Scientists Revive Ancient Worm , Frozen For Tens of Thousands of Years.
CNN reports that scientists have
revived a 46,000-year-old worm found
frozen in the Siberian permafrost. .
CNN reports that scientists have
revived a 46,000-year-old worm found
frozen in the Siberian permafrost. .
The previously unknown species of roundworm, which lived
at a time when wooly mammoths still roamed the Earth,
survived far below the surface of the permafrost.
The previously unknown species of roundworm, which lived
at a time when wooly mammoths still roamed the Earth,
survived far below the surface of the permafrost.
According to Teymuras Kurzchalia, the worm
survived in a dormant state known as cryptobiosis. .
Kurzchalia, a professor emeritus at the Max Planck
Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics,
says the crytobiotic state is "between life and death.".
Cryptobiosis allows an organism to survive the
complete absence of water or oxygen and even
withstand extreme heat or freezing temperatures.
According to Kurzchalia, previous
research into cryptobiosis saw organisms
revived after decades rather than millennia.
CNN reports that radiocarbon analysis established that
the deposits where the worms were found had last
been thawed between 45,839 and 47,769 years ago.
To see that the same biochemical
pathway is used in a species which
is 200, 300 million years away,
that’s really striking, Philipp Schiffer, Research group leader of the Institute
of Zoology at the University of Cologne, via CNN.
It means that some processes in
evolution are deeply conserved, Philipp Schiffer, Research group leader of the Institute
of Zoology at the University of Cologne, via CNN.
By looking at and analyzing these
animals, we can maybe inform conservation
biology, or maybe even develop efforts to
protect other species, or at least learn
what to do to protect them in these
extreme conditions that we have now, Philipp Schiffer, Research group leader of the Institute
of Zoology at the University of Cologne, via CNN