Scientists revived worm after 46,000 years in the Siberian permafrost

By Celeste Chang: Scientists have revived a worm that was frozen 46,000 years ago. The ‘roundworm’, of a formerly studied species was capable of surviving 131.2 feet below the surface in the Siberian permafrost. At that time the worms remained in a dormant state known as cryptobiosis.

According to Teymuras Kurzchalia, professor emeritus at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden and also a scientist involved in the research, organisms in a cryptobiotic state can survive without water or oxygen and combat high temperatures, including freezing or extremely salty conditions. They are able to remain “between death and life,” in which their metabolic rates decrease to an undetectable level.

CNN reports that “Five years ago, scientists from the Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science in Russia found two roundworm species in the Siberian permafrost.”

Anastasia Shatilovich, one of the researchers, resuscitated two of the worms at the institute. Shatilovich simply rehydrated the worms with water, before taking an estimated 100 worms to labs in Germany for additional analysis, transporting them in her pocket.

After defrosting the worms, scientists used radiocarbon analysis of the plant material within the specimen to establish that the deposits had not been thawed since roughly between 45,839 and 47,769 years ago.

However it is unclear if the worm was a known species. In time, a genetic analysis directed by scientists in Dresden and Cologne displayed that these worms’ heritage is of a novel species, which researchers named “Panagrolaimus kolymaenis”.

According to CNN, “Researchers also found that the P. kolymaenis shared with C. elegans — another organism often used in scientific studies — “a molecular toolkit” that could allow it to survive cryptobiosis. Both organisms produce a sugar called trehalose, possibly enabling them to endure freezing and dehydration.”

The permafrost climate change exposes siberian crater card belching lakes, mystery craters, and zombie fires.

Our present climate crisis is transforming the arctic permafrost, Philipp Schiffer, research group leader of the Institute of Zoology at the University of Cologne and one of the scientists involved in the study stated: “To see that the same biochemical pathway is used in a species which is 200, 300 million years away, that’s really striking…It means that some processes in evolution are deeply conserved.” Schiffer added that there are other “actionable” insights which can be obtained when studying these organisms.

CNN reports that Schiffer told them that, “By looking at and analyzing these animals, we can maybe inform conservation biology, or maybe even develop efforts to protect other species, or at least learn what to do to protect them in these extreme conditions that we have now.”

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