Frozen earthworm revived after 42,000 years in the permafrost

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/27/frozen-earthworm-revived-after.html

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https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-siberian-times#section-related-hubs

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Ok, not my favorite movie but you asked for it:
image

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Do worms remember their dreams? That’s a looong sleep.

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Those are roundworms (nematodes) not earthworms (annelids). Those are very different beasts with something like 750 million years since a common ancestor (source: http://www.timetree.org/). Nematodes live everywhere and are hard as nails and do things like going into suspended animation - earthworms are a lot bigger, more complex and much less freezable.

</taxonomic pedantry>

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They dreamed they were civilized humans, typing comments on a thing called a blog…

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I wouldn’t call it pedantry. Thanks for clearing it up/adding info. I knew nematodes were hella everywhere and robust.

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Water Bear: “We’re getting the band back together!”

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“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” — Ian Malcolm

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"Oh, they’re so cute! And look - this one has a virus that’s - aaaack! (thud)

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Anything that can survive getting spaced for 10 days is definitely going to be around for the reunion…

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This sort of already HAS been covered in a high-concept movie (and book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Smilla's_Feeling_for_Snow

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Black%20oil%20x%20files

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Methuselah ain’t got **** on these guys.

And I’m certain that nothing catastrophically horrible could come from reviving a creature that was wriggling around in the earth 42,000 years ago. These scientists are smart guys. The smartest. Simply the best! We’ll have no trouble here.

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Nope nope nope. Nuke it from orbit.

(yes, yes, alien vs. ancient earthworm, but I can guarantee you the end result is the same)

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The world continues and yet I am frozen. For years I dreamt of eating, the food was all around me, and yet I could not move. As the years turned to decades I cursed my strength, why keep me alive just to sit! My thoughts turned wild: I was no longer worm, I was dirt itself forced to lay forever in the bowels of the earth. Perhaps it was purgatory, punishment from my sins before something else. Perhaps it was worse. I begged for the end, to cease pondering this endless torment. For days I could forget I exist lost in transcendental nothingness, but then the cold. The cold was always there. The persistent chill that blocked all exit or escape and pulled me back.

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My earlier taxonomic pedantry really matters here - a hell of a lot of nematodes are parasitic, so hurry those nukes up…

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Obligatory reference.

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I was thinking more along the lines of Ice, the episode where Mulder and Sculley find those lethally-aggressive parasitic worms in Alaska, but at least someone was on the ball with an X-Files reference! :wink:

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