Ancient Antarctic Bacteria Revived

Danny Rathjens writes "Frozen bacteria from Antarctica, estimated to be between five to eight million years old, were brought back to life simply by warming them up! NASA folks also participated since they think this can give them better clues on where to look for life on Mars."

Comments

The geeky perspective...

[jeeves99]

I have whole freezers full of mammalian, bacteria, and yeast cells that I can though out and revive with a usual 80% efficiency. Freezing cells for later use is VERY common in the research world. For longterm storage -160 is preferred and for short term -80 is acceptable. The fact that these survived bacteria so long at -27 is suprising. It makes me wonder what percentage actually survived.

What is a bit more suprising about this is that the cells were not stored in any special solution. DMSO or glycerol based solutions are typically added to the cell media right before freezing because they prevent ice crystals from burtsting the cells. You ever fill a sealed glass container with water and then freeze it? The water will expand and crack the glass. Same principle here.

These bacteria cells are hardy little suckers.

Sci-fi mumbojumbo

[mwheeler01]

I love the comments so far that are foretelling doom. Perhaps these microbes will lead us in the direction of a cure for cancer or be ultra efficient energy producers that can live in batteries. Those seem just a likely to me.

Seeds might also be revivable

[justanyone]

Sorry, this may be apocryphal, but here's two stories I remember reading:

• A house in Britain that was moved / removed. Underneath the stone and misc. flooring (which was all removed) a bunch of flowers sprouted that were totally unlike any in the area, but which matched descriptions from the middle ages of flowers at the time. But these flowers are long gone from Britain now.
  
• Likewise, I've heard that some wheat taken from an Egyptian tomb was planted and it sprouted (this was probably great for some genetic diversity study).

What I'm wondering is, I wonder if any seeds (or at least pollen) can be found preserved by extreme cold in the Antartic that could grow to be real plants ? If so, it seems to me a study of the amino acids, etc. in the plants might be worthwhile of study.

Does anyone know if plants have DNA? I am thinking that only animals have DNA, that plants have different structures like RNA or something. Sorry for my ignorance, I'm willing to read this online if someone can point me in the right direction to a site on the basics of plant biology without being too 'biochemical genetic engineering' (expert level) text. I've had HS bio, and college chem, and lots and lots and lots of physics, but that's it...

Thanks,
-- Kevin J. Rice

Re:Seeds might also be revivable

[Elledan]

"Does anyone know if plants have DNA? I am thinking that only animals have DNA, that plants have different structures like RNA or something. Sorry for my ignorance, I'm willing to read this online if someone can point me in the right direction to a site on the basics of plant biology without being too 'biochemical genetic engineering' (expert level) text. I've had HS bio, and college chem, and lots and lots and lots of physics, but that's it..."

All biological organisms use DNA. While early life forms are likely to have used RNA exclusively, DNA is used because it's very stable (from a biochemical point of view). Only some viruses contain a string of RNA instead of DNA.

You might find this site interesting.

Re:Before opening, please see

[jeni generic]

Sorry...still learning how to post in HTML...let me try this again within my current skill level. The human race is far too adaptive to be wiped out by viral or bacterial out break. Of course I can only talk out of my ass here, as I have no definitive proof except for Europe surviving the Black Plague; but every single disease that has surfaced (including AIDs http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/1996pres/960926.html ) has revealed a community of people that were either resistant or immune. For example I carry the gene for sickle cell anemia and as a side effect I have a natural resistance to Malaria, neato. Yeah, there would be casualties if we brought back, recovered or revived some unfamiliar "bug" and it turned out a sizable group was non-adaptive, but this is science (and they have special suits and underground hideouts for the really important people) and we sacrifice everything for growth, especially if it could bring in some extra public funding.