The survivors of the Ice Age: the resurrection after tens of thousands of years

Roundworms are old for about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, as a working group around A.V. Shatilovich of the Russian Academy of Sciences dug and relaunched permafrost of Yakutia. This is reported by the team in "Doklady Akademii Nauk", reports the Russian Academy of Sciences. An English translation has now been published in the journal "Doklady Biological Sciences".

As reported by the working group, worms come from several holes in the permafrost; The researchers searched frozen soil for nematode cysts and placed them in a warm nutrient medium. Two roundworm species have come back to life after several weeks, write the authors. It may be possible to copy the nematode survival technique to keep the transplanted organs alive longer, or for other medical applications, according to the authors. However, the results should be checked first, as it is impossible to rule out that many younger worms have contaminated the samples.

It is already known that these Nematodes, which are a little less than a millimeter long, are hard to crack: they form cysts, where they can survive for several decades. However, the creatures of the permafrost are probably much older. One of the species, according to the team, comes from frozen remains of a 32,000-year-old suspected niche tunnel, which the team was harboring on a frozen escarpment on the banks of the river. Kolyma River and the other 42,000 years old. from Alaseya.

We still do not know if the worms are really so old. It is possible that the soil layers will grow later and resistant worms will then crawl into the soil layers; It can not be ruled out that the cysts of worms come from outside after sampling. In any case, the Russian working group is sure: they are convinced that the samples have been frozen for tens of thousands of years and that the samples have not been contaminated subsequently. That nematodes survive so long, is at least not completely bizarre: A froth has been raised in 2014 over 1000 years. However, even after this discovery, there is no hope of awakening a frozen mammoth at any given time: they do not form cysts. Sadly.