(ETH) – A strange water animal from the time of the mammoths has been brought back to life after being buried in Siberia’s permafrost for 24,000 years. Scientists say the tiny creature, dug out of the subsurface soil in a state of “suspended animation,” has even reproduced.
Known as an Arctic rotifer, it measures less than a millimeter in length or 1/25th of an inch. Despite its microscopic size, it has a complex body that includes a gut and a brain. The breakthrough offers hope of resurrecting prehistoric beasts such as the woolly mammoth, the saber-toothed cat, and even humans.
Discovering the mechanism that protects the cells and organs from disintegration may hold the key to prolonging life. “The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life–a dream of many fiction writers,” says co-author Dr. Stas Malavin from Russia’s Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science in a media release.
The discovery also opens the door to improving the preservation of the cells, tissues, and organs of animals — and specifically mammals. Currently, there are over 350 cryogenically frozen individuals waiting to be raised from the dead. Thousands of more prospective candidates have signed up to have their bodies placed in facilities, which include three in the U.S. and one in Russia. The Arctic rotifer, described in the journal Current Biology, belongs to a group of rotifers known as Bdelloids. READ MORE
