Microbes Sleeping 100M Years on the Ocean Floor WERE INTENTIONALLY Awakened Move along if you expected this to be a story on climate change effects.
I expected it to be about Cthulhu.
Hello
Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
61–70 of 87 posts
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am astounded and delighted you could have wandered through life and never encountered a reference to Cthulhu. Have fun!
Mandatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/1053/
Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea with this weird trick
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#63Life rarely fails to astound.
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
And DNA appears to have a half-life of 521 years. 101 million years is 194 817 half-lifes. Assuming the research is sound I wonder how the bacteria get around that limit.
No, DNA does not have a half-life of 521 years. To give the correct citation: ''' By analysing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 158 radiocarbon-dated bones of the extinct New Zealand moa, we confirm empirically a long-hypothesized exponential decay relationship. The average DNA half-life within this geographically constrained fossil assemblage was estimated to be 521 years for a 242 bp mtDNA sequence, corresponding to…
Thank you. Yeah you hit the nail on its head: it's the environmental conditions that matter. Still it's impressive that a single whole genome has remained largely intact for 100M years or else the cell would not be able to replicate. However for the sequencing of ancient genomes no single genome has to be intact as fragments of many cells can be computationally pieced together into a complete template genome.
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#65I wonder if they could similarly survive on, say, comets or asteroids.
It is a popular theory that that's how life on earth started; the google term is panspermia iirc.
I still lean towards something along the lines of The Miller-Urey experiment[0]. There are many very interesting theories[1].
But who is to say it isn't a combination of both? The question would be, from whence did the life on comets/extra-terrestrial bodies originate?
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#66Life rarely fails to astound.
You clearly don't have my life.
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a popular theory that that's how life on earth started; the google term is panspermia iirc.
And how did life start on the asteroid? :D
Maybe life originated during the habitable epoch in the very early, very small universe and spread from there?
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> were ready to eat Am I the only one who pictured the lab workers munching on 100M year old microbe colonies?
And you just made me picture a store bought "ready-to-eat" meal as a terrifying and hungry creature waiting for me to wake it up.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wondered that too. "Die" implies not just metabolic rate going to zero, but also cells "disassembling" too ("decomposing" feels a bit large-scale in this context). It did say that there were microscopic amounts of oxygen in the sediment. Presumably, that was enough to maintain a minimally-small MR.
As they were buried deeper and deeper in the sediment, presumably oxygen levels fell lower and lower. That will have caused selective pressure to manage to survive with so few resources. Those that can't simply become energy for others who can.
There are cells that don't need oxygen to survive. The fact that there is no oxygen in the environment doesn't mean that certain forms of bacteria cannot survive.
Re: Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
#70So can we reevolve dinosaurs now?