Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

siberiantimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 159 posts

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

#91

Post by neuronic »

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 to the death of trillions and trillions of plankton, robbing us of oxygen to breathe.... there's likely a trove of "problems" we will face sooner rather than later.

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

#92

Post by sAbakumoff »

steve19 wrote: post #3

EDIT: It's legit. Thanks to the commenter below. Can anyone in Russia confirm if this is a legit news story? It's being repeated throughout tabloids in the West all referencing this English language Siberian publication, as well as hordes of definite news apsm sites, all appear to be using the same generic images and verbetium or almost verbetium text.

google search of this news in Russian language provides multiple references, but most of them do not seem very reliable. The titles look like a click bait. "Ancient creatures have awakened in Russia! No one knows what it is!".

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

#93

Post by mkingston »

jorvi wrote: post #86
F_r_k wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't catch it, it's from the "the three body problem" book. I highly recommend it to anyone if you like a techy sci fi with philosophical questions.

Actually, its from a full trilogy: “The Three Body Problem”, “The Dark Forest” and “Death’s End”. Wonderful books and indeed wholly recommended to any sci-fi buff.

For anyone who missed this, it's being made into a tv series: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the...

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

#96

Post by nootropicat »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #57
marzell wrote: post #26

For anyone wondering about previous precedents for reviving frozen multicellular creatures, here's my response to a now-deleted comment: There are shorter-term examples of frogs [0] (up to a few years) and tardigrades [1] (30 years) but I haven't heard of anything on this timescale before. [0] http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-alaskan-... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/18/10785002/water-bear-ta…

Tardigrades are hardcore. From Wikipedia: Tardigrades are considered to be able to survive even complete global mass extinction events due to astrophysical events, such as gamma-ray bursts, or large meteorite impacts. Some of them can withstand extremely cold temperatures down to 1 K (−458 °F; −272 °C) (close to absolute zero), while others can withstand extremely hot temperatures up to 420 K (300 °F; 150 °C) for sev…

Sounds like a reliable self-repairing and self-replicating storage solution. Encode the data in their dna and secure it with a hash.

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

#97

Post by Baeocystin »

gnur wrote: post #77
Roritharr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should seed the universe with tardigrades. It sounds like they deserve it.

Perhaps the tardigrades have already done that.

Considering they've been around for the five major extinction events here on Earth, some of which involved very large impacts, it is almost certain that there are, to this day, bits of frozen, orbiting ejecta that actually do contain tardigrades.

Still viable? Almost certainly not. But it makes for a fun what if to ponder on the other option!

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

#98

Post by jibal »

songzme wrote: post #69
jibal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experimented on? Seriously? The modern world does not operate according to Dr. Mengele's ethics. Anyone "experimenting on" her would receive worldwide condemnation and all sorts of criminal charges. (Why, other than personal animus, would this be downvoted?)

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 statement (which you don't even identify; I made more than one) is objectively wrong. And your subjective opinion that some statement of mine is wrong is not a valid basis for a downvote; I ask that you do not do that. In any case, I will not respond further.

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

#100

Post by jibal »

matte_black wrote: post #82
jibal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experimented on? Seriously? The modern world does not operate according to Dr. Mengele's ethics. Anyone "experimenting on" her would receive worldwide condemnation and all sorts of criminal charges. (Why, other than personal animus, would this be downvoted?)

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 life would bring protests and would violate all sorts of ethical standards. It would be criminal, under current statutes.

> There’s too much we can learn across a variety of subject matter to let that opportunity go to waste.

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.

Post reply on HN