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

Re:YAY

[clausiam]

oh GREAT! Lets just go and revive ancient bacteria that could be a deadly virus!

Umm - how can a BACTERIA be a VIRUS since these are completely different organisms?

/Claus

Before opening, please see

[Alrescha]

"The Andromeda Strain", by Michael Crichton, (c) 1969

A.

Re: Before opening, please see

[Black Parrot]

Also, check the expiration date on the bottom of the can.

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.

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.

Re:The geeky perspective...

[sd211]

When you freeze mammalian cells, you do not have to use DMSO, 100% FBS will do. Besides, mammalian cells have not adopted to being frozen. Bacteria often do, especially soil ones. In addition, some organisms sporulate and spores are very resistant to harsh treatment. It is not surprising to me that bacteria sutvived that long, although it is definetely unusual.

Re:The geeky perspective...

[ralphclark]

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.

Yeah I have meat, yoghurt and bread dough in my freezer as well. Its very common in the "breakfast lunch and dinner" world as well.

Obviously...

[Your_Mom]

...these scientists haven't watched enough horror movies.

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.

Really Grave Responsibility Here

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

No, I did not RTFA, but I hope these guys know what the hell they're doing, i.e. I hope to hell [er- heaven] that they're doing this in one of those negative pressure Category III facilities, and that they're all wearing those Intel bunny spacesuits.

While I'll agree that it's a low probability event, if they were to revive some bacteria for which modern organisms lacked an immune response, there could be some serious hell to pay.

I have the same feeling about this idiotic mission to return a mist sample from a [water-based] comet, or to return a soil sample from Mars - while it's a low probability event, the expected consequences from releasing some sort of organic agent into our ecosystem for which we have no immune protection are simply catastrophic.

You may laugh, but hospitals are having a helluva time trying to protect patients from methicillin and vancomycin resistant staphylococcus aureus, and, fifteen years ago, we didn't even know that pseudo-living, pseudo-non-living things like prions even existed.

PS: This little screed is brought to you by a card-carrying, gun-toting, eco-sceptic pillar of what many /.ers would call the right-wing fringe, but folks, we need to be very, very careful with this stuff.

Re:HEY

[Tumbleweed]

Hey, don't blame the bacteria - it was born that way! If it was born as a virus in a bacteria's body, you have NO RIGHT to superimpose your 'value system' on it. Get your laws of the bacteria's body!

Damn right-wingers...

reasonable?

[BigChigger]

Yeah, a chance at new batteries vs. possible plague. Sounds like a reasonable risk to me. At least as long as someone else does the dying.

BC

8 million years is nothing.

[eggstasy]

Around 1995 scientists extracted bacteria from an insect's stomach, that had been trapped in amber for 125 million years, and they lived.
A few years later, scientists revived bacteria that had been dormant inside a crystal of common table salt for 250 million years!
Even so, Mars has been geologically dead for 1.5 billion years, so I don't know how how these paltry 8 million years are suddenly so significant.

Re:8 million years is nothing.

[Euphonious Coward]

The bacteria from bugs were, in fact, extracted from the crops of bees embedded in amber. The bacteria are of a type that is symbiotic with the bee.

My wife's cousin Sid was on the team analyzing the heritage of these bacteria (actually, I think, their mitochondria). They were able to demonstrate that the strain extracted was ancestral to those found in various species of modern bees.

Normally, when you publish stuff like this, everyone insists that the bacteria you have must have come from contamination on your equipment, and didn't really come out of the bee at all. To prove them wrong you have to show that the bacteria are quantifiably different from any modern strain.

Re:8 million years is nothing.

[dan dan the dna man]

Erm bacteria don't have mitochondria, they are a feature of some eukaryotic cells not prokaryote ones. The accepted wisdom is that mitochondria are derived from intracellular prokaryote symbiotes.

Re:8 million years is nothing.

[Detritus]

Soil is a good radiation shield. 8.4 cm of soil will block 50% of the radiation. Ice would probably be even better.

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

[Noofus]

Every living thing that we have discovered on thsi planet so far has DNA. Everything. "Modern" (Eukaryotic) multi-celled and many single eleed organisms keep their DNA in the cell nuclei. Most bacteria (but not all) are of the "non-modern" (Prokaryotic) type. Their DNA just floats around in their cells. However they ALL have DNA.

Even viruses, which are debatable as to their status as organisms keep DNA around (though a few are RNA based and known as retro viruses. HIV is an example)

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:Seeds might also be revivable

[phiala]

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). Nah, that seems to be an urban legend. It would be awfully cool, though! Kew Botanic Gardens talks abou it.

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.

This I haven't heard about. It seems unlikely to me, though. We have a reasonable idea as to what the flora of Britain was like during the Middle Ages, and where those species are now (mostly still there).

I wouldn't be surprised if there were windborne seeds and pollen in the Antarctic ice, but I'm not sure if much effort has gone into looking. It's not too likely that seeds would germinate (seeds are tough, but there are limits), but it might be possible to extract DNA. At the moment, we could compare that DNA to extant plants, but not do a whole lot else... the days of recreating "Jurassic Park" type plants is still waaay off.

Re:Seeds might also be revivable

[fortheloveofjava]

Every living organism on earth, plants and bacteria included, maintain their genome primarily in DNA, and use RNA during the process of converting the DNA source code into protein executables (see what a CS/Bio double major does for you?). To note an exception, there are many viruses that carry their entire genome in RNA, but there is some debate as to whether or not viruses are even alive, as they're little more than *NA wrapped in a protein shell.

Current day implications...

[rodney dill]

...We're not sure how long Al Gore can go yet and still be revived.

In related news..

[lecca]

There have been scattered reports of glowing green swarms attacking people at night in the woods

Feh

[Valdrax]

So you mean civilization will nearly be brought to the brink of extinction by an unknown plague only to have it mysteriously mutate completely and in unison to a rubber-eating form just in time for the total cop-out ending?