South Australia, Australia Dec 29, 2023 (Issuewire.com) - Global warming is turning into a real deal that everyone should be worried about. But at the same time, while everyone is trying and turn the ship around from the inevitable outcome, the permafrost continues to slowly melt. Due to this melting, more things like organisms and compounds from under the ice are getting uncovered.
In August 2023, European researchers published a paper showing what they have revived. It is a 46,000-year-old Siberian roundworm preserved in permafrost. The animal has been collected from the frozen burrow of the Arctic. Gophers located it about 40 meters below the surface, from the never-thawed late Pleistocene permafrost. The researchers have used radiocarbon analysis of nearby plant material to determine the age of the worm. And the result shocked everyone.
Nematodes commonly known as the roundworms are known for their ability to survive long periods of time in cryptobiosis. Cryptobiosis is a state of suspended metabolism that enables animals to survive waterlessness and freezing. But previously known records of cryptobiosis in nematodes used to be much lower. For the Antarctic species Plectus murrayi it was about 25 years and for freshwater species Tylenchus polyhyphus it was around 39 years.
Another development that took place in August, was researchers revealed a 70-million-year-old dinosaur track site discovered in Alaska. The size of the site was of a soccer field. The researchers who discovered the Dubbed “The Coliseum”, found it at the site in the Denali National Park and Preserve. This has been the largest dinosaur track site in the US state. Footprints of multiple species of dinosaurs spanning many generations have been found in the Coliseum site.
They seemed to roam in the interior of Alaska towards the end of the Cretaceous period (145–66 million years ago). This was the time just before the extinction of dinosaurs. In July, they used simulation to suggest there is “substantial risk” from ancient ‘zombie’ microbes. These microbes have been emerging from the melting permafrost. The scientists used a program called Avida, an ‘artificial life system’ of digital microorganisms; more discoveries might be disclosed soon by them.
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