economically significant plants, to modern-day Israel. But the staff of Ein Gedi’s botanical garden are optimistic that the current effort will succeed.
The plant is mentioned dozens of times in ancient sources, from the Bible to the Talmud, as well as in Greek and Roman writings. The most prestigious perfume known in the ancient Near East was produced from it, and it was also known for its healing qualities.
The balsam plantations in the Dead Sea area were under direct royal control, and the methods of cultivation and production were a closely guarded secret and a powerful political tool. For example, the balsam groves in Jericho became a bone of contention between Cleopatra of Egypt and Herod the Great. During the Bar Kokhba Revolt, in the second century CE, Jewish fighters uprooted the plants so they would not be captured by the Romans.

The story continues here.  There is quite a bit of variety in the translations for balsam, but you may recall some of these:

Genesis 37:25 (HCSB) Then they sat down to eat a meal. They looked up, and there was a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead.  Their camels were carrying aromatic gum, balsam, and resin, going down to Egypt. 

2 Samuel 5:23 (NIV) so David inquired of the Lord, and he answered, “Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees.

Song of Solomon 5:13 (NAS) 
“His cheeks are like a bed of balsam,
Banks of sweet-scented herbs;
His lips are lilies
Dripping with liquid myrrh.

HT: Joe Lauer