34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive

cold fjord writes "A scientist has made a weird and wonderful find. 'It's a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something... alive.' The Geological Society of America's current issue of GSA Today has the academic paper."

Comments

*phew*

[ArhcAngel]

Anyone else read 34,000 year old Orgasms?

Re:*phew*

[durrr]

I can't think of a better way to have spent the last 34 millennia.

Re:*phew*

[Locke2005]

Yeah, it's been about that long for me, too.

Re:*phew*

[Paracelcus]

Yeah but the smell of her 34K Y/O cootch was more than my bottle of Nusbaum's Numb Nose could mask!

Re:*phew*

[ruthless reader]

Yeah, it's been about that long for me, too.

I'm guessing "They're alive, but they're not using any energy to swim around, they're not reproducing," part...

Re:*phew*

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, Paracelsus, you should smell your wee wee.

Re:*phew*

[mikael]

"The first million years were the worst. The second million, they were the worst too. After that I went into a bit of a decline."

tl;dr:

[GoNINzo]

tl;dr: They found bacteria alive in salt crystals

Re:tl;dr:

[Anonymous Coward]

They weren't bacteria, it's a single complex organism. Also, the scientists are Swedish I think...

Re:tl;dr:

[SuiteSisterMary]

Step one for finding interesting life: look in places where you know damn well life cannot exist.

Re:tl;dr:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

St. Louis, Missouri?

Re:tl;dr:

[somersault]

No, I RTFA and there were at least bacteria and algae.

Re:tl;dr:

[amliebsch]

EAST St. Louis, Illinois.

Re:tl;dr:

[MikeDirnt69]

Slashdot

Re:tl;dr:

[lostmongoose]

Detroit

Re:tl;dr:

[bhcompy]

East Durndle would also be valid

Re:tl;dr:

[kurt555gs]

East St Louis! If I only had mod points.

Re:tl;dr:

[BobMcD]

"Hey, lay off those people in Detroit. They're living in Mad Max times! ... " - Moe Szyslak

Re:tl;dr:

[mikael]

And they are pining for the fyords..

Re:tl;dr:

[Normal Dan]

My pants?

Re:tl;dr:

[cold fjord]

And they are pining for the fyords..

That's fjords. :)

silicon life?

[alphatel]

It calls itself a horta!

Re:silicon life?

[durrr]

And it gives spider legs to decapitated heads.

Re:silicon life?

[idontgno]

NO KILL I

Dammit, Slashdot, I'm a poster, not a doctor. It's not my fault that damn Horta is yelling.

Re:silicon life?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like a Crystelline Entity...

Re:silicon life?

[Darinbob]

Never fall in love with a being made of pure silicone!

Re:silicon life?

[icebike]

It calls itself a horta!

Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor not a stonemason!

Re:silicon life?

[AP31R0N]

UGLY BAG OF MOSTLY WATER

hehe

Re:silicon life?

[cyclomedia]

bricklayer

Soon afterwards ...

[Archangel Michael]

.. the young scientist was heard muttering ... "braaaaains"

Re:Soon afterwards ...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Mmmmmmmmm. braaaaains. Om nom nom nom nom.

Mebbe

[JustOK]

Mebbe they were put there for a reason! DEAR GOD!! YOU'VE LET THEM OUT!

Re:Mebbe

[Neil Boekend]

nope, 4000 years before that.
If your bullshit detector is offline (or has a IRQ conflict) you may be lead to believe there were some things before Jesus. Like Sodom and Gomorrah.

CNN reports

[Anonymous Coward]

After their amazing rescue the bacteria were interviewed by Anderson Cooper. The bacteria expressed their thanks for being rescued from their 34,000 years of imprisonment in a salt tomb in Death Valley. It's a miracle all the bacteria survived for the full 34,000 years and the bacteria thanked God for keeping them alive and their rescue. When asked what they planned to do all replied, "We're going to Disneyland!" The bacteria are expected to put in an appearance on the new Oprah network next week and have been offered their own reality series.

Re:CNN reports

[Bobakitoo]

CNN reports? I thought i was reading an excerpt from the Onion.

Re:CNN reports

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Meh, watching bacteria sit in a hibernation state for 34,000 years would still be more entertaining twenty minutes of Jersey Shore. It's kind of like how Purgatory is better than Hell, even those it's incredibly uneventful.

Re:CNN reports

[Anonymous Coward]

First I laughed.

Then, I appreciated the cultural satire with some envy of the other AC for doing it brilliantly.

Then, I shook my head in disgust because of the truth of it.

Then, I imagined one of the bacteria insisting on being referred to as "The Bacteria" (showing off his well defined flagella) and another one being "Bact-Wow" and yet another one (the fat one with too much makeup on its pili) being called "Pookie".

Re:CNN reports

[peragrin]

God couldn't have kept them alive for 34,000 years as the universe is only 6,000 years old because the creationists say it is.

Only the devil could have planted them there.

Re:CNN reports

[Mitchell314]

What's the difference?

Re:CNN reports

[countSudoku()]

And Fox News complained that this does not fall in line with their version of reality which only goes back 6000 years or so, and does not include dinosaurs. Praise fucking Jesus and be sure and get your Glenn Beck Survival Backpack with your Cash For Gold money! And stop posting pictures of Sarah Palin with a target on her face and a caption reading; "Dump your load here!" That would not be fair!

Re:CNN reports

[noidentity]

It's a miracle all the bacteria survived for the full 34,000 years and the bacteria thanked God for keeping them alive and their rescue.

Which God did he thank that claims that Earth is that old?

Re:CNN reports

[Anonymous Coward]

New earth creationists believe the earth is only 6000 yrs old.
Not all creationists put an estimated age on the earth. Some of us think that it is just as preposterous as you do!

Re:CNN reports

[sjames]

The Onion gets it right occasionally?

Re:CNN reports

[ShakaUVM]

>>After their amazing rescue the bacteria were interviewed by Anderson Cooper.

If it was Anderson Cooper, he'd probably immerse himself in the bacterial soup and talk about how it was eating him alive.

And then a dog would walk up and lick him in the face.

Re:CNN reports

[GNious]

Praise fucking Jesus

Baby Jesus did no such thing!

Re:CNN reports

[Neil Boekend]

But God is almighty, so he could have created these bacteria with an lower C-14 carbon fraction so the scientist would be fooled into thinking they were 34000 yo. He would of course do this because only the really faithfull will survive the (zombi)Apocalypse. He is just to lazy to pick all their brains and find it out for real.

I hope they didnt find what i think they found

[jeffmeden]

As long as it wasn't the salt-withered but still-living body of Takezo Kensei, they can go ahead and resurrect whatever they want.

Specimen handling protocols

[PPH]

Any geo/biology wizards out there care to comment on whether the protocols for handling specimens intended for climate research are adequate to prevent biological contamination?

If the crystals were dated at 34,000 years, but somebody sneezed on them last week .....

Re:Specimen handling protocols

[oh_my_080980980]

The fact that they were trapped in salt would be the big clue.

Re:Specimen handling protocols

[Takichi]

FTA:

Schubert and Lowenstein are not the first to uncover organisms that are astonishingly long-lived. About a decade ago, there were claims of discoveries of 250-million-year-old bacteria. The results weren't reproduced, and remain controversial. Schubert, however, was able to reproduce his results. Not only did he grow the same organisms again in his own lab, he sent crystals to another lab, which then got the same results. "So this wasn't something that was just a contaminant from our lab," Schubert said.

The article also mentions that his original finding was about a year ago, but his work is actually being published now.

Re:Specimen handling protocols

[poslfit]

So, they're *34,001* years old. Get your story straight!

Re:Specimen handling protocols

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine is doing a lot of work with salt-tolerant bacteria, and she was telling me about the protocols for sterilising salt crystals a few days ago which she was going to use for some grit she had nabbed. Apparently it's pretty normal to dump them into salt-saturated 10M NaOH: because it is salt saturated the crystals of your sample won't dissolve keeping the innards intact, and the NaOH will sterilise the outside. You just have to handle them under the right conditions afterwards. Apaprently pure ethanol does the trick too.

So as long as the samples were processed properly before they tried to get bacteria out of them contamination shouldn't be an issue.

Re:Specimen handling protocols

[koona]

FTFA = "Incubation under aerobic conditions for periods of up to 90 days led to the growth of cultures from five halite crystals"

                The crystal surfaces were exhaustively treated for external contaminants.

These folks are doin their best to head off the, to be expected, objections.

  Have to come up with a better one I guess.

    >/ DOUGLAS

2012

[Mondorescue]

Suddenly the 2012 presidential election looks more interesting.

Re:2012

[Locke2005]

Why? Just because they finally have a candidate available that actually older than John McCain?

Re:2012

[NatasRevol]

At least this one will have more brains than Sarah Palin.

What's Alaskan for redneck?

Re:2012

[Crudely_Indecent]

...older than John McCain...

No, because they have a candidate older than Ron Paul.

Re:2012

[ColdWetDog]

What's Alaskan for redneck?

Alaskan.

Re:Obligatory

[Shikaku]

Neither is Slashdot, but we keep on coming here anyway.

I wonder why...

Re:Obligatory

[asnelt]

Strange, I was about to post the exact same comment, character for character...

As you left me... as you left her....

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

34,000 years ago a tiny little voice was heard screaming KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Re:As you left me... as you left her....

[Locke2005]

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it...

Can someone send in Isaac Clark?

[Drakkenmensch]

The facility is in bad need of repairs and isn't responding anymore.

Do not believe!

[GodricL]

This is another test of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. By noodly decree, the earth is only 32,000 years old. His Meatballiness tests our faith with this blasphemy!

Algae present as well

[jeffliott]

Missing from the summary is that there were algae present in the salt crystals as well, and that they likely contributed to the survivability of the bacteria. I'm really curious how the algae survived though!

Re:Algae present as well

[Locke2005]

Obviously the algae were living off of the remains of dead bacteria...

Re:Algae present as well

[Locke2005]

Ever heard of Ourobouros?

Re:Algae present as well

[Rude Turnip]

Our Rob or Ross?

Re:Algae present as well

[Yvan256]

But how did the algae survive?!?

Re:Algae present as well

[XiY47]

I wish I could up-mod this as "Redundant."

Re:Algae present as well

[Unkyjar]

It didn't.

Re:Algae present as well

[koona]

I'm not going back to the article, it is long, but I don't remember that any of the eukaryotes made it, only the prokaryotes, Bacteria and Archaea. Those few that were alive (0.04% of samples) are hypothesised to have survived,in a "starvation-survival" form, by using the glycol derived from decomposing Algae. /DOUGLAS

Re:"young, unknown researcher"?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Because only someone young (and foolish) would release something that's been entombed alive for 34,000 years.

An agent for the bacteria...

[Anonymous Coward]

...also announced an upcoming series of ads for Geico featuring the little guys.

Re:Skeptical

[Locke2005]

... with his girlfriend.

Re:Skeptical

[geekoid]

The paper discusses this very thing.

How about reading it and the referenced papers?

Re:Skeptical

[EnderDom]

I like how you assume the idiot is a man... But yeah he will be.

Re:Obligatory

[tom17]

RSS?

Re:Skeptical

[snspdaarf]

And they all have one eye

Soviet Political Prisoners Eat Ancient Fauna

[handy_vandal]

In 1949 some friends and I came upon a noteworthy news item in Nature, a magazine of the Academy of Sciences. It reported in tiny type that in the course of excavations on the Kolyma River a subterranean ice lens had been discovered which was actually a frozen stream - and in it were found frozen specimens of prehistoric fauna some tens of thousands of years old. Whether fish or salamander, these were preseved in so fresh a state, the scientific correspondent reported, that those present immediately broke open the ice encasing the specimens and devoured them with relish on the spot.

The magazine no doubt astonished its small audience with the news of how successfully the flesh of fish could be kept fresh in a frozen state. But few, indeed, among its readers were able to decipher the genuine and heroic meaning of this incautious report.

As for us, however - we understood instantly. We could picture the entrire scene right down to the smallest details: how those present broke up the ice in frenzied haste; how, flouting the higher claims of ichthyology and elbowing each other to be first, they tore off chunks of the prehistoric flesh and hauled them over to the bonfire to thaw them out and bolt them down.

We understood because we ourselves were the same kind of people as those present at that event. We, too were from that powerful tribe of Zeks, unique on the face of the earth, the only people who could devour prehistoric salamander with relish.

From the Preface to The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Re:Soviet Political Prisoners Eat Ancient Fauna

[Raenex]

[Fry ate an alien mummy thinking it was jerky] "My God, this is an outrage! I was going to eat that mummy."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756882/quotes

Re:Obligatory

[somersault]

Not that strange. It's the groupthink talking for ya.

Re:Skeptical

[Local ID10T]

the great-great-etc-great-grandchildren of some idiot who got trapped in cave 34,000 years ago.

If only he had stopped to ask for directions...

Re:Obligatory

[techoi]

I disagree. And I, for one, welcome our ACs that don't know from funny.

Re:Racist

[BassMan449]

Did he say anything about anyone skin? All I see is the name of a city. St. Louis MO can be pretty bad, but East St Louis IL is much worse. It's an observable fact and there is nothing racist about it.

Nauls: Maybe we're at war with Norway?

[circletimessquare]

MacReady: I dunno, it's like this: thousands of years ago this spaceship crashes, and this thing, whatever it is, jumps out or crawls out and gets entombed in the ice.
Garry: So, the Norwegians find it, and they dig it out of the ice...
MacReady: That's right, Garry. They dig it up, they cart it back to their base. Somehow it gets thawed, it wakes up, probaly not the best of moods, and... I don't know, I wasn't there!

Re:Obligatory

[holymartyr75]

So is calling something a "meme"

Re:Obligatory

[hesiod]

Yes, Russo-Soviet Subscription.

Re:Comma!

[Captain Hook]

if it's "buried and alive", doesn't that suggest it was "buried alive" in the first place, unless of course it resuscitated itself after it was buried dead...

Meme me

[Tetsujin]

So is calling something a "meme"

I'd be happy to stop calling things "memes" but calling them "retarded internet running gags" seems a tad harsh...

Re:Obligatory

[omnichad]

I, for one, wish I had mod points!

One time digging in my yard...

[trailerparkcassanova]

I dug up some earthworms. Holy cow, they were BURIED ALIVE!!!

end of the blob

[hesaigo999ca]

The movie the blob ends with this being sent into the deepest ocean arctic waters. Is this something like minded which is in temporal status, and could come back to life like a bug or what not...

Re:Obligatory

[asnelt]

Either that, or this loosed organism is already messing with our heads. I say, KILL IT!

Re:The unwashed masses...

[ThatMegathronDude]

Give it a few more days and you'll be so misanthropic that you decide that mankind should be left to wallow in its filth, undeserving of salvation.

Re:Good, good.

[TheCarp]

Welll.... it does come down to some arbitrary distinctions. I would say that "age" like that of a human, is different from that of a single cell organism. Think of it... mitosis happens, two new copies of nuclear DNA exist... then the cell splits (I know, plenty of variation in the process....)... now...

do we have one old cell and one new one? If so, which is the old one? Or two new cells? Or are they both the old cell? Here we can show the age of a cell to go all the way back to its lineal origin, or... to be new with each generation..... so yah.... in those terms, age is pretty arbitrary.

On the other hand.... humans have a variable but fairly well defined life process that happens. We are not cells, we are just, mostly made up of them. Of course, I am completely leaving out any discussion of telomeres.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere which do indicate a sort of aging.

Re:Skeptical

[amRadioHed]

The bacteria were dormant when discovered, think suspended animation. Being in that state prolonged existence is more likely then reproduction.

Re:"young, unknown researcher"?

[Will.Woodhull]

And yet the salt mines we've got scattered around all over the Earth have been doing this for a few hundred years, without any precautions at all.

It is probably only a matter of time before salt mine flu gains as much recognition as swine flu and bird flu. Who knows what else lies pickled in the briny bubbles?

Re:Death Valley Expansion Pack

[soundscape]

Arthas... Wait, what?

A Serious question!

[MoeDumb]

I recently purchased and began seasoning my food with "Organic Himalayan Salt," sold through a well known vitamin company. Could I also be swallowing - (gulp) - ancient organisms? Could they possibly come to life and multiply in my GI tract -- and take over? Only salt of the earth types need reply.

Re:Good, good.

[koona]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9359000/9359075.stm

Across northwestern North America, every example of a common peat moss called Sphagnum subnitens is genetically identical...

That means every specimen can be traced back to a single parent, which likely conquered North America in less than 300 years... ...the same is not true in Europe, where a wide variety of S. subnitens mosses live.

"All of the plants of S. subnitens in northwestern North America appear to have descended from just one parent," ...

"100% of the gene pool was contributed by one individual."

Genetically identical plants of S. subnitens range from coastal Oregon to the western Aleutian Islands, a distance of some 4115km.

                                http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9359000/9359075.stm

DOUGLAS

xkcd: Desecration

[handy_vandal]

"Remember last week when we dug up all those Indian bones and made puppets out of them?"