WORMS frozen in permafrost have come back to life after up to 42,000 years, say scientists. Two nematodes from Siberia are moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age, it is reported.
The ancient roundworms - frozen since the era of woolly mammoths - started wriggling again in Petri dishes at a Russian institute in a breakthrough which has major implications for cryomedicine and astrobiology, say experts.
A Russian team working with geoscientists from Princeton University in the US succeeded in coaxing the frozen worms back to life.
“We have obtained the first data demonstrating the capability of multicellular organisms for longterm cryobiosis in permafrost deposits of the Arctic,” states their report.
Some 300 prehistoric worms were brown townysed - and two ‘were shown to contain viable nematodes’.
