Ancient microbes 'revived' in lab

[cheeseyfatmonkey]

Ancient Microbe Stuff

I thought this was pretty interesting. Actually when I first read it I thought 'Shite this will be the end of us' until I read further that this is happening all the time naturally.

It was making me giggle thinking about the really old bacteria having walking sticks and complaining that the TV isn't loud enough.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

That is quite interesting. The fact that the bacteria were less viable the longer they were trapped has implications for other reported discoveries of trapped bacteria. In particular, about 5 or 10 years ago a group claimed to have extracted and revived bacteria from fluid inclusions in 260 million year old salt deposits. That was met with some skepticism because of the possibility for contamination, and this new work would seem to confirm that skepticism. Although the salt may have been buried out of the reach of cosmic radiation sooner than these ice bacteria, it seems unlikely that bacteria could survive for hundreds of millions of years without getting a lot of genetic damage.

-MEC