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Bacteria Revived After 250 Million Years
Cruachan writes: "Reuters reports that scientists in the United States have revived a 250-million-year-old bacteria that is believed to be the oldest living creature ever discovered. (The story is no longer available on the Reuters Web site.) The bacterium that lived millions of years before the dinosaurs was in a state of suspended animation in an ancient salt crystal in an underground cavern near Carlsbad, New Mexico." This is one of the most amazing things I've heard in a long time. [Updated 19 Oct.14:00GMT by timothy:] Reuters has since pulled it; look below for more links :)
Links that work are tough to come by sometimes -- emmett sent one to to BBC Coverage (with pictures!), while several folks contributed others, including this unnamed correspondent, who writes: "An article in the L.A. Times has an interesting story about a revived microbe which might have been locked in a crystal of salt for 250 million years." Additionally, readers pointed to the Reuters story, hosted on yahoo! Thanks for the links, everyone.
People who refuse to take risks are so missing out. Why don't you go secure yourself in a fortress and never come out? You know, walking is a very unsafe activity.
-Matthead
-Matthead
How do you think we got to the stage we are today? If scientists didn't take risks we would still be banging rocks together (oh no, sorry - we might get shards in our eyes). Obviously these scientists will have taken containment precautions. Most comments in this stream seem to think that a few men in white coats found a lump of salt and put it in some water - hey presto! Instant life! The odds are this will lead to all sorts of new discoveries about our planet's history, and technologies including medicines for the future.
If that's your point of view, get cracking. You've got a lot of work to do to convince people. Maybe you should start a cult with poison Kool-Aid.
Evolution is a process of iterative adaptation toward perfection - perfection within one's biological niche, anyway. There have got to be plateaus, right? Maybe Bacillus was pretty close to begin with.
I got the impression your antagonist feels that it's OK to do whatever we want because we are so insignificant in the long-term we can't affect anything.
Something I happen to disagree with quite strongly. This is the kind of argument entusiasts of the internal combustion engine use to justify there fun, despite the obvious harm it causes.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Sorry. I'm just annoyed at all these people on this board who think that life is a bad scifi flick.
You know, the sad part is that most things that happen in life would leave us howling with laughter if we saw a plot that dumb in a movie.
Works of fiction have a restriction that they need to be believable for the audience to accept them. Reality has no such restriction.
--
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
I have older bacteria living on what used to be meatloaf in the back of my fridge =)
(yes I know there is a difference between bacteria and mold/fungus... it's meant as a joke)
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Here is a link to the post article. no login reguired
Please 250 million year old bacteria..
our bacteria can kick its damn microscopic ass!
I mean, how do we know 100% for sure.
Who's to say that bacteria, especially bacteria
from 250 million years ago are not like chickens
(which, in fact, are closely related to dinosaurs)
in that, when they have their heads chopped off, they tend to run around a bit in the garden and
then sort of fall over and squirm.
Maybe the so-called scientist that probed this
salt crystal with his S.C.P.D (salt crystal probing device) just got a little bit careless and somehow "laser beamd" the head off of the bacteria causing it mimick the behavioural patterns of a chicken (a distant relative).
Yet another case of "sloppy science" methinks.
"You can catch flies till the cows come home, but wasps are a totally different kettle of fish."
I could not resist this troll...
Let's not be too hasty in letting GE 'superweeds' off the hook. Take Bt Corn, for example, which has a resistance to the pesticide Bt, and which it also produces throughout the entire plant, including the root system.
When sprayed on the surface of tha plant, Bt breaks down to less or non-toxic constituant parts over a season or so. The pesticide produced by Btends up deep in the soil where it "binds tightly to clays and hummic acids" and breaks down at a much slower rate -- samples taken up to 30 months after the plant had died showed no decrease in the amount of Bt in the soil.
Thus, over few short seasons, Bt corn can pollute a field to levels even worse than those produced by planting "regular" corn, and spraying regularly.
See the article&l t;/a> (enter "Insecticidal toxin in root exudates from Bt corn" in the search field) in Nature magazine for a more detailed examination of this issue.
Then would you care to explain why some post names and addresses of doctors who perform or have performed abortions, for the sake of others terrorizing them? Not to mention that some managed to convince the Kansas school board to stop teaching evolution.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
There you go.
What are the chances that it's harmless? I don't know. Is it 50% harmless? 75% likely to be harmless? 90% likely to be completely harmless...
There is no possible way to know for sure, no organisms from that long ago can be guaranteed to act a certain way.
And there is a very real possibility that it could be something which would completely wipe the planet of life as we know it.
And they are bringing it to life for no reason other than "well... that's kind of neat."
People take too much for granted. The last words uttered on this planet will be "oops"
________
THANK GOD for CPR!!
Or New York. Oh, wait, that movie sucked major @$$. Nevermind.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
Hmm, this might explain why my old P133 gets so moody after running Win98SE for several hours straight.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
The implications of this find is actually far more far reaching. 1: lifeforms could be stored for long period of time and then revived and re-released into the ecosystem which reintroduces primitive genes back into the gene pool. A small scale example is the recurrent chloera epidemics of india. One hypothesis is that artic ice actually freezes the pathogens and then rereleases them back to the environment when the ice melts. So there's always the possibility that smallpox is prozen in some ice somewhere out in the wild. (Of course this perticular bacterium have very little chance of harming us. because it missed too many years.) 2. Life forms could go into suspended animation long enough to withstand the trip from one solar system to another.
So if the bacteria is causing problems, we can just apply a SERVICE PACK and then everything will be OKAY.
forth ?love if honk then
Que? What's feeling important (or "importantant" for that matter) got to do with it? Something was discovered. Somebody wanted to figure out more about it. That's what humans do. We've been doing it as long as we've been around.
And what is this "mother Earth's affairs" crap? Do you believe the Earth is sentient? That it has a plan for this bacteria, and we're screwing up this plan?
It's human arrogance that makes us think, we are important in nature ...
So then you would have us just sit around on rocks all day, avoiding meddling in "mother Earth's affairs?"
And learn how to use commas. Yours makes your sentence contradict itself.
Pete
hahahahah! you made my day.
Bacteria evolve at a furious rate and we can expect new varieties to appear for any environment provided. They live where it is cold, where it is hot, and even in space! This article http://www.sciam.com/explorations/072196exploratio ns.html features an interesting experiment where bacteria were observed to evolve several times in four years.
This article http://www.sciam.com/1096issue/1096onstott.html#1 covers research of bacteria found in oil deposits and other unlikely places. Bacteria found in oil can be 300 million years old, and have certianly gotten out before. They get away with and without man's help, and you deal with it every day.
Now get back to work, everybody! No more strikes and millsmashing, execpt you poor loosers at dot coms. Dot com-ers can just go home.
Ennui
Ennui
"I walk in the air, between the rain, through myself an
Bacteria in salt? I would not be too sceptical. Stranger things have happened.
Eeeewwwww! Bacteria in petrolium!
...without doing the actual traveling. If you have noticed - we first got cloning and now bacterial revival... what's next? In a way, we humans are obsessed with the idea of time travel - however, if we can't go back, then let's bring them here. It didn't take the scientists long to try to introduce cloning to extinct animals. Now, instead of "let's bring them back" theory - it's "let's wake them up" - In way it's a scary thought but there are benefits. Firstly - and the most obvious is to see how life was then with these organisims and gives us a good chance of understanding what went on then. Secondly - Reduce the extinction rate in animals. Finaly - finding possible cures to diseases and this is not a far-fetched thought. And before the bottle-tops start poping - i believe these scientist have nitrogen tanks sitting all over the place ready to burst in case of an "accident". Then we can say - that part of our human history included the ice-age. And that was when a scientist tripped over his shoe lace - was it? :)
Great ideas happen at 4am. Bad career moves happen at 4pm...
99.9% of all bacteria in the world just hang out and metabolize whatever comes their way. Only a very small percentage are pathogenic, and the chances are that this one would be are miniscule. If it was, what would it be doing in a salt crystal? Most pathogenic bacteria live in organisms or ex-organisms. Even if it were pathogenic, it would be adapted to the organisms of 250 million years ago, not today's. And finally, microbiologists culture potentially pathogenic organisms all the time without a problem using simple common sense and caution. As long as those two are applied in this case as well, there's really nothing to worry about. Methinks you've been watching X-files too much.
The point is that all these riscs you mention equally apply to other species of Bacillus, of which you will find millions if not billions of specimens in the dirt you scrape from under your fingernail after working in the garden.
The 'we just don't know' argument is obsolete. We do know. We have a very good understanding of how a Bacillus behaves, and what could potentially make them dangerous.
You can bet your life on the absolute certainty that if these ancient bacteria have a gene that makes them unusually competitive in our normal environment, there is absolutely no way that gene just died out on the surface.
All this aside, I don't believe for one second that these cells really are 250 million years old. Even if you could stop chemical degradation, over a timespan that long, you may even have to take nuclear decay into account. Radioactive isotopes (C-13 for instance) in the DNA as well as the repair proteins decaying, leaving holes behind. The bacteria probably became entrapped much later, perhaps only a few thousand years ago.
And we DO know what they died of. It was big, bad, came out of the sky and made a giant crater in the Yucatan and left a layer of iridium-rich sediment all over the planet.
Uh-Oh, Iridium-rich sediment all over the planet! We better convince Motorola not to burn up Iridium in our athmosphere, or were all going to be in trouble!
okay, so it's not funny... =-)
Doh!
--
Before we go off and get into a tizzy over the end of the world & such, shouldn't we consider the above words found in the last paragraph of the BBC article.
managers...why god invented purgatory
Go figure, some one had to say it.
I can already see the luddites shouting about how dangerous it can be and how science should let it rest. However, this kind of thing has undoubtedly happened many times by chance: an ancient salt deposit is flooded after an earthquake, awakening ancient bacteria. If these bacteria are dangerous they are probably already here anyway.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I wonder if the Bacteria has the same problem that Austin Powers had?
"That's not mine!"
ys
-- "To ask a question is to show ignorance; Not to ask a question means you'll remain ignorant."
Well, I guess that was kind of off-topic, but after reading this thread and the comments about the Sally Struthers satire, I felt it had to be said.
Wraithmaster
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
www.wraithmaster.com -- Chicken soup for the spleen.
"Naaarf!" --Pinky
The crystals were in a drill sample taken from an air intake shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the world's first underground dump for radioactive waste left over from making nuclear weapons.
When they were extracted from the crystals in a laboratory and placed in a nutrient solution, the microorganisms revived and began to grow.
So now that we know that there is 250 million year old bacteria down there that revives when placed in liquid. Is it still a good idea to pump liquid radiactive waste down there? (cue music from twilight zone)
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
The news is based on some articles to be published in an upcoming issue of Nature. The actual Nature articles require free registration. Here is a link to the Nature news item.
I live 20 miles away from Carlsbad. No wonder the salt in my soup tasted a little stale.
---
I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
It is the return of BLOB! Mad scientists are at it again! Seriously though, aren't some of the above posters overreacting a little bit? It seems very unlikely (the word impossible comes to mind) to me that a 250 M years old bacteria will wipe out the human race. It wasn't even on discover.com's list! Now only a small step to revive the dinosaurs themselves...
If it lived for 250 million years in a salt crystal, it's going to be awfully hard to kill if it is pathogenic....... DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
If there's one thing that replies to this article have shown, its that most /.'s do NOT have adequate knowledge in basic biological sciences. Yet they still feel obligated to spout uninformed information as if they are being so observant or insightful. Knowing how to hack a kernel or write C/Perl/Whatever code does NOT make you some magical scientific genius.
/. reader's dismay! They are FICTION, based on some science, but FICTION none the less!!
And for the last freakin' time, Jurassic Park, The Andromea Strain, Gattaca, etc. are MOVIES. They are not documentaries or credible scientific sources, much to half of
Previous posters, such as WickedDyna are correct. The vast majority of bacteria (thousands of species/strains) are non-pathenogenic. It's not that unusual for bacterium to "hibernate" in some environments - it forms a tough "capsule" that almost completely resists drying out, harsh pH and other hostile conditions. It has been long known and believed that this allows bacteria to survive long periods of time, this is just a rare, extreme example.
It also looks as if this strain is halophilic (salt-loving) and that also makes it unlikely that it is somehow pathenogenic. As someone also said, most pathenogenic bacteria require living hosts or physiological environments to survive - not just some HIGHLY hostile (to most strains)salt pool!
Scientists and microbiologists are NOT idiots. They know that the chances are ridiculously low that this strain has potential harm. And hell, these people handle stuff like Ebola, and Hantavirus, and other dangerous bacteria routinely. Too many people here have been watching too many bad SF movies and not enough books on the subject.
Sincerely,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@wm.edu
(senior in biology going on to biology graduate degree)
This further evidence of bacterial spore durability significantly increases the chance that we have been exporting mono-cellular critters on board the Pioneer and Voyager probes etc. 'If' these probes were ever to come into contact with alien life, the bacteria would give the aliens a much greater insight into Earth-based life than any plaque.
Which leads onto another idea - why not stick bacterial spores in a suitably protected part of the next probe with a message stuck into a nonsense part of their genetic code. It might not be the most efficient way to say 'hi' but it would have panache.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
Paramount Pictures Presents...
PROTEROZOIC PARK
Watch as fantasy turns to fear in this action packed adventure when an archeologist who didn't quite think things through opens up a theme park full of prehistoric-bacteria-infested salt-water slides, boat rides, and swimming pools. As penicillin supplies run short, a mass epidemic breaks out, threatening to destroy humanity, unless Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern can save the day.
Pete
Also, beacuse if you happen to know about the people in London who first isolated the penicillin type which occurs in some penicillium molds you'll know that it is highly toxic.
The penicillins are chemically altered versions.
Elgon
PS - Little known shooting-legend (alas, pobably untrue): Alexander Fleming left his petri dishes over the weekend because he was going to a shooting match.
Except that it wasn't under any evolutionary pressure during those 250 million years, so that number doesn't mean very much. In a sense, it's actually had 250 million years less to evolve than every other life form on Earth.
And /. reports that Reuters needs a better backend for their news. That, or they expire really fast and want you to keep up to date. *sigh* Guess I'll have to take the word of the poster here because Reuters doesn't want me to see it.
Go to http://www.reuters.com/news.jhtml ?ty pe=science and click on the link
Spot checking the comments, I nearly dismised you as being a smokedot regular. ;)
The actual story is here
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
You mustn't think of bacteria as a 'disease'. They are self sufficient, independant organisms, and they are absolutely everywhere. Only a very small fraction of them is adapted to living inside the human body.
It is extremely unlikely that a bacterium adapted to survive in high saline conditions, and survive extremely long periods of being dead and desiccated can compete under normal conditions with the organisms already there.
It is no different with possible escaping herbicide resistance genes from genetically modified crop. The 'superweed' only has a competitive edge when sprayed with herbicide, and in the absence of that factor, it loses out over the centuries, because of the tiny amount of energy it wastes on synthesising the herbicide resistance proteins.
Imagine all the problems introducing foreign specieis into ecosystems has caused. cats, dogs and pigs made the dodo extinct. Who knows, maybe ancient bacteria will make us extinct.
Scary thought.
It also might be able to do the cha-cha-cha, but it's not very likely.
This bacteria evolved separately from animals. The chances of it being able to be destructive are on a par with you being able to reproduce with an alien.
Pete
Let's see - if it was that old, how big would it's birthday cake have to be? Or would that not matter since it has essentially been in stasis for so long?
Hmm.
Building web history -- bit by bit.
Except mummies had usually had their internal organs, including the BRANE, removed and put in little jars. With no brane you're not much good for anything except the Board of Directors of the MPAA.
Or it could be a spermatozoid from Gozilla, and were it to enter in contact with an ovula from Gozillette, we would have a major catastrophe in Tokyo!
--
Okay, I'm a little off. I studied evolution a LONG time ago.
Evolution is not a religion. And no real Christians is ever stark-mad raving loony
How is it not a religion? Is there any REAL scientific proof that evolution is true? Not the last time I studied evolution and not now. I admit, there is the same amount of evidence for Christianity as there is evolution. But you evolutionists BLINDLY accept that evolution is true just as Christians do.
What makes evolution not a religion and Christianity a religion?
From,
Are you telling me that you don't see the connection between government and laughing at people? - Interviewer
Actually, it was many bacteria, a species that had evolved specifically to be a pathogen of mammals, with an intermediate host in fleas. It was pretty much unable to live outside its hosts.
Viruses are obligate parasites, and this is not a virus. There is no reason to believe that is is one of the tiny percentage of bacteria which are pathogenic.
I'm not a microbiologist, but I AM a biologist and I keep up with the new developments in the field.
I've read the Nature article that this story is based on. Have you?
"Lost" resistance? You don't have any genetic "resistance" to ANY of the microorganisms that exist today, either - you develop antibodies agains new foreign microorganisms all the time, that's a perfectly natural process. Just being old doesn't make a bacterium miraculously deadly.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Well, there are ways to test its effects on humans to some extent. Put it in with cultured human cells of various sorts and see what it does. If it gets eaten instantly by macrophages, it won't hurt us.
Ebola isn't a good human parasite anyway -- it can't keep us alive long enough to spread very well. There's no way Ebola will form a major epidemic as it is today unless someone cultures it and releases it all over the world in many places.
Real human plagues evolved to attack US. Not some other species. Certainly not a species that was around in the Permian. On the microscopic (pun intended) chance that it turns out to be a pathogen, and the even more microscopic chance that it happens to be able to avoid our immune system, there is still an extremely strong chance that it will not be adapted to keep us alive long enough to spread. So the worst that would happen would be a brief outbreak and a few lab workers dead.
There were almost no human pathogens who were immune to antibiotics until we started using them. And those that were, were because of overall structural properties; e.g. Penicilin can't attack Gram-negative (IIRC) bacteria because it is designed to attack Gram-positive cell walls. (It might be the other way around, I don't recall precisely.)
I'm not fooling myself. I have sufficient understanding of the issues to be able to make an educated judgement of the risks involved, and they are extremely slim.
>>So what's this bacteria DO? Sounds like a pick up line in silicon valley. The chances that this specimen is any more or less likely to reside on the harmful or disruptive end of the scale is indeterminate. There's positively no reason to have anything but a curious opinion about it.
Recovered from the deep, dark, mysterious recesses of the earth after a quarter of a billion years of isolation from the real world......and vying for headlines.....
I wonder how they would measure lifetime of this creature? I mean, they need compare it to something this old. What it would be?
Yes, humans do have genetic immunity to certain diseases. The best known example is scycle-cell anemia -- those people are immune to malaria.
And being old doesn't make it perfectly harmless either.
The BBC article actually said that 250 Myear-old bacteria meant that it could be theoretically possible that bacteria from extraterrestrial (or even extra-solar/galactic) sources to survive the trip to earth, not that anybody thought that these bacilli were extraterrestrial. This would lend support to eople that life originated off-Earth and 'migrated' here.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
"Well Bob, we found it in this 250 million year old salt"
"Ok, how do you know the salt is that old?"
"Well Bob, we found some 250 million year old bacteria in it"
Sorry couldn't resist.
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Is this connected with the Amiga story previously? ;-)
And in the mists of eating dinner, I see this particular Coward pouring salt in his mashed potatos, the salt from some place in mexico, I also see you dying from a 250million year old stomach bug.
No, I'm talking about the fact that our very mitochondria, the little energy releasers in our bodies, the very things that let us do things that plants can't (like walk, talk, think, have circulatory systems, ...)--well, those mitochondria are believed to be just an ancient bacteria that got into a very happy symbiotic/synergistic relationship with some simple animal cells.
Thus the origin of all interesting life on the planet.
The authors said extraordinary efforts were made against contaimination. However, that contamination is very easy. After the fourth or fifth such find, maybe I'll believe it.
In news reports today, scientists in Richland, WA, were found dead of unknown causes. Recently they had revived 250 million year old bacteria in an amazing scientific discovery.
...
Clean room, what clean room?
Heck, let's just reintroduce something that makes cholera look tame - we're not absolutely sure that the dinosaurs died out from the meteorite, it could have been pathological organisms, after all
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
HIV is a virus, a much simpler organism than a bacterium. HIV actually attacks certain building blocks of the human immune system through protein bonding and reproduction. Bacteria, even simple ones, are quite a bit larger and more complex than HIV.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
the only thing to survive longer in animation may be wiley coyote. nothing seems to kill him!
Arm yourself with knowledge.
What would be certainly more interesting than bringing the thing back to life would be sequencing its DNA, completely, and finding what it is genetically most similar to, and then contrasting the differences. And besides, who's to say that no form of message is present in the DNA of this creature, just waiting to be read by whoever finds the thing and has the intelligence to decode it? We're talking about sending DNA-encoded messages out with our deep-space explorers, but nobody can patent the idea if we find prior art, and I believe that this counts as that. More importantly, though, the time scale involved and the slight possibility that it got to New Mexico from somewhere much farther away (not any more slight than mankind evolving from a similarly-introduced bacterium) means that it's possible, however unlikely, that there's a meaningful message hidden in its DNA. It may be incomprehensibly tiny odds, but then again, we're the ones looking for ancient lifeforms in salt crystals in Carlsbad Cavern.
You ask only one side of a two-sided question. What happens when the bacteria is unleashed into our environment and can handle how things have changed. It might immediately die from the changed levels of gasses in the atmosphere, different levels of radiation reaching the surface of the earth, ot might be gobbled up and digested by a couple of dust mites leaping of this hypothetical clutses hand.
It'll probably be shocked what happened to the dinosaurs... "Heck, what are those creatures?? Holy, they have antibiotics!" Cheers, coke_nl
coke
This morning's BBC News, with a bit of artistic license, said that this meant life "...could have been transported to Earth from outer space..." (paraphrased). As you say though, the www story doesn't say this. I'll phrase things a little clearer next time :)
I never said that there was any such evidence. At the same time though, where's the evidence it isn't?
As the legal representative of this bacteria it is my official duty to request that you appear in court. My client is innocent (harmless) until proven guilty (mostly harmless) and will have to be treated as such. Any other claims that my client might pose a threat to mankind will be treated in a similar manner.
Thank you for your time.
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
OK Ok so I'm not the worlds best expert on this. I'm not spreading FUD, just thinking about possbile risks in all this.
OK so viral infections can be bad, but so can bacterial infections.
All we need is some bacteria to be revived from this that we humans have no defence against (our immune system or chemically aided) and 'pop' out goes the light on homo sapiends.
OK so this is worst case senario, but it _could_ happen which is why we should be thinking and evaluationg the risks so this sort of activity.
Or maybe not.
The links is just wrong - if you go on Reuters site, you can use their direct link to the article (it's in "Science" section. Url is: http://www.reuters.com/home.jhtml.
Why are people SO FUCKING IGNORANT?
Dinosaurs (note spelling!) lived from about 200 MYA to 65 MYA. They included thousands of species. There was also a mass extinction in other species, of all types of life. Including plankton, invertebrates of all sorts, etc. Bacterial plagues rarely even cause the extinction of even an entire species, much less thousands of taxa at all levels below class.
Neither this bacterium nor any other caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is completely inconsistent with the type of mass extinction that occurred, and it was entirely the wrong time span.
So i'm not a palentologist but I do have a bit of knowledge in this area. What I'm wondering is, how can anything really be that old. It would seem to me that molecular diffusion amoung other processes should significantly alter the chemistry of anything that sits around that long. Molecular diffusion is just one such process. I'm not sure of the exact rates involved, but it the salt was even partially saturated for say 1% of that time there should be a lot of contamination and/or mineralization of the living cells (i.e. fossilization). So could it be that the bacteria is really not as old?
Excuse me? Think much?
The only reason why bacteria are immune to antibiotics today is because we use them (abuse them) so much. There were almost no antibiotics 250 million years ago in most environments, certainly none of the ones we use today.
Dynasaurs [sic] didn't have antibiotics, and were not very similar physiologically to humans. The chances are almost nil that this bacterium is pathogenic anyway -- 99% of bacteria aren't.
Your knee-jerk fear mongering is disturbing. Why don't you actually learn something about immunology, epidemiology, or microbiology -- or just general bio -- before you go making stupid statements like "this could make AIDS look like a 24 hour cold."
Here's a fscking clue -- AIDS is virulent against us because it evolved to attack us specifically. _Bacillus permians_ could not have.
Hey, relax...it's only one little bacterium. Er, two. I mean four. Hmmm...eight...
Uh oh.
-Legion
In case anyone's interested, I did a comedy sketch about the world's oldest bacteria for CBC radio today. You can hear it here.
(Sorry, it's on mp3.com so they'll ask you for your email, blah blah blah...)
Um. Yoohooo? This thing was sitting in a firring cave... You really think it was less likely to be set free there?
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
And so when the bacteria comes to life it says- "Oh is this what I have developed into over the millinia. These ugly creatures who think too much of themselves. And consider! they are afraid of dinosaurs, what a laugh?"
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
But they didn't throw them away, did they?
Mark
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Kinda puts the 28 years managed by Pioneer 10 into perspective, eh?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Yeah, that's why it's called a "feature, not a bug." I mean, it's not like we come to slashdot for information, right? (I'm too tired to bother inserting the appropriate link to some "goat" name with a wide-view rectal shot...)
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Furthermore, the microbes that are resistant to antibiotics are only resistant because of continual exposure to these antibiotics. Something arising from that far back in the past is unlikely to have much of a resistance to anything that might exist today. If anything, it should be treated with very great respect so that *we* don't damage *it* rather than the other way round.
Salocin.com
Why the FUCK do people see the word "bacterium" and immediately think evil, disease, plague, and other bad things?
99.9% of all bacteria on this planet just hang out and chemo/photosynthesize or soak up nutrients. The number of pathogenic bacteria is miniscule, as is the chance that _Bacillus permians_ will turn out to be one.
It's not your fault, it's just that slash introduces a space into very long links in order to prevent people from having cunning goatse.cx links or something.
Doesn't this contradict both religions? Contrary to popular fundie belief, evolution is not a religion. It is completely independant from any and all religious beliefs. When reading scientific articles, I always expect them to have something saying "25 billion years," et cetera. This can be easily explained - you are stupid (or at least ignorant, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). The Earth is only 4.6 billion years old. The universe is much older, but I think current estimates put it at about 14 billion years, though I could be wrong. But, this article doesn't. It says that it was from before the dinosaurs but, according to evolutionists, dinosaurs live way back when 100+ billion years ago. Again you are stupid. Are you a troll? Congrats, you got a response from me. It says 250 Million which is considerably shorter. It dosn't follow evolutionary beliefs, nor does it follow christian beliefs. Christians (for the most part) believe that the world isn't very old, say 5,000 years ('round-about). Actually, they say 6,000. You don't even know what your own beliefs are. 250 Million is considerable longer than 5,000 years. No shit. Those are just my ponderings... They say a mind that has been stretched will never return to its original shape. What you need is a full-body wedgie.
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Why the .... do people see the word "bacterium" and immediately think evil, disease, plague, and other bad things?
Oh, maybe just because some of us have read up on history and know that this brief period of wonder drugs is an abberation in human history, and that we as a species are particularly vulnerable to biological infection.
As an example, more than half of all people alive in Africa today are doomed to die of AIDS. So while you keep your head up in the clouds in your safe sterile environment, don't pretend that scientific research doesn't have consequences.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
The crust of the earth, at least the sedimentary formations, appear to have life as deep as the sedimentents go (to ten miles and not above 120C). The volume of this biomass rivals that above the soil. Also life may play a large role in geological processes- peripitating iron, uranium, gold carbonates; changing the physical parameters of rocks to facilatate plate tectonics- and so on. A fringe hypothesis by a Cornell astronomer has life manufacturing nearly unlimited oil from deep gas. Earth as a the living Gaia may be more realistic than previously supposed.
Seriously don't be stupid. All of these suppositions are so far out there they are something you shouldn't even be worrying about. If you feel compelled to spend time being worried and living in fear about things like genetically engineered foods, 250 Million year old bacteria and other sorts of weird biological experiments. There are many more common events that almost certainly have levels of probability several orders of magnitude higher than this sort of a disaster. Like say for instance heavy metal pollution, PCBs, lightning, air plane crashes, car crashes, or a power pole breaking apart and a power line landing on you. Come on I mean be concerned about something that has a higher probability of occuring. Wouldn't it be great if riot police were issued cluesticks and use them to beat a clue into protesters at biology conferences? Maybe then we could get these protesters to be protesting someone useful like the car manufacturers.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Umm.. Yeah, cool. They dug up some crystal and performed CPR on a germ. Good one guys. I hope they don't dig up some virus and revive it - a virus from a different eco-system, one which we have no immunity from. Wasn't one of those ways the human race will become extint is from a rampant virus? One with no cure? Well, this sure as heck looks like a good starting point to me.
Nah, lets breed the velico raptors and wipe out the human race the good ol' fashon Jurassic Park way. Gore. Blood. Annihlation. Total descruction.
"This is the worst idea in the whole history of bad ideas."
God destroies germ; God creates man; Man destroies God; Man creates germ.. Germ infects Man; Geeks inherit the Earth.
Whoops.. my finger slipped.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
The earth has only existed for
--
Unfrozen Caveman Bacterium!
"Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know much about your world. I look around and see steel beasts racing down the streets, growling and spitting smoke. I don't know how to operate your 'personal computers' or 'automatic teller machines'. Your ways frighten me! There is one thing I do know, however, and that is that we must outlaw all antibiotics immediately before any more of my harmless brothers are slaughtered. Thank you for your time."
Read my blog.
Which is exactly the reason this bacteria needs to be examined very carefully. Who knows, we might actually be able to install Linux on it. And in that case we might also be able to create a Beowulf Cluster of mostly harmless bacteria...
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Probably this thing is some sort of an early beta version of the final bacteria.
Great, in that case all the original code might still be there! Let's hack this puppy.
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Ya know - its a story . a "legend" some story that someone thought might be found interesting.
What I find "far off" is your quickness to call anyone who holds a position different than you a "nut".
Do you really find it so hard to believe that a sane, stable, non-criminally-inclined person would want to own a gun or find guns interesting.
Certainly nitting, soap operas, and homosexual sex don't interest me one bit - however I don't go around calling the people who do practice these things "nuts".
--Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Actually it doesn't even say that. It says that because organisms end up competing for resources, the organisms that are most adapted towards obtaining those resources will rtend to survive and pass on their genes more readily than those that don't.
Should the environment become hostile to life, life will not survive.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Very old silicon based life forms or something?
Now that's one hell of a way to get rid of your competition. Just picture the newspapers:
Newsflash!
In an interview today with a spokesperson from a leading company in processors the statement "We're not having any difficulties in controlling this bacteria" was heard. This same spokesperson had no explanation for the fact that aside from the known 1.13 Ghz problems all other processors from their company are experiencing instability problems as well as spontanious desintegration. Multiple customers of this company have been known to complain about the fact that all of a sudden their computers stopped working after which a yellowish green goo started dripping out of it. We'll keep you updated on this one.
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
They went through something like 250 pounds of salt dug up from the construction of a nuclear waste dump in new mexico for salt crystals that were "good". Then they sterilized the crystals, extracted some material from inside them, and cultivated it. That means stuck it in a petri disk and waited to see what grew.
So to say they revived _a_ 250-million-year-old bacteria, isn't really correct. It's more like they have a colony of bacteria, and they are pretty sure that these bacteria grew from a spore inside a 250 million year old salt crystal.
It's not like they found a bacteria inside the crystal, and gave it CPR, and this tube with a re-animated bacterial swimming around. That's part of what the criticism of their work is about, how can they be sure the bacteria came from a spore in the salt crystal and not someone's sneeze?
You're right, evolution is a cult. ;-)
More specifically, it was Darwin's hoax to see if he could extinguish a nearly 2000-year-old religion.
It takes a much greater leap of faith to accept evolution than Creationism. Evolution's tenets don't match up with reality. All the trans-evolution species (read: proof) have conveniently died out with no trace of fossils (and those hoaxes don't count!). Also, a natural representation of the fabricated geologic table (which classifies the ages of the Earth) is found nowhere in the Earth's crust, not even in the Grand Canyon. There are tons more refutations, but I won't infuriate you any further with my anti-propaganda. Current science is eating away at the Theory of Evolution more and more every day.
Evolution is more than a theory, though; it is a cultural movement. It is one man's fantasies embraced by bigoted, hate-mongering intellectuals who have no goal but to bring about the downfall of Christianity. I am not paranoid; this comes straight from Darwin's biography, written by Ronald Clark. Evolution was a political movement from the beginning, and it still is.
Why is the belief in Evolution so bad? Here's a test: Would you flinch at shooting me dead? No? Why not? After all, I'm just a worthless mass of cells. People who are pro-choice-to-slaughter claim to have the "right" to execute their babies (up to 12 weeks old! after birth! This is based on court testimony concerning live-birth abortions) because they are not conscious, and therefore not real people. (Note: People on Death Row are not innocent; they earned death. If you deny others' rights, then your rights are denied.)
A person without the conscience of God in his heart will do anything if he can get away with it. Just like Hollow Man. I fear that the evolution movement will lead to a world of people like Hollow Man -- people who would kill anybody for selfish reasons. (I hear echoes of "It's MY body! It's my choice!") Evolution is evil because it is an assault on life, love, and civility.
What is evolution? It is a hodgepodge of wild speculations by science fiction fanatics developed under the guise of "science".
In contrast, the truth of Creationism is simple, elegant, and inescapable. How did life begin? We are created by a timeless, supernatural being. (How can something be timeless? I believe that there is no time; time is an illusion that humans perceive and use to define the relationships between events.) Everything is of God.
Cuase the replication rate of a bateria is a lot less than that of a virus
What are the benefits here? there are none.
What are the risks? Well, we could destroy the earth. Oh well.
Just like a little experiment they did to africanize some honey bees so they could make more honey.
oops, the bees got out. Guess what, they attack and kill people, they kill "good" honey bees, and they don't produce any honey. Now they have spread across south and central america, and are spreading through the united states.
oops. Guess that was a bad idea.
Scientists can't cure the common cold. If a bacteria capable of destroying the human, or other species is unleased, there would be little if anything we could do to stop it.
And for your "don't bang rocks, or you'll get shards in your eyes" example doesn't prove your point, it proves mine. If you are going to bang rocks together, find out about the rocks first to see if there will be shards, then put on some safety glasses and bang them together behind a protective screen. If you just bang them together, you'll be blind, and you'll have gained besides the knowledge that it was a stupid thing to do.
Humans have the capability to make choices, study facts, and weigh options. Humans also have the ability to destroy the planet in less than 20 minutes.
There are no second chances, and although a planet filled with nothing but bacteria may evolve back into intelligent life in a few billion years if the planet is still around, it's doubtful they would learn anything from the stupid choices of one scientist in the year 2000 which killed everyone on the planet.
Stephen J Hawking when asked on a theory why we have never, and possibly will never obtain contact with another intelligent species anywhere else in the universe is that whenever any society reaches the technological level to achieve interstellar communication, they also would be technologically advanced enough to easily destroy themselves... and they probably end up doing just that.
People who say "it's worth the risk" without having any benefit in mind, scare me. a lot.
________
Um, you don't have any actual knowledge about how the immune system works, do you? It's is completely non-specific and works on any kind of protein. There is no such thing as "discarded protection", antibodies are developed as they are needed against whatever comes up.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Ok, dittoboy...
;-) More specifically, it was Darwin's hoax to see if he could extinguish a nearly 2000-year-old religion.
:-)
You're right, evolution is a cult.
Sounds like you think the reason scientists have old earth/old universe theories is pure spite toward christianity.
It takes a much greater leap of faith to accept evolution than Creationism. Evolution's tenets don't match up with reality. All the trans-evolution species (read: proof) have conveniently died out with no trace of fossils (and those hoaxes don't count!).
No, they haven't. Witness the transation from fish to amphibian to reptile. They still exist. Of course, many have died out. Do you think fossilization happens to most animals? It needs a certain set of conditions.
Also, there are only a handful of hoaxes, some of which were honest mistakes. They've all been retracted.
Also, a natural representation of the fabricated geologic table (which classifies the ages of the Earth) is found nowhere in the Earth's crust, not even in the Grand Canyon.
The Grand Canyon strikes me as a gigantic problem for young-earthers.
There are tons more refutations, but I won't infuriate you any further with my anti-propaganda. Current science is eating away at the Theory of Evolution more and more every day.
I've heard them all. Just last weekend, I went to a "Case for Creation" seminar put on by the ICR, and sat in an audience who kept yelling "Amen!" and "Praise Jesus!" at random. Every time the lecturer waved around another tired, blatantly false distortion or lie (like their gross misinterpretation of the Second Law of thermodynamics, for instance) the audience laughed with uproarious approval. They probably had an Old Tyme bookburning party after I left.
Evolution is more than a theory, though; it is a cultural movement. It is one man's fantasies embraced by bigoted, hate-mongering intellectuals who have no goal but to bring about the downfall of Christianity.
Young Earth Creationists are hate-mongering anti-intellectuals who think that scientists are trying to attack them.
Guess what- scientists in a wide range of disciplines including cosmology, astronomy, biology, and geology don't even have you and your kind on their mind when they present their theories. They are pursuing a greater understanding. Every once in a while they might be reminded that there are people out there that can walk into any museum of natural history in cities across the globe, and flat out deny almost everything on display.
Why is the belief in Evolution so bad? Here's a test: Would you flinch at shooting me dead? No? Why not? After all, I'm just a worthless mass of cells. People who are pro-choice-to-slaughter claim to have the "right" to execute their babies (up to 12 weeks old! after birth! This is based on court testimony concerning live-birth abortions) because they are not conscious, and therefore not real people.
So an evolutionist must be a nihilist? I suggest you see what secular humanism is all about. Lack of a belief in a god does not imply a lack of morality. I personally would not shoot you, because my sense of morality is based upon the rights of others. I have no moral problem with a person doing something as long as they don't hurt somebody else. For the record, I'm against abortion except in cases of incest and health risks to the mother (she has rights too, after all).
A person without the conscience of God in his heart will do anything if he can get away with it. Just like Hollow Man. I fear that the evolution movement will lead to a world of people like Hollow Man -- people who would kill anybody for selfish reasons. (I hear echoes of "It's MY body! It's my choice!")
You're an idiot. People need not be Christians, or even theists, to function in a civil society.
Evolution is evil because it is an assault on life, love, and civility.
Evolution is a theory which attempts to explain the origins of the wide variety of species we see. Whatever it might influence people to beliefve does not have any bearing on its validity as a scientific theory.
What is evolution? It is a hodgepodge of wild speculations by science fiction fanatics developed under the guise of "science".
To be scientific, a theory must be falsifiable. When you seek only to find things which we do not currently know the answer to, and then argue that this is proof that "God did it", that's not science. If you don't like science, fine. But don't confuse science and faith.
In contrast, the truth of Creationism is simple, elegant, and inescapable. How did life begin? We are created by a timeless, supernatural being. (How can something be timeless? I believe that there is no time; time is an illusion that humans perceive and use to define the relationships between events.)
I agree that time is an illusion, and this is important to remember in the context of the Big Bang. See my post on that subject.
Everything is of God.
Have a nice day
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Patent the dead link idea!!!
Think about it for a bit more than a moment.
The human immune system is not designed to protect against specific enemies. It can adapt to attack most viruses, bacteria and parasites. What makes a pathogen successful against us is an ability to specifically fool those adaptive defenses. In the incredibly miniscule chance that _Bacillus permians_ turns out to be pathogenic, it will have adapted to fool the defenses of our remote ancestors at most. 250 million years ago true mammals hadn't even evolved yet. And even if, through some unbelievably tiny chance, affect humans, it would have no resistance whatsoever to any antibiotics because it has never ever experienced them before. So they'd be quite effective against it.
And yes, evolution DOES keep old defenses around "just in case" -- it's called the immune system.
Gee the science part, silly. Isn't it strange to see both anti-christians and so-called Christians like you bash me for stating two facts: (1) that the Earth is 5 billion years old, dinosaurs living from 130 million to 65 million years ago, (2) that good practicing Christians aren't at all, in the majority, loony?
Actually, since it's missed-out on 250 million years of evolution and exposure to anti-bacterial stuff it'll probably get whacked by some snot-nosed lab assistant's anti-persperant.
So what's this bacteria DO?
I suppose the main functionality was implemented later in the evolution. Probably this thing is some sort of an early beta version of the final bacteria.
Great thing, isn't it? But what does this mean for the average John Schmoe on our streets? Even the scientists don't know: "Now we have at least one organism that goes back that far that we can ask biological questions of...something that we couldn't do before," Vreeland added.
But it's great that it's something which we could not do before. So we are much more sapient then back in the early days when this bacteria was not revived. I can't even imagine any more living without this bacteria.
Sorry, I sometimes feel like ranting for no reason...
--
michael at slashdot.org: The real answer is that a couple of the slashdot authors are sick.
That's different from having antibiotics themselves. I'm not familiar with any organism that eats, say, _Penicillium_ mold when it gets sick. If there were known examples of this, I might find it a considerable possibility. Otherwise it's just idle speculation, and not science.
HIV can defeat the immune system because it constantly changes its shape; the immune system works just fine, but it can't keep up with the shape (that's part of the reason, anyway).
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Too bad today's moderators haven't noticed ya, you get my vote for Signal 11 surrogate.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
If you wait a little while (a day at the most) you can read the story from our local Carlsbad paper at http://www.current-argus.com Just go to the Carlsbad section on the main page.
I wonder if the rest of Carlsbad's attitude towards WIPP will be affected after this.
I can only see one reason for being awake at this specific time, and it has more to do with Cheech and Chong than Slashdot.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
with all your wonderful highlighting you seemed to have missed this phrase:
"finally, microbiologists culture potentially pathogenic organisms all the time without a problem"
-------------
The following sentence is true.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
It lived in a form of suspended animation. That's typical for bacteria. Once they're out of the spore form, they're vunerable.
They have evaluated the risks. If anything shows up that's going to be unaffected by our immune system and antibiotics, it'll be something that specifically evolved to avoid our immune system and our antibiotics. Modern pathogens, in other words.
"Hey, maybe things don't always fall down but sometimes float up!" That's idle speculation that is "possible" in that we can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it isn't, and would invalidate gravity.
It doesn't make it any less foolish, though.
Science is concerned with those things for which there is evidence. Saying "well, it COULD exist" is pointless.
Of course we soon find out that this is the bacteria that wiped out the dinosaurs. ~K
A little question to the specialists out there: Could this kind of bacteria be a missing link between mineral and life forms ? This sort of living structure stands in the grey area and makes me wonder what life actually is... Can it only be defined by the fact that a structure can reproduce and spread ? Old question...
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
To all those out there who think this is neccessarily a Bad Thing, think about this:
:)
- bacteria is helpful in creating antibiotics
- in biotech, bacteria is used in creating
human insulin
- its used today to produce natural gas and
detergents
And who knows what other helpful things
can come of this?
That said, I hope they`re careful with the
samples
> Sorry. I'm just annoyed at all these people on
> this board who think that life is a bad scifi
> flick.
ROTFL it does seem that way doesn't it.
> save that the vast majority of _Bacillus_
> bacteria are nonpathogenic.
How about a specific example...
Whose ever eaten yogurt? guess what....its a live bacteria culture! Boil som emilk then let it cool in a covered pan to about 97 F....plop in some store bought yogurt - cover - keep it at about 97F for 24 hours
The result? A whole crapload of tastey yogurt. mmmmm mix in some cucumbers, mint, and some black pepper....mmmm thank you lactobacillus acidopholus!
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"If something can survive 250 million years, what's the difference in another 250 or longer," Vreeland said.
I predict: the human race is immortal within 200 years, due to DNA restructurering.
Natural selection tells us that life will survive, not that humanity shall...
J-aims
--
Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Not American and not gun nuts.
Responsible, law abiding British firearms users.
Alexander Fleming was a rifle shooter, as was Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle.
Elgon
"Funny, ha-ha" or "Funny, oh my how ironic... *thud*"?
Seriously though, there is just as much of a chance that this bacteria will be harmless to the current forms of earthly life. Now, mind you, if I was one of the scientists playing with this bacteria, I sure as Hell would adopt every single precaution I could, on the simple fact that I have no idea what it could do. Then I would begin the experimenting in earnest. I'd rather some rodents die for this advance in science rather then in cosmetics testing...
Now, quite honestly, this does represent a good advance in science, because the scientists know it can be done now. One of the biggest obstacles in science is doing something that all the other scientists say can't be done.
However, it is a far cry from being able to revive a simple strain of bacteria to bringing about a dinosaur theme park. (This never made sense to me... why recreate the carnivores?)
Oh, and slightly back OT for the subject line, personally, I go with the asteroid smacking the planet theory for dinosaur death rather then some bacteria killing off all the dinos. Just a KT person, that's me...
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
They had no civilization that we can find any evidence of. Therefore, we conclude until such evidence happens to come to light that they had no civilization and therefore no antibiotics.
They had immune systems, obviously, but so do we.
And we DO know what they died of. It was big, bad, came out of the sky and made a giant crater in the Yucatan and left a layer of iridium-rich sediment all over the planet.
I swear, people. Think, THEN post!
"Potentially lethal threat"? What bullshit. If you have some evidence that this thing is pathogenic, present it.
Oh, wait, you're an AC -- you just make bullshit claims without evidence.
So, this little bacterium was sitting in a brine pocket inside a salt crystal. It was pickled! Anyway, this makes me think back to my holiday in Chile, when I visited the Atacama desert and went to see a salt mine. We humans have been digging salt out of the earth for millenia. We may well have already set free countless millions of bacteria that were sitting pickled like Bacillus permians... who knows?
A project just as worthy as the Human Genome would be a Census Bacteriorum (forgive my lain!) so that when scientists wash down and wake up one of these foundling bacteria, its genetic material can be sequenced and compared to the Census database to see if has siblings or close descendants still out there in the wild today.
is whether this is a resurrected species of bacteria, or a 250 million year old specimen of a species which is still around today?
If it is the latter, then you guys have nothing to worry about. If not, then all such research should be carefully quarantined. Even if it is one of the 99.99% of bacteria that are harmless, it might have unforseen environmental effects...
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
So the report says that the bacterium was trapped in salt, buried somewhere deep in the ground.
Well.. don't we eat rock-salts?
I mean, millions of us have taken plenty of rock salt in our lives, and who knows how many millions of ancient bacteria which were "revived" in our tummies ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Because we KNOW there's a strain of that which is pathogenic. We have no reason to believe that of _B. permians_.
Because the bacteria multiply faster than the immune system can destroy them. Not a good strategy for the bacteria, since the host dies before the infection can spread very far. And that's the reason why so few people die from it...
Face it, even your much-vaunted "immune system" won't save you in the long run...
Um, it does just that for the majority of people...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
If you spent less time watching scifi and more time in science class you might know the answer to that.
This research was published in the 19 October issue of Nature.
Vreeland, R. H., Rosenzweig, W. D. & Powers, D. W. Nature 407, 897?00 (2000).
Incidentally, the reason the story may have been pulled is because Nature has a press embargo on research that is in the review process.
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Doesn't that violate the laws of entropy? That everything is going towards a more disordered state?
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Um, did you read the article at all? This bacterium has been around for 250 million years less than the ones we have today...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
> Wtf? smoke less crack. DNA restructuring isn't going to preserve synapse state when your body is dried out or frozen stiff as a board.
.... and btw Crack is good. Don't believe the hype.
Just add water, and everything will work out just fine.
oh
No, I don't see how it could be dangerous. Bacteria in their spores cannot reproduce. When they're in normal, unprotected mode, they're no less vunerable than anything else to our immune systems, antibiotics, and predators. Tons of modern bacteria have this ability to form spores. Some are dangerous, most are not.
And, no, every possible precaution probably isn't. But just about every reasonable precaution probably is. Unlike you, I actually have experience doing biological research, and I know what the procedures are like. Unlike you, I didn't formulate my conception of science based on bad B-movies. Here's a hint: there are no movies about science working correctly and keeping mysterious bacteria safely in check inside the lab, because that would be boring. So they distort scientific procedures and make scientists look like either maniacal madmen or bumbling idiots.
Read the articles...the first several lines of the DNA of the bacteria contains the following RCS info:
That's how they know how old it is!Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
250 million years is a long time evolutionarily speaking, and life on this planet has gone through a whole load of changed in that time. Surely this is a serious cat of letting the cat out of the bag - if this gets loose then today's animals may have completely lost any resistance to it's effects.
We don't need a killer bug from prehistory coming back and killing us all. Let's hope that for once scientists take proper care of their bacteria.
Has anyone noticed a striking resemblance between this story and the Amiga resurrection one posted below it?
A long-forgotten, primitive system is revived. A small population of geeks go "Wow". The rest of us go "Why the fuck?"
I'd hate to be the one who's gonna have to tell this bacterium that all his friends and relative have been dead for 250 million years.
Ancient bacteria being released probably happens *all the time*. They said these bacteria were found in salt crystals underground. What are the chances your salt in your salt shaker came from a salt mine? If the original poster is indeed as paranoid as his post, upon coming upon this realization, he should probably never eat salt again in his life.
And then there are natural occurences. Volcanoes, plate tectonics, landslides in mountainous regions, geysers, million year old glaciers melting, co2 under the ocean getting released, the list goes on. I imagine that ancient underground bacteria are being releasted contantly!
This is similar to the panic caused by people worrying about mini black holes created by supercolliders. No-one stopped to realize that far more energetic reactions occur constantly in our atmosphere as super high energy cosmic rays come down from space. The nice thing about the collider was that you could have the lower energy collisions in a nice laboratory environment.
Yet dumb people freaked. At times like this I really hate the X-Files.
Information can't set you free if you don't understand it.
E
"Bacteria Revived After 250 Million Years"
Well were else did you think Bush came from?
What is wrong with these people. Didn't any of these guys see Jurassic Park?
BrianMy Open Source Project
So what's this bacteria DO?
;)
I mean, what happens when an intern is swapping around petri dishes one night and he trips over his shoelaces? Does he dump into our modern world some parasite that absolutely nothing currently alive today has an immunity to?
Or, even if it's a "good" bacteria, it could cause more harm than anything.
Chalk my suspicion up to all kinds of media-fed paranoia about biological attacks and too many B-grade sci-films as a kid.
It is pretty astounding.. but considering what bringing domesticated animals into Australia did (as an off the shelf example), what's going to happen when we bring 250 million year old lifeforms back to life?
Bacillus is a very common endospore forming soil isolate.
Some in this group are capable of causing food poisoning or food spoilage such as Bacillus cereus
Another of this group is Bacillus anthracis which (obviously) causes anthrax.
Bacillus species also produce parasporal bodies which are highly specific insecticides (they use it against the spruce budworm).
Some Bacillus species also produce antibiotics such as polymixon.
However, most Bacillus species are harmless (unless you are an insect) and very very common in the soil.
Most bacteria are harmless. They cover you inside and out and outnumber your body cells 9 to 1.
Eh... its been here for 250 million years.
That should qualify as earthling.
The BBC News this morning said that it was possibly extra-terrestrial. They've got the story on their site now at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_9 78000/978774.stm
Interesting...
Drinking down a glass of bacterial culture? Erm...yogurt?
To be fair, the bacteria could turn out to be the great killer plague but they could also change into ice-skating mongooses and dance the bolero, which is about as likely.
(It'd be highly ironic if I was proved 100% wrong though.)
Elgon
why the FUCK are they messing with that kind of stuff?
If that got out, and happened to be dangerous to humans, or plants, or any species at all... it would be devastating.
There is absolutely no way to justify the risk of doing something as reckless as that.
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This set of articles in the Oct. 19th issue of the journal Nature has considerably more information than Reuters. Access to some of the articles is restricted to subscribers.
http://www.nature.com/nature/fow/001019.html
thedrick
"Wow, who missed basic biology then"
You, apparently.
No bacterium that has not evolved specifically to get past our immune defenses will become an epidemic. They're too generalist and adaptive (our defenses, that is) -- and almost certainly quite different from our ancestors 250 million years ago, before true mammals even evolved.
To be sure, bacteria may contain not-so-healthy chemicals or waste products, so drinking down a big glass of bacterial culture would be dumb.
But no one's going to do that. And this thing is of sufficient importance that I'm sure it'll be handled intelligently.
And you know the reason why such bacteria live in environments where their effects can't reach us? because they can survive only in those environments. Sure, that bacterium may just generate a deadly poison, but unless it spreads into something that humans consume (for which it would have to overcome current immune systems, which it is not likely to, for reasons stated) we couldn't care less, unless someone actually guzzles down the culture, in which case they deserve whatever happens to them.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
250million years ago was during the Permian, hence the name _Bacillus permians_.
Um, no. They don't. If they did, they would be everywhere already, but the onews that actually are everywhere are no problem for our immune system.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Yes, It effectively did exactly that by being confined in that salt crystal with no interaction with the outside world.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Sorry. I'm just annoyed at all these people on this board who think that life is a bad scifi flick.
There's no evidence it isn't that I know of, save that the vast majority of _Bacillus_ bacteria are nonpathogenic.
Ok, I really mangled that formatting so here it is again.
Doesn't this contradict both religions?
Contrary to popular fundie belief, evolution is not a religion. It is completely independant from any and all religious beliefs.
When reading scientific articles, I always expect them to have something saying "25 billion years," et cetera.
This can be easily explained - you are stupid (or at least ignorant, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt). The Earth is only 4.6 billion years old. The universe is much older, but I think current estimates put it at about 14 billion years, though I could be wrong.
But, this article doesn't. It says that it was from before the dinosaurs but, according to evolutionists, dinosaurs live way back when 100+ billion years ago.
Again you are stupid. Are you a troll? Congrats, you got a response from me.
It says 250 Million which is considerably shorter. It dosn't follow evolutionary beliefs, nor does it follow christian beliefs. Christians (for the most part) believe that the world isn't very old, say 5,000 years ('round-about).
Actually, they say 6,000. You don't even know what your own beliefs are.
250 Million is considerable longer than 5,000 years.
No shit.
Those are just my ponderings...
They say a mind that has been stretched will never return to its original shape. What you need is a full-body wedgie.
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
Ask the sharks. The answer is "because they didn't have any reason to", essentially.
Either that, or their local Microbial Legislature outlawed evolution in their pond...
(I can see the debate now - "Maybe YOU evolved from free-floating strands of nucleotides, but I didn't! This phospolipid bilayer is PROOF of divine influence!")
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
The same story from abc news is here ;.
Because it hasn't been doing anything.
That's like using one of those cryogenic freeze/life support chambers from science fiction (like 2001 and 2010) and leaving a group of people in it for a billion years, and then taking them out and wondering why they haven't evolved. HELLO! They were FROZEN
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
I wonder how they found it?
I mean they can have a general idea of where to look but bacteria are pretty small. The proverbial needle in a haystack.
Defraggle
Head monkey
Dynamic League of discord POEE Cabal "Monkey"
I would be ULTRA surprised if this was not due to contamination at any of many potential stages, most likely from the lab/lab workers themselves. The instant a crystal is recovered, moved, opened, etc, it's exposed to "fresh" environmental bacteria. Bacteria, including spore-formers like Bacillus that are resistant to just about every natural environmental condition, are ubiquitous. I don't buy that these bacteria are this old; I would need more proof than, "hey, look, we found bacteria in this crystal!". NO kidding.
Just this ONE was frozen. The rest of the colonies presumably stayed alive to becume the current strain of Bacillus, but there was little evolution in the intervening millions of years to differentiate them.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
of Bacillus. Wouldn't the evolution theory require Bacillus to have radically changed? Why hasn't it evolved in 25 million years?
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
if this bug is really 250million years old, it would be very interesting to see if they have antibiotic resistance genes, or even antibiotic resistance sequences contained in plasmids.
let me explain: over the last few years we have heard this big scare over the increasing number of bacteria that can no longer be treated with normal antibiotics. We call these "superbugs" (e.g. VRE = vancomysin resistant enterococcus). This is a big concern in the medical community because of their inability to treat such illnesses.
Antibiotic resistance has grown into a frightening spectre over the last few years, and it is largely blamed on our unchecked use of antibiotics: we use them not to treat but to prevent disease on a large scale. Farmers routinely add antibiotics to animal feed as a guard against infection. We buy antibacterial soap. crops are sprayed with antibiotic solutions to prevent crop loss due to disease.
bacteria that are exposed to these antibiotics may not recieve a dose large enough to kill it. if this is so, then the bacteria can pass those resistance genes on to its progeny, which reproduce once every 20 minutes. these genetic sequences that are passed down to subsequent generations can even be transfered from bacteria to bacteria, so those novel gene sequences can be swapped, even with bacteria of different strains!
we now see this everywhre... even bacteria in the soil and other "wild" bacteria (not grown in the lab) have penicillin resistance genes. so it is pretty exciting that bacteria that old was discovered. this bacteria can help answer questions as to the origins of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and could answer questions regarding our behavior with the proactive use of antibiotics.
A quick search turns up this Science News article from June 1999, which appears to refer to work of the same researchers:3 .htm
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/6_12_99/fob
The article questions whether the organisms found in the salt are nearly as old as their discovers claim. It suggests that contamination from many sources could also account for the find.
Has any evidence turned up since 1999 that more conclusively supports these claims? This isn't clear from the Reuters story, and I don't think I'm going to believe it until I see some further proof.
I agree. Usually the more pathogenic the organism, the shorter the amount of time it can last outside the host.
Also, what's to stop salt deposits from being naturally disturbed in geologic events? These organisms are probably being released all the time.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Yes in salt. Mix the thing in a solution with some macrophages and it would be dead in minutes
Doesn't this contradict both religions? When reading scientific articles, I always expect them to have something saying "25 billion years," et cetera. But, this article doesn't. It says that it was from before the dinosaurs but, according to evolutionists, dinosaurs live way back when 100+ billion years ago. It says 250 Million which is considerably shorter. It dosn't follow evolutionary beliefs, nor does it follow christian beliefs. Christians (for the most part) believe that the world isn't very old, say 5,000 years ('round-about). 250 Million is considerable longer than 5,000 years. Those are just my ponderings...
From,
Are you telling me that you don't see the connection between government and laughing at people? - Interviewer
Chances are this was just a normal soil bacterium, like most bacteria are, that just happened to find itself in a salty environment and went into hibernation mode.
Besides, they wouldn't end up inside the environment of a person's body unless someone was really, really, really, really dumb.
If this were the case, how come life is not still confined to the oceans? And bacteriums are carried out of their original habitats by chance all the time.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Many people assume the bacteria could do harmful things to us. It's not unthinkable that it could do beneficial things, like curing certain diseases. After all, it's 250,000,000 years old. It must be doing something right.
scientists in the United States have revived a 250-million-year-old bacteria
i wouldn't say it was revived because it was never dead.
you can also read about it on this BBC story
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Never send a man where you can send a bullet.
This is how it all starts, first bacteria, then more complex lifeforms. And eventualy men.
I'm going to make sure, that when I'm dead my body is well preserved.
The Egyptians forsaw it all.
Horus
Mark
- if you love something, set it free; if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it
Scientist #1: Hey Bill, I was thinking...we just aren't inventing enough stuff to wipe out humanity.
Scientist #2: What do you mean, James?
#1: Well, we have nanobots in the works and that Taco Bell genetically altered supercorn, but something is lacking...
#2: Hey I have an idea. Let's take some really old bacteria and try to give it life again!
#1: Wow, great idea! But do we know what it does to the ecosystem?
#2: Nope! But we're scientists so we can't be blamed!
#1: Perfect! Hey, how about after this we go over to that local supercollider and try to make a tiny black hole to play with?
#2: But isn't that dangerous?
#1: Of course it is, silly. But we're SCIENTISTS, remember?
THE END...(of life on Earth)
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Let me give you the lowdown
This scares the shit out of me, it took the help of major climatic chages and violent ecological damage to get rid of the dinosaurs. The last thing we wan't is to have to fight them "mano-et-mano" ;)
Most bacteria caused deseases, that does not exists anymore, are "extinct" because the bearers of the bactiria were KILLED! by it. We really don't need more bacteria species to battle when penicilin (the only weapon we have against bacteria, apart from letting people die in isolation) is proving less and less effective
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
Take any random bacterium from any random environment, and chances are it's harmless to humans.
... most invertebrates don't have an adaptive immune system as vertebrates do
Sure, but actually, we have no way of knowing if it's harmful to humans until it's too late.
Again, to adapt the immune system, you have to become infected. If it's on the orders of Ebola, which just wiped out a few villages in Africa yesterday after one woman became infected (and they have no idea what animal/plant is the vector), it might be cold comfort to find out that we should have taken more precautions when we started messing with it.
AIDS is not a bacterium. It's a virus, which is an OBLIGATE parasite. And it's not a consequence of scientific research.
I know this. My point is that humans are not invulnerable and this minor blip in history of some 50-60 years where we had anti-bacterial agents shows that they develop immunities. And anti-bacterial agents have existed since time began - many are byproducts of molds and other naturally occurring biological processes.
I'm not saying Run For The Hills!, but I am saying don't fool yourself that we can't be wiped out in days by something we forgot to be cautious about.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Yup, I've seen it!
Think of all the religions around the world that say the world is only X years old. Then compare that number to 250 million years.- ------
I'm personlly going with the science on this one.
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Does it bug anyone else that even Reuters doesn't recognize that bacteria is a plural word (singular: bacterium). It's pretty pathetic when a computer geek like me has better grammar and spelling than the newspapers and magazines... just what the heck do these people learn in their education?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Foolish mortals! Of course the bacterium is still viable!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oooh, like I've never ever seen those arguments before.
Idiot.
Anyone remember The Blob? That's how it started. I hate it when Science interferes with good ol' Science Fiction, but it always happens...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Bacteria? How's that going to make a profitable amusement park on a lush, tropical island? Sure, if it got out of control it might kill people, but not in the exciting, fun, bitten in half sort of way. Please get back to dinosaurs, people.
Dan