Some Archaea microorganisms can survive in extreme conditions inside Siberia. Image courtesy of Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library
Joel Kontinen
Microbes found buried deep in Siberian permafrost may be able to survive over extremely long timescales using protein repair genes
Microbes isolated from Siberian permafrost appear to have
remained alive for more than 100,000 years, based on an analysis of their DNA.
Their genetic overlap with other species suggests such astonishingly long
lifespans may be widespread among the closest living relatives of all organisms
with complex cells.
Other microbes have been isolated from extremely ancient
marine sediments – some more than 100
million years old – but it remains unclear whether individual
organisms can survive over those stretches of time. “I can’t run an experiment
that long,” says Karen
Lloyd at the University of Southern California. “[Time] is the weirdest variable to work with.”
James Dinneen 2025
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