Scientists have revived bacteria which survived more than 100 million years laying dormant on the seafloor.

Sparse microbial populations persist from seafloor to basement in the slowly accumulating oxic sediment of the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG). The physiological status of these communities, including their substrate metabolism, is previously unconstrained. Here we show that diverse aerobic members of communities in SPG sediments (4.3-101.5 Ma) are capable of readily incorporating carbon and nitrogen substrates and dividing. Most of the 6986 individual cells analyzed with nanometer-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) actively incorporated isotope-labeled substrates. Many cells responded rapidly to incubation conditions, increasing total numbers by 4 orders of magnitude and taking up labeled carbon and nitrogen within 68 days after incubation. The response was generally faster (on average, 3.09 times) for nitrogen incorporation than for carbon incorporation. In contrast, anaerobic microbes were only minimally revived from this oxic sediment. Our results suggest that microbial communities widely distributed in organic-poor abyssal sediment consist mainly of aerobes that retain their metabolic potential under extremely low-energy conditions for up to 101.5 Ma.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17330-1

That’s a very long time.

Bubblecar said:

That’s a very long time.

Indeed. Are we on track to find even older live bacteria? Fingers crossed for 10 billion years … oops.

Nice to see the ancestry genetics of these.

This is pretty amazing

dv said:

This is pretty amazing

Yes, yes it is.

mollwollfumble said:

Bubblecar said:

That’s a very long time.

Indeed. Are we on track to find even older live bacteria? Fingers crossed for 10 billion years … oops.

I guess that would be close to the max poss.

Michael V said:

dv said:

This is pretty amazing

Yes, yes it is.

I keep wanting to add something here. But can’t think of the words. Perhaps “best news in science this decade”. If living things can survive for 100 million years then they can survive the anthropic era. And they can survive long enough to make it to other planets in the galaxy on the off chance that the world becomes uninhabitable. Also, this gives us a window into the evolution of bacteria by setting a benchmark for the rate of mutation.

mollwollfumble said:

Michael V said:

dv said:

This is pretty amazing

Yes, yes it is.

I keep wanting to add something here. But can’t think of the words. Perhaps “best news in science this decade”. If living things can survive for 100 million years then they can survive the anthropic era. And they can survive long enough to make it to other planets in the galaxy on the off chance that the world becomes uninhabitable. Also, this gives us a window into the evolution of bacteria by setting a benchmark for the rate of mutation.

Why would living things not survive the anthropic era?

It’s pretty unlikely that human activities could even kill of all large land-based living things, never mind all the rest of it.

The Rev Dodgson said:

It’s pretty unlikely that human activities could even kill of all large land-based living things, never mind all the rest of it.

What makes you so certain of that?

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

It’s pretty unlikely that human activities could even kill of all large land-based living things, never mind all the rest of it.

What makes you so certain of that?

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

It’s pretty unlikely that human activities could even kill of all large land-based living things, never mind all the rest of it.

What makes you so certain of that?

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

Unless it’s something drastic like the cloud of particles in orbit to act as reflectors or whatever.

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

It’s pretty unlikely that human activities could even kill of all large land-based living things, never mind all the rest of it.

What makes you so certain of that?

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

I’m sure that life in some form will survive. I’m not sure of how severe the results of our activities will be at peak. It is probably likely that these will endure and peak after our departure.

Tamb said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

roughbarked said:

What makes you so certain of that?

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

Unless it’s something drastic like the cloud of particles in orbit to act as reflectors or whatever.

I can’t see that would be either as extreme or as long term as previous climate variations.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tamb said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

Unless it’s something drastic like the cloud of particles in orbit to act as reflectors or whatever.

I can’t see that would be either as extreme or as long term as previous climate variations.

I was wondering that.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tamb said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Well “pretty unlikely” is not really “so certain”, but the reason is that large living things have survived several mass extinctions involving conditions much more severe than anything likely to result from human activities.

Unless it’s something drastic like the cloud of particles in orbit to act as reflectors or whatever.

I can’t see that would be either as extreme or as long term as previous climate variations.

In orbit they could last for a very long time.