4 ms·

I had two things in my mind when I read this: where the hell can get my hands on one and is it very smart to release a bacteria that obviously can survive 200 y

• logfromblammo 8y ago
  Some microorganisms that produce a particular chemical as a metabolite are more resistant to its toxicity. So they use that to competitive advantage. It's the microbiological equivalent of pooping in the pool, so everyone else gets out, and you can then swim in it by yourself. Yeasts do this with alcohol. Acetobacters do it with acetic acid. Lactobacilli with lactic acid. Other varieties exist, but their metabolites have less culinary importance. But they probably didn't "survive" 200 years. In order to last that long, anything in the cold, dark, ethanol-contaminated bottles probably formed spores, going into deep biological stasis to await more clement environmental conditions. Not all microbes can do it, but the ones that can are considered very hardy. Yeasts tend to switch from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction in nutrient-poor environments, and the resulting diploid cells can sporify. The question is analogous to questioning whether a human embryo that had been frozen solid and stored in liquid nitrogen for 20 years is safe to thaw out and implant in a live uterus. It's just not a big deal for us. Sporing up and waiting a few centuries before thawing out the embryos is not a big deal for yeast.
• JoeDaDude 8y ago
  While not preserved in alcohol, there is this old story [1] about using yeast preserved in amber ala Jurassic Park (except it's Eocene). [1] http://www.fossilfuelsbeer.com/thestory/ http://www.fossilfuelsbeer.com/thestory/