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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.
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.
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!
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"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
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 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.
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.
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.
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?"
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.
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...
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.
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)
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