Ice age bacteria brought back to life

www.NewScientist.com ^ | 2/25/2005 | Kelly Young

[aimhigh]

A bacterium that sat dormant in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years has been revived by NASA scientists.

Once scientists thawed the ice, the previously undiscovered bacteria started swimming around on the microscope slide. The researchers say it is the first new species of microbe found alive in ancient ice. Now named Carnobacterium pleistocenium, it is thought to have lived in the Pleistocene epoch, a time when woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth.

NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover, who led the team, said the find bolsters the case for finding life elsewhere in the universe, particularly given this week's news, broken by New Scientist, of frozen lakes just beneath the surface of equatorial Mars.

..Excerpt..

[Barney59]

You mean the Miss Krump of Mayberry fame?

[MD_Willington_1976]

LOL...that's what I was thinking too...

Sometimes scientists are just "Book smart & life stupid..."

[jimfree]

Beware of the Blob!

[Question_Assumptions]

I really wish that scientists would stop with the whole, "We found life in [some extreme environment] so that means that life on other planets is more possible." Not unless you are a creationist. Just because life can live in an extreme environment does not mean that it could develop in that extreme environment. Yeah, life might be able to live in a very broad range of temperatures and pressures but the sort of initial development that scientists suggest for life first evolving is much more narrow and specialized.

[Graymatter]

Here's Miss Krump! BLOB alert!

[Chinito]

Hmmm...I thought this all sounded rather familiar.

[Starrgaizr]

[nikos1121]

that'lll work

[Lazamataz]

Why such initial negativity?

Because we are likely to have ZERO resistance to bacteria, funguses, and viruses from 32,000 years ago.

Like 'wipe out the entire Earth' vulnerability.

[Lazamataz]

Why such initial negativity?

Because we are likely to have ZERO resistance to bacteria, funguses, and viruses from 32,000 years ago.

Like 'wipe out the entire Earth' vulnerability.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Greener Than You Think

[Lazamataz]

We're all constantly bathed in bacteria all the time.

Not me. I shower with Lever 2000.

[rwfromkansas]

It may not be a bacteria that would make us sick.

But still, I am not very comfortable with this even though the vast majority of bacteria don't hurt us.

Because if it is one that does, it could spread fast.

[Lazamataz]

The natural processes of this world took it out of circulation for a reason. Sometimes scientists truly irritate me.

Next up: Wesleyan University of Connecticut sponsering a study: "What ELSE Irritates MadIvan?"

[Lazamataz]

Wouldn't it be funny if this is the microbe that cause massive extinction.

[MadIvan]

Next up: Wesleyan University of Connecticut sponsering a study: "What ELSE Irritates MadIvan?"

Liberal Ivy League Universities would be on the list. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[Polybius]

Why such initial negativity?

[painter]

One of them should pour it is a glass and drink it to see what happens.;)~

[Lazamataz]

Liberal Ivy League Universities would be on the list. ;)

LOL! I dated a chick from Wesleyen when I was in college myself. That's why, when I was fumbling for a name, I chose that one.

Remind me to tell you about the time I needed to knock on the womans upper-floor dorm to get back into my chick's room (man's bathroom on the lower floor).

[MadIvan]

I dated a chick from Wesleyen when I was in college myself

Isn't that something of a lesbian establishment?

Remind me to tell you about the time I needed to knock on the womans upper-floor dorm to get back into my chick's room (man's bathroom on the lower floor).

Does it involve hirstute women wearing Birkenstocks? If so, I'll pass.

Regards, Ivan