There's a great movie concept here if anyone wants it.
As usual, the researchers were seeking singled-celled organisms, the only life-forms thought to be viable after millennia locked in the permafrost. They placed the frozen material on petri dishes in their room-temperature lab and noticed something strange. Hulking among the puny bacteria and amoebae were long, segmented worms complete with a head at one end and anus at the other – nematodes.
“Of course we were surprised and very excited,” Vishnivetskaya said. Clocking in at a half-millimeter long, the nematodes that wriggled back to life were the most complex creatures Vishnivetskaya — or anyone else – had ever revived after a lengthy deep freeze.
She estimated one nematode to be 41,000 years old – by far the oldest living animal ever discovered. This very worm dwelled in the soil beneath Neanderthals’ feet and had lived to meet modern-day humans in Vishnivetskaya’s high-tech laboratory.
Experts suggested that nematodes are well-equipped to endure millennia locked in permafrost. “These buggers survive just about everything,” said Gaetan Borgonie, a nematode researcher at Extreme Life Isyensya in Gentbrugge, Belgium, who was not involved in Vishnivetskaya’s study. He said nematodes are ubiquitous across Earth’s diverse habitats. Borgonie has found teeming communities of nematodes two miles below Earth’s surface, in South African mine shafts with scant oxygen and scalding heat.
As usual, the researchers were seeking singled-celled organisms, the only life-forms thought to be viable after millennia locked in the permafrost. They placed the frozen material on petri dishes in their room-temperature lab and noticed something strange. Hulking among the puny bacteria and amoebae were long, segmented worms complete with a head at one end and anus at the other – nematodes.
“Of course we were surprised and very excited,” Vishnivetskaya said. Clocking in at a half-millimeter long, the nematodes that wriggled back to life were the most complex creatures Vishnivetskaya — or anyone else – had ever revived after a lengthy deep freeze.
She estimated one nematode to be 41,000 years old – by far the oldest living animal ever discovered. This very worm dwelled in the soil beneath Neanderthals’ feet and had lived to meet modern-day humans in Vishnivetskaya’s high-tech laboratory.
Experts suggested that nematodes are well-equipped to endure millennia locked in permafrost. “These buggers survive just about everything,” said Gaetan Borgonie, a nematode researcher at Extreme Life Isyensya in Gentbrugge, Belgium, who was not involved in Vishnivetskaya’s study. He said nematodes are ubiquitous across Earth’s diverse habitats. Borgonie has found teeming communities of nematodes two miles below Earth’s surface, in South African mine shafts with scant oxygen and scalding heat.
1 comment:
I think they already made this movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120152/
Post a Comment