Posted on 04/22/2017 9:10:22 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Bacteria are some of the oldest and most diverse organisms on Earth. Apparently, they are also among the toughest; researchers in Mexico’s Cueva de los Cristales have isolated and cultured bacteria that have been trapped within the crystals for up to 50,000 years. These tiny creatures biding their time within a rock for millennia, but they are by no means the oldest bacteria ever isolated.
Efforts have been underway for decades to isolate microorganisms from rock or other materials. One early attempt aimed to culture bacteria from within Permian (~289-252 mya) salt deposits. The study was beset by concerns about contamination. The researchers believed that indeed they had cultured Permian bacteria, but despite extensive precautions could not say with certainty that they had eliminated modern bacterial interlopers from their samples.
More recently, in something straight out of Jurassic Park, researchers have turned their attention to growing bacteria found in amber. Ambers up to 120 million years old were sampled. Close examination of the amber revealed a potential problem; tiny flaws and intrusions into the amber provided a possible way for modern bacteria to make their way inside and compromise the results......
If this sounds like the premise of a horror movie, there’s a reason. Indeed, potentially dangerous pathogens can be revived from antiquity. In 2014, researchers isolated 2 benign viruses from frozen, 700-year-old caribou dung. These were probably plant viruses, and not dangerous to the caribou let alone humans, but they did emerge from the ice ready to replicate and potentially infect some plants. There are disputed reports of far older viruses being revived.
There does not seem to be significant danger from controlled experiments, but these studies prove that the viability limits of microorganisms are not yet known. Accidental exposure to bacteria trapped inside a crystal is unlikely.
(Excerpt) Read more at daily.jstor.org ...
What could go wrong?
Got me a job as a research scientist, and they give me this 700-year-old turd to study...
Very interesting article and topic....thanks for posting
I guess their not buying the global warming thingy, so let’s unleash something with some teeth to it
So by all means let’s revive ancient bacteria and at the same time confer on them modern immunity to antibiotics. That’s what we have bio lives for, right?
UN Agenda 21 wants to kill off 85% of the population by 2030
We don’t have to worry about bacteria. It’s the viruses that are seemly indestructible. One can SEE through the microscope that viruses mutate to something bigger and more evil under the very eyes of the lab techs.
Current thinking is that the dinosaurs went extinct after a massive meteor struck the earth, altered the climate and they were no longer able to survive. However what if they were really killed off by a very virulent bacteria or virus and that organism somehow has survived dormant in an amber time capsule. If some inquiring scientist opened that amber capsule, released the organism would catastrophe strike? On the plus side if an organism killed the cold blooded dinosaurs, perhaps warm blooded human mammals might not be susceptible. But then again it is not certain just what would happen.
Halley's Comet has an orbit that takes it from outside of Neptune's or it to inside of Earth's orbit every 75 years, well within the survivability of bacterial to lie dormant then coming to back to life when comet is in the inner solar system. Comets could be picking up and dispersing bacterial life throughout the solar system.
In digging into old frozen Eskimo graves, they recovered viruses from the 1918 epidemic.
Only a matter of time till they find one with viable smallpox or other nasties.
We aren’t the slightest bit worried about importing third world pathogens, why would we worry about third century pathogens???
I'm more worried about the few we have serving in Congress and SCOTUS.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.
I was thinking the same thing about meteors and comets.
A few years back a researcher assembled the smallpox virus from published DNA sequences and individual bits of cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine.
Hey, if I can’t sleep, no reason you should be able to!
To many, including myself that seems a to be a really bad idea.
In a similar thought, my community was nearly wiped out by a cholera epidemic in the early 1800’s. You can spot the graves of these victims because in many cases there is a 12 - 15 inch slab of concrete on top of them.
I welcome it: DRAIN THE SWAMP!
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