The discovery in the Siberian moors: just thawed, the rotifers have come to life. Organisms-zombies, the Russians bring them back to life after 24 thousand years.
In nature there are organisms that can withstand the most extreme environmental conditions: ocean depths kilometers, perpetual lack of sunlight, very high temperatures or far below zero, even in space. These are the “extremophiles”. As amazing as it may sound, it is also true that these samples of survival have been brought back to life (and cloned) by Russian scientists. And this despite a respectable age. The rotiferi bdelloidei of the Russian experiment, whose unpronounceable name comes from the Greek “leech”, for their similarity with the most famous worm, have in fact well 24 thousand years.
How did the scientists bring back to life the rotiferi
The experiment took place in Siberia. Here, scientists cut out a piece of ice, untouched perhaps even by millions of years, and found rotifers inside. By thawing the millennia-old Pleistocene ice and being very careful, the bdelloids came back to life, waking up from a condition of “suspended” existence called cryptobiosis, a sort of hibernation. Only, in the case of extremophiles, “slightly” longer.
“They suspend their metabolism and accumulate certain compounds, such as chaperone proteins, which help them recover from cryptobiosis when conditions improve,” said Stas Malavin, first author of the study.
So the microscopic creatures, with a mouth like a ring surrounded by hairs, have regained their vital functions, including reproductive, which is asexual. So the rotifers can give birth to a series of descendants, which scholars of this process call “clones”, in every way identical to the individual generating.
Why it is important to study the return to life of microorganisms
Beyond the “cinematic” aspect, which makes the microorganisms of the study similar to the zombies of the movies, observe the cryptobiotic properties in different species and forms is important for scientific progress. In the future, in fact, plants capable of surviving as the very old Siberian beings did may revolutionize agriculture, resisting for example long periods of storage.
This is not the only case that can testify to the absolutely out-of-scale aging curve of some animal species. There are, for example, the immortal jellyfish, or the ants that never age.
Giuseppe Giordano