Frozen 46,000 years ago. Life is coming back into a worm from the Stone Age
German scientists succeeded in bringing a female worm back to life, after it was frozen in the permafrost in Siberia for 46,000 years, according to a recent scientific study.
These roundworms, found in a fossilized squirrel burrow and deep glacial deposits near the Kolyma River in Siberia in 2018, were identified as a completely new species of nematode, and existed at a depth of 40 meters below the surface, according to the study published last week in the journal "Plus". Scientific.
Genetic sequencing revealed that the insects have been in a dormant state known as cryptobiosis since the last ice age.
Radiocarbon dating of the plant material found with the frozen worms showed that they had remained unchanged since the late Pleistocene, coexisting with creatures such as Neanderthals, woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.
It is less than a meter long
The process of reanimating the tiny worms, less than a millimeter long, involved dissolving them in a petri dish filled with a nutrient-rich solution, and after a few weeks they showed signs of life, moving and eating.
Although the worms eventually died within a few months, the scientists confirmed that the species had reproduced successfully and is now undergoing further laboratory experiments.
case of cryptobiosis
The discovery sheds light on the amazing ability of nematodes to survive through cryptobiosis, a hibernation-like state that allows them to survive extreme conditions.
While other organisms have been "resurrected from long periods of quiescence", these Paleolithic worms are believed to be the oldest multicellular organisms ever to have been revived.
It is noteworthy that previously, the longest known record of nematodes in the case of "cryptobiosis" was only 39 years old, which makes the 46,000-year-old worms an unusual discovery in this field.
Source: websites