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Living microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea (2020)
- esquire_900 6y ago> we found that up to 99.1% of the microbes in sediment deposited 101.5 million years ago were still alive and were ready to eat > But the real secret of their remarkable survival lies in their metabolic rate. It is just slow enough for them to survive for such long periods. That would imply their metabolic rate to be practically zero, 101 million years is such a long time that even the tiniest amount of activity would result in a depletion of resources. Does that mean they die, only to come back to live at a better time?
- kitd 6y agoI wondered that too. "Die" implies not just metabolic rate going to zero, but also cells "disassembling" too ("decomposing" feels a bit large-scale in this context). It did say that there were microscopic amounts of oxygen in the sediment. Presumably, that was enough to maintain a minimally-small MR.
- londons_explore 6y agoAs they were buried deeper and deeper in the sediment, presumably oxygen levels fell lower and lower. That will have caused selective pressure to manage to survive with so few resources. Those that can't simply become energy for others who can.
- coliveira 6y agoThere are cells that don't need oxygen to survive. The fact that there is no oxygen in the environment doesn't mean that certain forms of bacteria cannot survive.
- wombatmobile 6y ago> The presence of dissolved O2, nitrate (NO3−), phosphate (PO4−), and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) throughout the sedimentary sequence from the seafloor to the volcanic basement indicates that cell abundance and activity are not limited by availability of electron acceptors or dissolved major inorganic nutrients. From the Redfield stoichiometry of net dissolved O2 reduction to net nitrate production in the sediment, the microbial cells have been inferred to consume oxygen coupled to oxidation of marine organic matter at extremely slow rates. -- D’Hondt, S. et al. Presence of oxygen and aerobic communities from sea floor to basement in deep-sea sediments. Nature Geosci. 8, 299–304 (2015).
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoAt those timescales you'd think they would have ceased to exist due to atomic half-life or radiation or something.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nkrisc 6y agoOnly if they were primarily made up of radioactive isotopes. Ask the carbon-12 in them should remain stable.
- ryanschneider 6y ago> were ready to eat Am I the only one who pictured the lab workers munching on 100M year old microbe colonies?
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI with my phone had that kind of low power mode - asleep for millions of years, yet ready to wake up when needed
- Ovah 6y agoAnd DNA appears to have a half-life of 521 years. 101 million years is 194 817 half-lifes. Assuming the research is sound I wonder how the bacteria get around that limit.
- fpoling 6y agoThe stability of any complex organic molecule depends very strongly on the temperature, acidity, presence of other components etc. Without reference to the precise conditions the number is meaningless.
- excannuck 6y agoI'd expect DNA's half life would depend on the environmental conditions. The conditions on the surface of the earth and at the bottom of the ocean are vastly different. DNA stabilizing: Much lower T (below 0C) Practically no radiation (an ocean above you blocking it all) DNA de-stabilizing: Corrosive chemicals spewing from a nearby volcano (but only if one is near you!) Radiation from said volcano and rocks (but they'd have to be closer still, due to shielding from the water) So unless the 500 year half life is the "self-damaging" rate, I'd expect DNA at the bottom to last much longer.
- patall 6y agoNo, DNA does not have a half-life of 521 years. To give the correct citation: ''' By analysing mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 158 radiocarbon-dated bones of the extinct New Zealand moa, we confirm empirically a long-hypothesized exponential decay relationship. The average DNA half-life within this geographically constrained fossil assemblage was estimated to be 521 years for a 242 bp mtDNA sequence, corresponding to a per nucleotide fragmentation rate (k) of 5.50 × 10–6 per year. With an effective burial temperature of 13.1°C, the rate is almost 400 times slower than predicted from published kinetic data of in vitro DNA depurination at pH 5. ''' from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.1745 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2012.174... Or in laymens words: the half-life of a DNA molecule per nucleotide depends on the environment and is in the order of magnitude around 1 million years. Else, we would not have any ancient genomes by now.
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- kitd 6y agoI wonder if they could similarly survive on, say, comets or asteroids.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt is a popular theory that that's how life on earth started; the google term is panspermia iirc.
- imeron 6y agoAnd how did life start on the asteroid? :D
- nayaketo 6y agoBy similarly frozen microbes from other asteroids of course.
- wongarsu 6y agoThe idea is that life starts on one planet and can spread from there to other planets (for example on rocks ejected through volcanic activity). We have found Martian rock on earth [1] 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite
- croon 6y agoI think the intended point was "and before that?".
- ceejayoz 6y agoGod doesn't solve that issue, for identical reasons.
- wongarsu 6y agoWe don't really know. But if life started through some extremely lucky event like lightning repeatedly hitting just the right collection of particles in an early planet's ocean, then panspermia gives you a plausible mechanism how this happening just once in a galaxy could still lead to multiple planets having life (and maybe one of them developing into intelligent life that can ask itself how this happened). It opens up the number of possible timelines for the development of life because it allows our evolutionary heritage to be older than our planet alone allows for.
- jug 6y agoMicrobes Sleeping 100M Years on the Ocean Floor WERE INTENTIONALLY Awakened Move along if you expected this to be a story on climate change effects.
- zby 6y agoI expected it to be about Cthulhu.
- herodoturtle 6y agoI had absolutely zero idea what you were talking about and googling it sent me down a very deep and entertaining rabbit hole!
- ehnto 6y agoI am astounded and delighted you could have wandered through life and never encountered a reference to Cthulhu. Have fun!
- kleiba 6y agoMandatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- ascotan 6y agoLiving microbes, possibly 100M years old, pulled from beneath the sea with this weird trick https://xkcd.com/1283/ https://xkcd.com/1283/
- herodoturtle 6y agoThis is such a legend attitude to adopt. These comments here were awesome to read.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoHello
- nathias 6y ago"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- rosmax_1337 6y agoMy thoughts exactly, prepare for the end times as they have been foretold since the dawn of time.
- hexo 6y agoLogin required? Why why why? Could someone copypasta the site somewhere login-less, pretty please?
- mastazi 6y agoArchive link https://web.archive.org/web/20210113211350/https://charliestephen6.medium.com/microbes-sleeping-100-million-years-on-the-ocean-floor-have-awakened-c9b898900e36 https://web.archive.org/web/20210113211350/https://charliest... Edit - even on the Archive page, there is a weird issue where the page keeps refreshing every few seconds, I have found out that hitting ctrl-s / cmd-s (as if you intended to save the page locally) stops the page from refreshing.
- hexo 6y agoThanks a lot!
- metafunctor 6y agoOriginal paper (July 2020) which TFA is based on: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1
- T-A 6y agoA better link (actual paper aside): https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/scientists-pull-living-microbes-100-million-years-beneath-sea https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/scientists-pull-livi...
- kseistrup 6y agoActual paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1
- HPsquared 6y agoAre the microbes themselves that old, or simply made of old material? Edit: quoting the article, it doesn't say the microbes themselves are 100M years old, only that they're in sediment which is that old. Big difference! "99.1% of the microbes in sediment deposited 101.5 million years ago were still alive and were ready to eat"
- coldtea 6y ago>quoting the article, it doesn't say the microbes themselves are 100M years old, only that they're in sediment which is that old. Big difference! Might be a difference towards them being even older then the sediment though...
- wombatmobile 6y agoFrom the paper > Very low permeability (1.1–2.0 × 10−17 m2 for IODP Site U1365 4H-3 [26.6 meters below seafloor (mbsf)] and 8.9 × 10−18 m2 for IODP Site U1370 [37.5 mbsf], respectively), very low estimated pore size of the abyssal clay (~0.02 microns, calculated using above permeability data according to the equation shown in Tanikawa et al.), and thick porcellanite layers above the oldest sampled horizons appear to preclude cell migration into the sampled sediment. Consequently, the sampled communities have likely been trapped in the sediment since shortly after its deposition.
- hinkley 6y ago> appear to preclude cell migration into the sampled sediment appear to preclude = we don't know how it could 100 million years is a long, long time for bacteria to find a route past a barrier and migrate sideways through a more hospitable substrate. They found oxygen and decided that meant there was no oxidation (eating) going on. I wonder if they have any specialists on the team who would know specifically about permeability (the quoted person is a 'microbial ecologist', which sounds like it would know quite a few things about organic and inorganic chemistry, I don't expect they'd be an expert on geologic timescales. The way an architect in theory knows about physics of building materials but still gets into scraps with the general contractor.
- ElectricMind 6y agoGood Lord, haven't we had enough of Corona or you want new virus?!
- anothernewdude 6y agoDon't know why anyone would post a medium blog post. Seriously. https://archive.is/2h7Nf https://archive.is/2h7Nf
- wombatmobile 6y agoIgnorance. Thanks.
- pluc 6y agoHow about Asia chills out playing with diseases for a little while
- danparsonson 6y ago"...from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology..." (from TFA)
- cascom 6y agoPretty sure this how the beginning of a horror/zombie movie starts
- boringg 6y agoLife rarely fails to astound.
- BurningFrog 6y agoYou clearly don't have my life.
- boringg 6y agoI’m speaking in genetics rather then specifics. Life as a whole is incredibly amazing what it can survive and grow into. I hope your life turns in the right direction or you find something enlightening to make it slightly better.
- yters 6y agoSo can we reevolve dinosaurs now?
- hinkley 6y agoLater there's running, and screaming...
- SeanFerree 6y agoSo much of the ocean is unexplored. I love to see stuff like this