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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.
Here is a link to the post article. no login reguired
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."
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.
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.
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.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I live 20 miles away from Carlsbad. No wonder the salt in my soup tasted a little stale.
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I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
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.
Go to http://www.reuters.com/news.jhtml ?ty pe=science and click on the link
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.
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
"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
That's all very well. But I still say those
scientists took an unnecessary risk in bringing
that little thing back to life. Don't forget
that in MIB, Orion the cat was carrying an entire
universe in it's collar. It's therefore possible
that a bacteria could conceal a whole solar system
of mutant axe warriors hell bent on rape, pillage
and tax evasion.
God help us in the future.
"You can catch flies till the cows come home, but wasps are a totally different kettle of fish."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
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.
What a shithole, no offense. I spent about 6 months there in the Sun Shipyards. I have never been to a worse town.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
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.
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"
"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.
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 !
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.
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=sci ence&Repository=SCIENCE_REP&RepositorySt oryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FScience%2FSCIENCE-BACTERIA-C REATURE-DC_NEW.XML
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Naaah... it's already not there... they seem to change the URL each time. Nasty trick...
However, Yahoo doesn't do that. Story is here.
First, its a bacterium, not a virus. The differences are a fairly significant -- a bacterium is more clearly "alive", it reproduces on its own via mitosis (rather than hijacking the machinery of a host cell), and is significantly less robust (for instance, may be vulnerable to antibiotics).
If memory serves (it's been several years since I last looked at this subject...)
When a foreign object enters the system, it may be encountered by a macrophage. Your own cells normally are recognizable to the macrophage via some sort of identifying 'self' protein upon its outer structure, and can pass unmolested barring the occurence of certain auto-immune disorders. A foreign particle, however, may be consumed by the macrophage in its role as a system janitor of sorts.
Macrophages can, essentially, present a protein suitable for identifying that foreign object -- if any are found, such as those on the cell wall of a bacterium -- to one type of T-cell, which coordinates an immune response. This may involve the replication of B-cells, which in turn produce antibodies specific to that foreign protein. Chemicals such as interleukins come into play here, if memory serves -- regulating replication and production. A second type of T-cell will target that foreign object as well during this phase.
After the episode, you retain a number of the apppropriate T- and B-cells, so that the next time that exact protein is encountered, the overall immune response can happen much more quickly.
HIV takes one approach to defeating the system -- it has basically evolved to conceal itself from, and (if memory serves) within the T-cells itself, thus circumventing the defense system. In addition, certain viruses and bacteria have high replication/mutation rates, which increases the probability that a specimen will change significantly to the point that to the immune system, it appears to be a new strain and new T- and B-cells have to be propagated...
Immunity is never permanently off. One has to have a virulent strain -- perhaps many virulent strains -- simultaneously introduced in masse to circumvent the system completely.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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?
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...
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
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"
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.
Evolution is not a religion. And no real Christians is ever stark-mad raving loony.
I think it is more likely that it comes out and dies, not being able to compete successfully with the bacteria alive now.
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.
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)
------
Let me give you the lowdown