Seven sleepers awakened - after a nap of 46,000 years

Siberia

Mask has awakened - slept for 46,000 years  

 

Vilma Stockvall  

 

Updated 17:43 | Posted 17:29  

 

Earth-dwelling roundworms have been awakened from a 46,000-year hibernation. Photo: Anastasia Shatilovich et al / PLoS Genet 19(7)  

 

News  

 

Two seven-sleeping roundworms have been awakened after being dormant for 46,000 years.  

 

This after a flight from the Siberian permafrost - to a lab in Germany.  

 

Researchers from, among other places, Germany and Russia have succeeded in waking a group of seven-sleepers to life, according to Vetenskapsradion.  

 

They are soil-dwelling roundworms, also called nematodes, which have been awakened after resting for 46,000 years in the Siberian permafrost.  

 

One of the researchers behind the revival, Teymuras Kurzchalia at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, flew the roundworms from Siberia to Dresden and succeeded in thawing them there.  

 

There, they then made the worms grow and reproduce, and were then able to analyze their DNA.  

 

Microscope image of the round mask. Photo: Anastasia Shatilovich et al / PLoS Genet 19(7)  

 

Beat sleep record  

 

The roundworms are coil-shaped invertebrates that can usually only be seen with the help of a microscope, according to Yle.   

 

The Siberian roundworms are one of the animals that can enter the state of cryptobiosis. Then the organism's metabolism is paused in order to survive under extreme conditions. As, for example, in the case of cold or lack of oxygen.  

 

Now the tired worms have broken the record for cryptobiosis - by tens of thousands of years.  

 

Today, the worms live on in a German laboratory, and are possibly the only specimens of their species.

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