Posted on 02/18/2017 3:01:39 PM PST by BenLurkin
Scientists have extracted long-dormant microbes from inside the famous giant crystals of the Naica mountain caves in Mexico - and revived them.
The organisms were likely to have been encased in the striking shafts of gypsum at least 10,000 years ago, and possibly up to 50,000 years ago.
It is another demonstration of the ability of life to adapt and cope in the most hostile of environments.
"Other people have made longer-term claims for the antiquity of organisms that were still alive, but in this case these organisms are all very extraordinary - they are not very closely related to anything in the known genetic databases," said Dr Penelope Boston.
The new director of Nasa's Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, California, described her findings here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
...
These outsized needles of gypsum have grown over millions of years. They are not perfect. In places they have defects - small voids where fluids have collected and become encased.
Using sterile tools, Dr Boston and colleagues opened these inclusions and sampled their contents.
Not only did they detect the presence of bacteria and archaea, but they were able also to re-animate these organisms in the lab.
...
"The astrobiological link is obvious in that any extremophile system that we're studying allows us to push the envelope of life further on Earth, and we add it to this atlas of possibilities that we can apply to different planetary settings."
Many scientists suspect that if life does exist elsewhere in the Solar System, it is most likely to be underground, chemosynthesising like the microbes of Naica.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
I googled the caves...... WOW
Didn’t something similar happen with Kitum Cave in Kenya?
That didn’t turn out well. The crystals turned out to be pure Ebola.
Carbon date it. We can trust that ... LOL
maybe these organisms can help us solve the IslamoNazi or the DNC or the SorozNazi problem (all pretty much the same, actually)? just asking... smile smile
Pardon me, but I don’t really trust these anti-God scientists. Who’s to know whether they took their specimens back to the lab, did a little gene splicing with something else, and now claim to have brought 50k year old stuff back to life? Pass.
“Didn’t something similar happen with Kitum Cave in Kenya?
That didn’t turn out well. The crystals turned out to be pure Ebola.”
Not exactly. It was Marburg virus from bat droppings.
I see there is understanding ... Kudos
There was a documentary on the caves a few years ago. Those suits are cooling suits because it is around 120F with 100% humidity, and low/no oxygen as I recall.
We had a freeper by the name of Mother Abigail, a retired CDC scientist, who was predicting that bats in that cave would be the carriers of Ebola virus. And she had some much spookier predictions about what could lie ahead.
If you missed all of that you can find some of it here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2820204/posts?q=1&;page=1#1
Too bad Michael Crichton is no longer around, to write the script for a disaster movie: Pleistocene Park, on an off-shore island, where tourists come to see cloned extinct microbes which have been brought back to life.
Funny how crystal quartz has been necessary to mankind for millennia.
I think he did that book, “Prey”!
Did the bacteria ask whether Helen Thomas was still around?
Jules Verne knew! Journey to the Center of the earth. What I want to see is the mushroom forest ;)
Man! That first line sure reads like the Cliff notes of any James Rollins novel.
Personally, I'd like to welcome our new crystalline masters...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.