3000-year-old Microbes 34
marga writes "Science Daily is running a story about a group of researchers the have been drilling into the Antarctic ice and discovered 3000-year-old microbes that could come back to life if put in contact with liquid water. And not only that, they claim that they have uncovered a whole new ecological system lying beneath the Lake Vida."
Worried (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Worried (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Worried (Score:2)
You know, I've often wondered how gremlins know what time zone they're in...
Re:Worried (Score:2)
Re:Worried (Score:4, Insightful)
Some bacteria that have evolved to live in very salty water at -10 Celsius are unlikely to do much harm to a human.
On the other hand, the anti-freeze molecules they make might be quite beneficial. Something like that might make cryogenic suspended animation possible, or just better ice cream.
Re:Worried (Score:1)
(insert redundant mention of the Andromeda strain)
Re:Worried (Score:5, Insightful)
Our immune system has been evolving for hundreds of millions years, and it will attack everything that doesn't have the right 'password'. The only way pathogens can get those 'passwords' is just through enormous amounts of random mutation.
The rather prosiac solution is to stop using antibiotics irresponsibly because that just allows the stronger strains to proliferate.
Re:Worried (Score:2)
"contaminate" (Score:1, Redundant)
Was it that smart to brake the ice?
Re:"contaminate" (Score:3, Interesting)
I certainly worry more about our own, Earth DNA. There is still no evidence of extraterrestrial life existence, which may just mean that no alien life form has reached our planet yet. That is why I do not worry about it. But I do worry about our domestic life forms, which -- unlike alien life forms -- are known to be sometimes lethal to other life forms of Earth.
What do you mean by "polluted"?
Re:"contaminate" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"contaminate" (Score:4, Informative)
Europa (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Europa (Score:3, Funny)
Seems like a long way to go for food!
I have to second whoever cited the Andromeda Strain. How do we know the critters weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb set to go off when we got too curious....
I know we've seen this scifi plot 100 times. But how do we know these tired plots weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb......
Re:Europa (Score:1)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/18/111
Age is not an issue (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know if this was meant to be a joke (please excuse my lack of sense of humor then) but the age of those organisms is meaningless. I do not care if any given life form is one year old or million years old, as long as it is safe for humans. Remember that there are species, which have not been evolving for many years. There is no difference between such an organism today, and the same organism years ago, because it has not changed. The age is not an issue, the behavior is.
Re:Age is not an issue (Score:1)
But also, you never know... you just never know...
Re:Age is not an issue (Score:2)
It's unclear to me how to say how old a unicellular organism is, especially if it's purely asexual. A microbe alive today may have undergone fission a month ago, but does that mean it's only one month old? If so, then by that logic, I'm one year old.
Do we date its age That would be consistent with the rule we use for saying that I'm 36, but in that case microbes should be considered as effectively immortal.
In other news... (Score:1, Offtopic)
and
http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=368
Tune Back to the Late Late Show, kiddies (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times have ancient supergerms from these Not-Meant-To-Be-Touched-By-Man sources nearly wiped humanity from the face of the Earth?
There's really no need to fear for the future, folks. Our handsome hero, his beautiful babe, and their nerdy sidekick will save the world before bedtime.
We'll return to tonight's feature - "Purple Doom From The Ice Continent" - after a quick message from our sponsors...
Re:Tune Back to the Late Late Show, kiddies (Score:2, Funny)
There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out life on this miserable planet. The only way these people get on with their happy lives is they do not KNOW ABOUT IT.
Re:Tune Back to the Late Late Show, kiddies (Score:2)
We usually use the term Thirsty for those types of people.
Xenocide (Score:1)
It's all fun and games... (Score:2)
"I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off whatever it is."
Bah! That's nothing. (Score:5, Interesting)
They used it to brew beer!
Now there's Procress Through Science!
Re:Bah! That's nothing. (Score:2)
There was a whole spate of "ancient organism revival" claims around the mid-1990's. I'm too lazy to go and look up the refs right now, but some of them even made the pages of Science and Nature, and they all made the mass media fer sure. What never makes the mass media is the followup a couple of months later where somebody clearly demonstrates that said organisms originated from contamination in the laboratory that claims to have "revived" the organisms. This happened on a regular basis and eventually it was recognized that there's a likely limit of some hundred thousand or so years [omnibooksonline.com] on even being able to isolate tiny fragments of degraded DNA, let alone being able to "revive" ancient organisms.
Three thousand years is a drop in the bucket, however. No reason you couldn't revive dormant bacteria that old.
Livin in Lake Vida (have to do it) (Score:1)
Livin la Vida lova
what is reviving those microbes is a BAAAAADDD ide (Score:1)
Re:what is reviving those microbes is a BAAAAADDD (Score:1)