Image: courtesy of JAMSTEC, fair use doctrine.
Some microbes that scientist say have seen daylight since the time
of the dinosaurs have just come alive.
They were brought up “from 328 feet (100
meters) below the 20,000-foot-deep (6,000 m) bottom of the South Pacific Gyre.
That's a region of the Pacific Ocean with very few nutrients and little oxygen
available for life to survive on, and the researchers were looking for data on
how microbes get along in such a remote part of the world.”
They went to sleep 101,5 million years ago and now they are brought to life by scientists.
The
scientist were not sure what they would do. ”However, cells responded, many of
them quickly. They quickly gobbled up nitrogen and carbon. Within 68 days, the
total cell count had quadrupled from the original 6,986. Aerobic bacteria —
oxygen breathers — were the hardiest cells and most likely to wake up. These
tiny organisms were surviving on just the tiny bubbles of air that make their
way down into sediment over geologic timescales. It seems that the metabolic
rate of aerobic bacteria is just slow enough to allow them to survive for such
extended periods.”
This is how evolution- believing scientist think they have
brought these the single-celled organisms back to life that can’t be given a lifespan in that way.
Source:
Letzter, Rafi. 2020. sleeping microbes wake up
after 100 million years buried under the seafloor. Rafi Life science• 30
July.
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