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Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

siberiantimes.com

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Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#151

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tim333 wrote: post #116
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dated how, because normally you date permafrost on the layers, but worms by their nature move. Perhaps they're (much) younger but burrowed down?

I was wondering that. It seems a more likely hypothesis unless they have some good way of dating them. Maybe carbon date the worm body? Edit - the paper says >Some factors prevent the opportunity for nematodes to penetrate into permafrost strata many meters deep from the superposed modern tundra soil. The depth of seasonal thawing in the regions under study is up to 80 cm and was no more than 1.5 m even about 9000 ye…

Thanks for RTFA and reporting back.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#152

Post by matte_black »

jibal wrote: post #100
matte_black wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s naive. You think a 42,000 year old living human is just going to be left alone? There’s too much we can learn across a variety of subject matter to let that opportunity go to waste.

> Because it’s naive. Such personal judgments are not valid reasons for a downvote. > You think a 42,000 year old living human is just going to be left alone? I said nothing of the sort. Of course she would not be left alone, any more than a mentally ill person who cannot function in society is left alone ... but we don't use them as guinea pigs. What I said was that performing experiments on her for the rest of her…

> A woman, even one 42,000 years old, is not merely an "opportunity", she's an autonomous person with human rights. But apparently the whole idea of the Enlightenment is naive.

Nope. Her life effectively ended 42,000 years ago. Her unfreezing would basically be her afterlife.

Everything she ever knew would be dead and gone, the world would have completely changed. If we could figure out how she survived a 42,000 year freeze, it basically opens us up to interstellar space travel and expansion, even without FTL speeds. The benefits to humanity are far too great to pass them up for the selfish needs of a single individual, even if she cannot comprehend her important contribution to science.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#153

Post by fit2rule »

SiVal wrote: post #101
gnur wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the tardigrades have already done that.

Or maybe tardigrades seeded Earth with our ancestors. Maybe tardis and tardigrade come from the same ancient language. If so, I for one am ready to serve our diminutive overlords.

What if we have the little ones, but normal tardigrades are gigantic, and like to eat stars, huh? I mean, come on.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#154

Post by songzme »

jibal wrote: post #98
songzme wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because your statement is objectively wrong. Could you not see a scenario where people would experiment on her? Behaviorly/psychologically?

No, nothing I said is objectively wrong. Regardless of whether I can see scenarios where people would experiment on her, my statement about worldwide protest and ethical standards is factual. And in any case "could you not see" is a call for a judgment; there's nothing objective about it, or elsewhere in your statement, which provides no support of any sort, let alone "objective" support, for your claim that my state…

Unfortunately, I did not downvote you. I was trying to guess why someone would downvote your comment.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#156

Post by dredmorbius »

vkou wrote: post #135
dredmorbius wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, though even without those, we're well past 42,000 years.

It's not noise, it's contamination with modern bacteria.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/268/5213/1060

Amber. 42mya.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#157

Post by vkou »

dredmorbius wrote: post #156
vkou wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not noise, it's contamination with modern bacteria.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/268/5213/1060 Amber. 42mya.

Given how many times claims such as these have been brought under question, and how easy it is to make a mistake in this discipline, a single, uncorroborated publication is insufficient evidence.

Truly extraordinary claims require truly extraordinary evidence, and this one smells fishy, too. [1]

> Our interpretation of the phylogenetic tree constructed from 16S rRNA sequences (fig. 1b and SI table 3) suggests that isolates 41_AG11AC7 and 46_AG11AC9a are likely Staphylococcus species, which are not known to sporulate and are also common microorganisms on the human skin.

> The authors also fail to present negative control sequences to confirm that the DNA sequences presented within this study are not the results of laboratory or reagent contamination, rather than contamination that likely occurred in 1995

They didn't even do any control runs to calibrate their experiment! Sounds like junk science to me.

[1] https://oup.silverchair-cdn.com/oup/backfile/Content_public/...

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#158

Post by jibal »

matte_black wrote: post #152
jibal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it’s naive. Such personal judgments are not valid reasons for a downvote. > You think a 42,000 year old living human is just going to be left alone? I said nothing of the sort. Of course she would not be left alone, any more than a mentally ill person who cannot function in society is left alone ... but we don't use them as guinea pigs. What I said was that performing experiments on her for the rest of her…

> A woman, even one 42,000 years old, is not merely an "opportunity", she's an autonomous person with human rights. But apparently the whole idea of the Enlightenment is naive. Nope. Her life effectively ended 42,000 years ago. Her unfreezing would basically be her afterlife. Everything she ever knew would be dead and gone, the world would have completely changed. If we could figure out how she survived a 42,000 year…

> The benefits to humanity are far too great to pass them up for the selfish needs of a single individual, even if she cannot comprehend her important contribution to science.

It's remarkable that this is not a parody. Much (critical) has been written about this attitude, which led to the Tuskegee study and other atrocities. Again, what you are suggesting is criminal. I won't comment further.

Re: Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life

#159

Post by Karishma1234 »

neuronic wrote: post #91
Karishma1234 wrote: post #50

One thing that I have always worried about Antartic ice melting and unleashing some ancient black death like plague for which we dont have any immunity.

I suppose it's how the Earth ecosystem delivers the bill for our damaging behavior. I still believe the planetary ecosystem has a way of ridding itself of annoying biomass if a tipping point is reached. Who knows what will hit us and how fast it will hit us. Permafrost viruses, dramatic temperature changes and generally more energy in the weather system due to global warming, catastrophic ocean acidification leading…

That is a typical christian thinking where you try to think of humans as sinners. The reality is that modern human is far more sensitive towards wildlife, nature, trees and air quality. A typical modern human is having less babies than ever too. We are not damaging the earth.
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