8 million year old microbes resuscitated

some microbes found in antarctic ice, which have been frozen for around 8 milliion years have been resuscitated by scientists.

The researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and eight million years old and were able to extract DNA and microbes from them. More organisms were found in the young samples than in the old.

its kind of creepy to think it could have survived all that time. makes you wonder what else they will extract dna from if they find a few frozen animals from a few million years ago.

they also say that it is unlikely that earth was seeded by panspermia due to the cosmic radiation but also look forward to the phoenix probe arriving on mars to investigate the ice surface for evidence of life there.

full story

This whole thing, reminds me of a very bad horror movie gone real...
What will they do next? Hopefully this is going on in a very secure and controlled enviornment.

Genetics is just not meant to be a part of mans play ground, in my opinion.

Hmmm...shades of 'Jurassic Park' or what??

J.

Sometimes organisms are eliminated by Nature for a reason, how many times have we tampered with nature causing more harm than good?

On the other hand if the research is for medical purposes rather than profit then I'm all up for it.

I think it's fantastic that we can do this! Every day, we learn something new and exciting about our distant past.

On the other hand, it's giving me flashbacks to John Carpenter's version of The Thing when Kurt Russell puts the hot wire in the petri dishes full of blood and the blood screams and leaps out of the dish.

Originally posted by justyc

they also say that it is unlikely that earth was seeded by panspermia due to the cosmic radiation but also look forward to the phoenix probe arriving on mars to investigate the ice surface for evidence of life there.

I was watching a program last night called something like 'The Cosmos - a beginners guide with adam heart davies' it wern't great but ont bit was interesting.

They had a bloke chipping bacteria out of a cliff face in cornwall - apparently it is an Extremophile. The plan was for this stuff to be launched into orbit for 16 or so days by the ESA.

While up there the top of the orbiter was to open up and totally expose the bacteria to all the radiation etc up there. Been looking for a link be no joy so far - I'm certain it was being funded by ESA.

But those results would be very interesting when combined with what the OP has posted.

Originally posted by a1ex
Sometimes organisms are eliminated by Nature for a reason

They were not eliminated by nature. They were frozen in polar ice, that's just circumstance. If ever that ice had melted naturally the bacteria would have came back to life anyway.

Originally posted by ADVISOR
This whole thing, reminds me of a very bad horror movie gone real...
What will they do next? Hopefully this is going on in a very secure and controlled enviornment.

I should hope so. Hopefully, we developed an immune response to these bugs long ago, but you never know. They might be extremely nasty and could eat your face right off. Best to keep them all bottled up nice and tight until we know better.

Genetics is just not meant to be a part of mans play ground, in my opinion.

Oh, pooh. That's what they said when humans learned to make and control fire, too. "It'll burn down entire villages!"

[edit on 8-8-2007 by SuicideVirus]

Nothing can happen, and the fact of the matter is that the glaciers have been releasing these critters in cycles for millions of years. As they melt and then reform, microbes such as these have been released into the ocean, and are believed to be responsible for minor but positive changes in microbial life.

The way microbes evolve is through "gene trading" - to put it in simple terms. As they come across eachother, they will take from each other genes and parts of DNA that they somehow - chemically or otherwise - need or know will benefit them. I know, this sounds a little whacky, and I cant remember the actual technical term for it, Im sorry.

But the fact of the matter is, nothing could come about of these 8 million year old microbes due to the fact that their DNA is so broken up. The antarctic receives the highest amount of cosmic radiation on the planet. As the ice is bombarded by this radiation, so to is anything held within it.

It was found that these microbes had on average roughly 300 base pairs. Base pairs are your A G T C in DNA. The typical microbe has about 3 MILLION base pairs. These ancient organisms are so broken down that they take about 70 days to replicate, as opposed to more modern organisms that can take as little as a few hours or a day to replicate.

Now, can something be done with them scientifically to create some kind of "evil monster virus" that seems to be the common worry here? I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it beyond modern genetic engineering to figure something out with them.

I seriously doubt that we have anything to worry about, and as I stated earlier, these things have been released into nature in cycles over millions of years - if something bad was going to come of it, don't you think it would have happened already?


On another note - the visible destruction that cosmic radiation has inflicted on the DNA sequences of the microbes helps to disprove another commonly held theory: Life came from another solar system.

If life were to ride in on a comet from another solar system, it would be long degraded before it would ever reach our system, much less our planet. If cosmic radiation annihilated these microbes in the arctic, then just imagine what it would do to them on an unprotected comet - at least the ones on our planet had minimal protection from the atmosphere - in space, they're completely exposed.

Now, while this may disprove life coming from an intergalactic source, it does NOT however disprove life coming from within our galaxy. So who knows, maybe we really are all a bunch of martians!

I hope this post helps, feel free to ask for clarifications.

Originally posted by ADVISOR
This whole thing, reminds me of a very bad horror movie gone real...
What will they do next? Hopefully this is going on in a very secure and controlled enviornment.

Genetics is just not meant to be a part of mans play ground, in my opinion.

yes you are right.

i am very worried al queda terrorists could steal this and unleash it on america killing millions.

remember they hate our way of life and freedoms.

i urge this bacteria be destroyed urgently.

Originally posted by esecallum
i am very worried al queda terrorists could steal this and unleash it on america killing millions.

remember they hate our way of life and freedoms.

i urge this bacteria be destroyed urgently.

Al Qaeda would use smallpox or something along those lines not harmless 8 million year old bacteria...

Originally posted by DarkSide

Originally posted by esecallum
i am very worried al queda terrorists could steal this and unleash it on america killing millions.

remember they hate our way of life and freedoms.

i urge this bacteria be destroyed urgently.

Al Qaeda would use smallpox or something along those lines not harmless 8 million year old bacteria...

We dont know it's harmless.

It could be the next bubonic plague.

al queda could steal it.they may have sympathisers in the lab.traitor doctors.

many people could die a horrible death and it would be too late.

is their any defense against this bacteria?

would wearing a face mask help?

or boiling the water?

or drugs like cipro?

or living underground.

i am terrified of disease.

you dont know it's harmless .

Originally posted by esecallum
We dont know it's harmless.

It could be the next bubonic plague.

al queda could steal it.they may have sympathisers in the lab.traitor doctors.

i am terrified of disease.

you dont know it's harmless .

You shouldn't worry about it because there's a million ways of dying and it can happen to anyone. You have more chance of being run over by a car than al qaeda using alien bacteria to destroy the planet so stop watching CNN and enjoy.