Ancient Ascaris allegedly resurrected from Russian permafrost | Smart news

The heart permafrost of Russian Siberia has given rise to many impressive discoveries in recent years. Last September, a local resident who was strolling on the banks of a river in the Yakutia Republic discovered the remains of a cub who had been missing for nearly 50,000 years, almost perfectly preserved by the frozen ground in permanently. In 2015, Russian scientists discovered the remains of two former lionesses nicknamed Uyan and Dina, also well preserved.

Now, according to

Siberian Times Yakutia's icy soil produced another groundbreaking discovery: Nematodes, or roundworms, preserved in arctic permafrost for about 40,000 years, would have revived after been "thawed" by researchers. If this is true, the claim – newly cataloged in the journal Doklady Biological Sciences – would make the ascaris the oldest living animals on Earth, thus breaking the record for the cryogenic survival of an animal [19659004]. New Atlas Michael Michael Irving, a team of Russian scientists working in collaboration with Princeton University, found viable specimens by analyzing more than 300 soil samples taken from Arctic permafrost . One of the samples was taken from a squirrel burrow located in the outcrop of Duvanny Yar and dates back to about 32,000 years ago. The old sample, which dates to about 41,700 years ago, was found in an ice deposit near the Alazeya River. Both nematodes are supposed to be females.

Irving writes that worms were initially stored in a laboratory maintained at -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Later, the samples were thawed in a Petri dish next to an enrichment culture intended to promote their growth. After spending several weeks basking in their new 68 degree Fahrenheit environment, nematodes began to move and eat.

"Our data demonstrate the ability of multicellular organisms to survive long-term (tens of thousands of years) cryobiosis under natural cryopreservation conditions," said the scientists in a statement. "It is obvious that this ability suggests that Pleistocene nematodes have certain coping mechanisms that may have scientific and practical relevance to related scientific fields, such as cryomedicine, cryobiology and astrobiology."

Robin M. Giblin-Davis, Nematologist and Acting Director of the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, at the University of Florida, tells Ed Cara of Gizmodo that the exploit is theoretically possible. He said that the worms were "protected against physical damage that would compromise their structural integrity during their frozen internment … should be able to recover after defrosting / rehydration", but warns that the "old samples" of the worms Team may have been contaminated by contemporary organisms

Although Russian scientists recognize the possibility of such contamination, they believe that it is unlikely. The team followed procedures designed to ensure complete infertility, according to the study, and states that the depth at which the nematodes were buried – 100 feet and 15 feet below the surface – eliminates the possibility of 39, inclusion of modern organisms. As Mike McRae of Science Alert explains, nematodes generally do not burrow deep in Siberian permafrost, as seasonal thawing only reaches a depth of less than 10%. 39, about three feet

. early researchers have allegedly resuscitated long-dead organisms; in 2000, a team claimed to have revived bacteria 250 million years old, although this extraordinary claim requires more evidence before the scientific community wholeheartedly accepts it. Yet the new announcement, which focuses on multicellular organisms rather than single-celled bacteria, marks a milestone for scientists. McRae reports that the nematodes were revived after 39 years of dormancy, while their close relatives, the tardigrade (or water bear), were successfully relaunched after about 30 years on the ice.

Byron J. Adams, a nematologist at Brigham Young University, says Gizmodo's Cara that the claims of the researchers are achievable, but he believes that further tests should be carried out to definitely assess the age of worms. He is particularly interested in what the old worms could reveal about the evolution of their species, noting that "after 40 thousand years, we should expect to detect significant differences in the evolutionary divergence between old and new populations. contemporary. "

New discoveries offer tangible hope for the resurrection of similar ancestral organisms. The return of the woolly mammoth may remain far into the future, but in the meantime, we have two roundworms aged 40,000 to spark our dreams of a Pleistocene revival.

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