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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

Current day implications...

[rodney dill]

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