Slashdot Mirror
8 Million Year Old Bacteria Thaws, Lives
Jamie found a New Scientist story about 8 million year old bacteria that scientists thawed out, and now it's alive. Also somehow they are sure that this is safe. The interesting bit is that since these samples came from ancient ice, it seems that the world will naturally be filled with these guys soon.
The summary ominously notes:
[...] somehow they are sure that this is safe. The interesting bit is that since these samples came from ancient ice, it seems that the world will naturally be filled with these guys soon.
...filed, of course, under "gonna-need-more-antibiotics".
Except the article says:
This is nothing to worry about, say experts, because the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease.
[...]
Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University, who led the study, [...] does not believe this is cause for concern because marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health than, for instance, those found on land.
Russell Vreeland of the Ancient Biomaterials Institute at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, US, agrees. "This has been happening probably for a long, long time. Ice freezes and melts, rocks sink and are eroded. Microbes have been involved with this process for almost 4 billion years," says Vreeland, who has resuscitated 250-million year-old bacteria found in salt crystals. "Earth acts as a gene bank for microbes."
So, what's "new" here is that a researcher has actually intentionally taken frozen microbes from the oldest known ice and successfully resuscitated them in a laboratory setting. The Earth has been doing this on its own for billions of years.
I'm sure this comments will be filled with the likes of:
- By ignoring the undeniable truth that global warming is due to human behavior, we are toying with balances we can't possibly understand, and now may even be releasing ancient microbes into the environment whose dangers we don't yet know!
- Even if the Earth has been doing this on its own, we are unnaturally accelerating it; therefore, the potential release of these microbes must be bad!
- This may be a natural process, but humans may not have existed on Earth the last time this occurred, therefore we can't predict the possible harm to humanity!
...all tied in, of course, to the fact that we should be working on ways to "stop" climate change, predicated on the belief that any negative climate change is due exclusively to human activity beyond any shadow of scientific doubt, and that no climate change can ever be a net positive, especially when caused by human activity, when there are in truth far more factors involved, even if human activity is a large one. (Note: I am not saying global warming is "positive" or that human activity isn't a component; I am saying that it is inaccurate to cloak anything in self-serving absolutes.)
The interesting intersection here is that such a transition may occur while humans are present on Earth. This is not necessarily a "good" or a "bad" thing...it just is. Humans have learned to manipulate and adapt to their environment for millennia, both on long and short term bases. Artificial change cannot intrinsically be defined as better or worse than natural change. Some of this change may have a negative impact on human existence on Earth; some may not.
This does not mean that we should be raping the environment or ignoring any danger. But the single-mindedness of climate change activists is somewhat disturbing. They view climate change in a vacuum, separated from all other concerns, and that is simply a foolish and counterproductive position to take.
Ever wonder why there are so many global warming deniers? It's because of the attitude taken by fanatic, self-righteous global warming alarmists. We'd be a lot better served by real discussions - which are, unfortunately, far too complex for most people on either side of the "political" global warming debate to understand - than one alarmist global warming story after another.
The issues - social, economic, scientific, and so on - surrounding "climate change" deserve a far better treatment, even in slashdot comments, than berating Chevy Suburbans, Big Oil, and fat, lazy, greedy Americans.
Yes and no, mostly no.
AFAIK the immune system isn't set to kill known bacteria, it's set to kill any unknown cell. Your own cells have a "self" marker, meaning "it's mine". Anything identified as lacking this marker is instantly marked for termination with extreme prejudice.
The bacteria that kill you have had millions of years to learn to cope with that big problem, precisely _because_ they had to deal with mammals all the time. Some fake the marker (with different degrees of success, usually not too well), some do the reverse peroxide kiss of death on any immune system cell trying to do it to them, some just kill you faster than your immune system can do much about it, etc. And, even so, most actually are actually pretty easily kept in check unless your immune system is already compromised.
A bacterium which is so completely foreign that it never had to live in a mammal, well, won't live too long in there. There are layers upon layers upon layers of defenses to which they have no answer whatsoever.
Now with _viruses_ it's exactly the other way around, as the immune system pretty much has to figure out an antibody and remember it. So a new one _can_ fuck you up badly. That's why flu and smallpox nearly wiped out the american indians: those were viruses.
Of course, even then the assumption is that it knows how to modify your DNA code. Flu and smallpox already had to deal with the Europeans, so they were already well tuned for humans. A completely alien virus (a la Andromeda Strain), while it would probably get past your immune system easily, it also probably wouldn't even know where to start to reprogram your cells.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.