From Ice Age to Modern Day: The Unbelievable Resurrection of a 46,000-Year-Old Life Form

Today’s news is neither easy to explain scientifically nor easy to understand. And it’s not your fault, it’s just that this is not a common occurrence. It is not every day that a living being is able to resurrect after almost 50,000 years frozen.

A female microscopic roundworm that spent the last 46,000 years in suspended animation deep in Siberian permafrost was revived and began having babies in a laboratory dish.

Scientists have long known that some microscopic creatures are able to pause their lives to survive hostile environments, plunging into the deepest of slumbers by slowing their metabolism to undetectable levels in a process called cryptobiosis.

As early as 1936, a viable crustacean several thousand years old was discovered buried in the permafrost east of Russia’s Lake Baikal. In 2021, researchers announced that they had resurrected ancient bdelloid rotifers, microscopic multicellular animals, after 24,000 years in Siberian permafrost.

The previous record for resuscitation of a nematode was held by an Antarctic species that started wriggling again after a few dozen years.

This new species of nematode, named Panagrolaimus kolymaensis, beats that record of dormancy by tens of thousands of years.

The frozen soil in which the nematode was embedded came from an ancient gopher hole, dug about 130 feet below the surface. Scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine that the soil was 46,000 years old, plus or minus a thousand years.

A female microscopic roundworm that spent the last 46,000 years in suspended animation deep in the Siberian permafrost has been revived and has started having babies in a laboratory dish. https://t.co/3h5kLxyqR6

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 28, 2023

The recipe for reviving these creatures is quite simple. The researchers thaw the soil, taking care not to heat it too quickly to prevent the nematodes from cooking. The worms then squirm around, eat bacteria in a lab dish and reproduce.

The original 46,000-year-old nematode is no longer alive, but scientists have continued to breed more than 100 generations from this single nematode. What intrigues researchers is not only the age of the specimen, but how it enters a limbic state.

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