Bacteria Thawed

[Dubh Aingeal]

New Scientist has a story about 8 million year old bacteria that scientists thawed out, and now it's alive. Also somehow they are sure that this is safe. The interesting bit is that since these samples came from ancient ice, it seems that the world will naturally be filled with these guys soon.

[Medea]

Yep, naturally. Because 8 million year old ice is melting. Naturally.

[Destroit]

Hmmmph, I wonder what kind of reprocussion that WOULD have on the Earth. Shit for all we know it could cure cancer, but then on the other hand it could take out some aspects of the ecosystem (not us apparantly since it's safe). Ya never know. I have a feeling obviously they have it quarantined, anything else would just be silly.

[violentivy]

well, I'd say lets feed and study the lil buggers and see what happens to them.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

They are missing far too much DNA to do anything other than reproduce duplicates of themselves. But.. if they were to be absorbed by a moderen strain and this little bit of 8million year old DNA might be a part we never wanted to wake up. Or it might make goat cheese taste good.

Pfft.

A cancer cure is a myth. Biology happens. Cells split. Sometimes, the dna gets fucked up and the new cells go crazy because they are missing something important or have duplicates of something else. Cancer. It's just something we have to deal with.

[sass_in_the_pants]

Eh, it's nothing to worry about.

Even before this recent global warming tinfoil hat epidemic, ice was melting and reforming. In that process, ancient bacteria gets released all the time. We're not dead from it yet.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I am, however, going to make a better tinfoil hat.

[ttogreh]

The best one-shot movie scene ever, and it doesn't matter how you feel about the movie, either, is in "Signs" when Mel Gibson walks in to see his brother and his two children wearing foil hats...

The DNA is degraded, The ice melts and reforms naturally over millions of years... it's not that worrisome.

However, it IS kind of sad, because it basically blew the Extraterrestrial Origin of life out of the water...