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Revived Microbe May Hold Clues For ET Lifeforms
krou writes "Science Daily is reporting that a microbe, Herminiimonas glaciei, buried some 3 km under glacial ice in Greenland, and believed to have been frozen for some 120,000 years, has been brought back to life (abstract). The microbe, some ten to fifty times smaller than E. coli, was brought back over several months by slowly incubating it at gradually increasing temperatures. After 11.5 months, the microbe began to replicate. Scientists believe that it could help us understand how life may exist on other planets. Dr. Jennifer Loveland-Curtze, who headed up the team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University, said: 'These extremely cold environments are the best analogues of possible extraterrestrial habitats. ... [S]tudying these bacteria can provide insights into how cells can survive and even grow under extremely harsh conditions, such as temperatures down to -56C, little oxygen, low nutrients, high pressure and limited space.' She also added that it 'isn't a pathogen and is not harmful to humans, but it can pass through a 0.2 micron filter, which is the filter pore size commonly used in sterilization of fluids in laboratories and hospitals. If there are other ultra-small bacteria that are pathogens, then they could be present in solutions presumed to be sterile. In a clear solution very tiny cells might grow but not create the density sufficient to make the solution cloudy.'"
I for one welcome our new tiny frigid overlords. And for once I am not talking about my wife :(
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but it can pass through a 0.2 micron filter... If there are other ultra-small bacteria that are pathogens, then they could be present in solutions presumed to be sterile.
Okay, I'm sufficiently worried enough to get my tin hat.
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Any chance we're going to get a new dinosaur out of this? I don't know about you, but I've been preparing to go to Jurassic park since I was 13.
Yeah, there's a chance, but I wouldn't be pre-ordering my tickets to Jurassic Park if I were you since the last time we got a dinosaur from a microbe it took about 1.5 billion years.
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Not to question her qualifications as a scientist or anything but I suspect that being a woman she forgot to account for shrinkage.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
I can't wait until "is not harmful to humans" turns into "wasn't supposed to be harmful to humans"
We should probably send their little frozen cousins on the moon a quick warning about the incoming NASA rocket!
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
You're playing with semantics. It no longer exhibited any of the characteristics of life. It had no metabolic function, no internal chemical reactions. It was dead. If you have a definition from a dictionary that defines dead to include someone who is irretreviably dead but not clinically dead, bring it forth. Otherwise, please realize such things are not so cut and dried.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
That's just the point. It have had some metabolic function and internal chemical reactions. I am pretty sure that's required for all carbon based life, no matter how simple. It's like saying that the Sea Monkeys I had as a kid were dead and 'brought them back to life' at home. They were not dead.
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That's just the point. It have had some metabolic function and internal chemical reactions.
Is that true though? If the bacteria's temperature is dropped low enough, all metabolic functions would stop (it's hard to say that all chemical reactions would stop, but that's the case for nearly everything, living or not). When the temperature is raised, the reactions would start occurring again and metabolism would start up.
Go ahead and mod me troll, but...
Something that is dead has no potential of becoming alive again. Otherwise it is not truly dead, but only mostly dead. The question is, what does the bacteria have to live for?
Now take this pill and don't go swimming for a half hour. And have fun cytokine-storming the castle.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Hopefully that's not the way it works.. I mean, isn't the genome mostly stuff which 'appears' to have no value? Maybe this is the archive of things useful from past ages.
*touches plastic-covered glue-and-wood-chips*
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I just assumed that, given its location, it was really just pining for the fjords.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
A couple orders of magnitude too young to claim that crown, according to this site
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Wait, you have to roll a 20 when you cast Raise Dead now? Man, I must be a few editions behind.
Naw, that goes back to the 1st Edition magical item the Staff of Healing (aka the Heal Stick), which you used to heal someone by beating them with it. On a critical hit, it could even heal the dead. In the universes with such an item, the term "beating a dead horse" referred to the inordinate amount of time a martially unskilled but greedy rancher would spend bludgeoning a valuable deceased horse with a Heal Stick attempting to bring it back.
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