Bacteria were brought back to life after 8 million years in deep freezing
Bacteria that were frozen in the valleys of the earliest glaciers on Earth were thawed and brought back to life in the laboratory, providing new insights into how long living things can be kept frozen.
However, the frail health of the thawed bacteria has led the researchers who discovered them to question the claim, dear to some people's hearts, that life on Earth arrived here with the help of comets from outside the solar system.
After thawing ice samples from Mullins Valley and Beacon Valley in Antarctica, microbiologists from Rutgers University in New Jersey discovered living organisms in the water from the oldest samples, estimated to be about 8 million years old.
Living bacteria had already been discovered earlier in ancient ice from another site in Antarctica, but their age was estimated to be no more than 300,000 years.
"By finding bacteria in ice that are up to 8 million years old, our research expands our knowledge about which bacteria keep alive."
However, while some bacteria taken from 100,000-year-old ice samples multiplied easily and quickly, cells from the oldest ice samples multiplied very slowly and their DNA was extremely damaged. Tests of DNA fragments isolated from those samples showed that the genetic material gradually decayed as time passed.
By analyzing ice samples aged between 100,000 and 8 million years, the researchers calculated the "half-life of DNA"; DNA segments in ice lose an average of half their length every 1.1 million years. This decomposition process is consistent with the theory that DNA is damaged by the impact of cosmic radiation.
The researchers believe that this half-life makes the idea, according to which life arrived on Earth on comets outside the solar system, "highly improbable". "If you take into account the speed of the comet and the distance it has to travel, it will take more than eight million years. DNA in the comet will completely disintegrate."
But not all researchers are convinced that this study proves that life was not carried on comets from outside the solar system to Earth. "I have to say that I don't understand how you can draw this conclusion from the ice-related observations from Beacon Valley," says Richard Huber, a NASA astrobiologist. According to him, ice and rocks can protect bacteria deep inside the comet from radiation.
Rutgers University researcher Paul Polkowski, who led the study, described these ancient bacteria as small, round cells that had been in a "dormant animal state for 8 million years." According to him, the increasing rate of melting of glaciers into the sea as a result of global warming may result in the release of new organisms into the sea, but this is not, in his opinion, a reason for special concern, since marine bacteria and viruses are less harmful to humans than terrestrial bacteria and viruses.
Russell Vreeland of the Institute for Ancient Biomaterials at West Chester University in Pennsylvania agrees with that assessment. According to him: "It seems that this phenomenon has been happening again and again for a very long time. Glaciers freeze and melt, rocks sink and erode. Bacteria have been involved in this process for 4 billion years. The earth serves as a gene pool for bacteria."
In a similar way, Polkowski and his colleagues also describe the glaciers as "genetic creatives" containing DNA acquired by existing bacteria after melting.
Vreeland says Polkowski made a "fascinating discovery," but at the same time claims there's a chance the ancient bacteria are actually very young. According to him, ice is a material that is very difficult to work with without contaminating it. The group of researchers led by Polkowski treated their samples with 95% ethanol and bleach, which according to Vreeland are not effective substances for sterilization. According to him: "I don't think it's impossible for bacteria to survive for such a long time, but I wouldn't use these techniques."
However, if Polkowski's findings are true, they may significantly extend the recorded history of DNA frozen in ice. Another team of researchers in Copenhagen, Denmark reported last month on DNA found in Greenland glaciers that were up to 800,000 years old.
For information in Nature
10 תגובות
Yes, I also immediately got fired up about it and how or if they do it without any "adequate protection".
But indeed it happens naturally all the time, although it is mandatory for these bacteria testers to isolate them just for the chance.
Like in Jurassic Park - expensive! D:
To Ami Bachar
I read your comment very carefully and it is possible that my conclusions were too extreme.
In any case, it is advisable to do the "resuscitation" carefully.
Thanks for your comment.
Sabdarmish Yehuda
The rulers of the Arab countries who are thinking day and night about the destruction of the State of Israel will think twice if they realize that there may not be many cousins left to be happy, therefore Mr. Yonatan, the disdain you direct towards the army, disdain that has become a fashionable thing among many commenters, is disgusting, and it would be better if you think twice
I also have a lot of complaints against me, but I strive for corrections and not slander.
Sabdarmish Yehuda
For a moment with Dudley
The existence of an institute for the development of biological warfare means in Nes Ziona has been published quite a bit, among other things in the context of the spy Marcus Klinghoffer. So calm down, censorship is a solution for idiots only.
And apart from that, what are all the Shushaish "institutes" and "institutions" helping us, the kind that are budgeted with billions of dollars by Uncle Sam, when gangs of plastic surgeons defeat and shamefully expel us from our land time and time again, with the help of weapons taken from the Stone Age? Did you think that the whole purpose of these institutions, including the IDF, is to serve as a workplace for all kinds of megalomaniacs who would otherwise be unemployed?
For a comment in the article about the difficulty in preserving organisms for thousands of years... well, in a previous article that dealt with this issue, I didn't want to add that it is very possible that the organisms begin their journey wrapped in a special preservative because it was written that they were found in a clay mixture!! But now there is a possibility to return to the idea of a special wrapping as is customary in nature in many cases. And maybe even a more complex mechanism to protect them on the long journey!!
It is also possible that some organisms are destined for a long journey of tens of millions of years and others for a shorter journey, and depending on the type of shell inside it, it will take some time until it comes into contact with an environment suitable for growth, of course the small percentage that will win it...as usual in nature!!
That is why the bacteria that were discovered do not necessarily teach about what is happening in space even if they came from space.. because in the meantime their covering has been removed and they are considered terrestrial bacteria!!
By the way about the distance..if indeed we are found from space (a very likely thing) and if one day organisms are discovered in their special state inside a comet..then maybe we can calculate the place they came from and we can point telescopes there for a more in-depth examination!!
I believe that the whole basis of biology was created in a special and suitable place (even if without a guiding hand or with) in space and from there the seeds were sent to spread throughout space and therefore we are only a small comma from creation and biological life is many times more enormous than what is here!!
As we know the activity of nature, it will not waste an entire universe on a few nomads in some small "and blue" ball!! When thousands more civilizations are discovered here, they will not understand how there used to be people who thought we were alone!
Sabdarmish Yehuda,
The "revival" of such bacteria happens naturally all the time. That's exactly what this study shows. You don't need a person to melt 8 million year old glaciers to revive ancient animals. It happens all the time and that's exactly what happened to Falkowski "genetic candy". With the natural melting of the ice, animals that disappeared from the world a long time ago are released into the body of water, thereby repeatedly enriching the variety of species on earth.
Bacteria from the environment can be dangerous but this is extremely rare. In particular, when it comes to physiological mechanisms that are very different in the animals of our time, so the chances are slim that those from the past will have a proper attack mechanism. Second, as mentioned, violent animals that can erupt every day and kill half the world exist today and have existed in the past. The fact is that such epidemics do not usually break out with high frequency (there is also an evolutionary explanation for why this happens).
In conclusion, in my humble opinion, the fear you express in your message seems to me to go a little beyond the limits of reason - although I understand the source of the fear.
Shabbat Shalom.
Just a moment - if I had to sort every comment before publishing I would have a lot of extra work on top of the lot of work I have. Therefore, I entered keywords that, if they appear in the message, will require my approval.
In my opinion, speculations about one or other institutes that were brought up in passing are at the writer's discretion and are still within the legitimate domain.
I don't know what professional knowledge is, but do you know anything about this other institute? I ask that you keep this knowledge to yourself and do not publish it as if everyone should know it, or you are really naive or you are really screwed in the head. Choose the correct answer.
I would recommend to the website editor to sort before the publication of a message such as messages that may publish harmful information
I am of course talking about the comment about an institute that exists or does not exist from the message above
1. There are many varieties of bacteria and viruses. Bacteria may form highly resistant spores. I don't know if frozen bacteria or spores lived here.
2. The fact that they managed to keep animals for about 8 million years does not add or subtract from the arguments that life arrived ("was seeded") on the earth by comets, etc. No one determined that a comet or meteorite should drift for millions of years in space before arriving here. Bacteria or virus spores may have drifted through space for much shorter periods of time.
3. Since the bacteria were brought back to life under laboratory conditions, it is likely that a much more dangerous operation was not carried out here, than those carried out under our noses and without our knowledge in institutes for the development of biological weapons (ie - Ness Ziona for example).
Either way, the research proves how resistant living organisms are to the most extreme conditions.
The resuscitation of bacteria whose quality is unknown and may cause a catastrophic epidemic is being done here!
Won't it seem to the commenters of the science site that something extremely dangerous is being done here?
Are these "resuscitation experiments" done with the necessary care?
Sabdarmish Yehuda