Researchers drill in the moss banks of Signy.P. BOELENFrozen microorganisms are occasionally able to be revived in the lab, such as microbes that have been suspended in permafrost for thousands of years. Most recently, researchers thawed a 30,000-year-old giant virus discovered in the Siberian permafrost. But when it comes to multicellular organisms, the oldest examples of such cryptobiosis are only a decade or two old, Wired Science reported—until now.
This week (March 17), researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and Reading University reported having reincarnated a moss that had been frozen in Antarctic ice for more than 1,500 years. They published their results in Current Biology.
“This experiment shows that multi-cellular organisms, plants in this case, can survive over far longer timescales than previously thought,” coauthor Professor Peter Convey of the British Antarctic Survey said in a press release. “These mosses, a key part of the ecosystem, could survive century to millennial periods of ice advance, such as the Little Ice Age in Europe.”
The team drilled core samples from the moss beds on Signy Island off the coast of Antarctica, then warmed the samples in an incubator to normal growth temperature and light ...
