34,000 Year Old Life Found Trapped in Salt Bubbles [Bacteria]

Digging up salt in the midst of the desert usually yields a lovely boring find. As in, a variety of salt. But a team of scientists in Death Valley hauled up so much more than that-perfectly preserved, millennia-old bacteria .

Luckily, the lifeforms came in peace.-though it’s hard not to while you’re a bacterium trapped in a salt crystal. ” It’s permanently sealed in the salt, like little time capsules,” said explained Professor Tim Lowenstein of Binghamton University.

The bacteria was found in a form of suspended animation-not moving, not reproducing-just style of… sitting there. For over thirty thousand years, which makes them one of the crucial oldest styles of life ever discovered on the planet. Their secret to survival? Algae, and many it. Enough food to keep them running-in sleep mode-for these types of years. And most incredibly, when they were thawed out a section, the bacteria started to reproduce again after being removed from their crystal cells. Tenacity! [ LiveScience ]

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This post is tagged: binghamton university, crystal cells, death valley, professor tim, salt crystal, tim lowenstein, time capsules