""We were amazed. We did not predict that," Paul said. "That told us that the lunar soils didn't interrupt the hormones and signals involved in plant germination."" scitechdaily By UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA Image: In this 2021 photo provided by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, a researcher at a laboratory in Gainesville, Fla., places a thale cress plant grown during a lunar soil experiment in a vial for genetic analysis. (Tyler Jones/UF/IFAS/The Associated Press) Scientists have grown plants in soil from the Moon, a first in human history and a watershed moment in lunar and space exploration. In a new research paper published in the journal Communications Biology on May 12, 2022, University of Florida scientists showed that plants can successfully sprout and grow in lunar soil. Their study also looked into how plants respond biologically to the Moon's soil, also known as lunar regolith, which is radically different from typical soil found on Earth.