Just what earth needs. A resurrected 120,000 yr old bug.

OK, so yeah it's cool. Scientists find a 120,000 year old "dormant" microbe which just happens to have resided quietly and peacefully under nearly 2 miles of ice in Greenland, then incubate it for 11 months to successfully bring the thing back to life, and of course it immediately starts replicating itself.



OK, cool. But did any of them stop to wonder what kind of nasty's this little toy bug of theirs could do? Gotta love the mentality of scientists. What if it's potent enough to cause a global epidemic of some kind?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... rs-2009-06

Ugh, yeah I had a similar reaction. That little purple bug was gone for a reason. I don't know why they think they have the right to reincarnate the blasted thing.

It would be pretty cool if the bug was from around a time when there was more CO2 in the atmosphere, trives on the stuff and it ended up solving the global warming problem.

Maybe it will pave the way for some new super penicillin and help in the fight against current drug-resistant infections.

1st. Global Warming is a myth. The Earth has been cooling for the last 10 years.

2nd. Just because you "can" do something, doesn't mean that you should. I'd hate life to be wiped out by some "super bug" that scientists were so smart to resurect.

People will always do stuff just because they can. If you had a big red button with a sign on it that said "NEVER EVER EVER PRESS THIS BUTTON ON PAIN OF DEATH AND THE END OF THE WORLD" people would press it to just see the end of the world!

Herminiimonas glaciei shouldn't prove harmful to humans. While the microbe does have amazing properties to withstand extreme temperatures and survive, most human pathogens are mesophiles which grow at moderate temperatures 18-40 degrees C. Being that they only incubated the cells between 2-5 C then the microbe would have difficulties inside the human body without further adaptations. Another plus is it's small size would be easily phagocytized by the immune system and could possible be easily cleared. Unfortunately, with the rise of HIV/AIDS there are many microbes that are now medically relevant that really shouldn't be. Exposure to this bacteria to a normal immune system would be perfectly ok.

I found it interesting the scientist brought back dormant cells and not spores from that length of time. Usually spore forming bacteria can survive in harsh conditions by packing some of its DNA in a spore when the vegetative cell dies and once conditions are again suitable then it will start replicating. This is, of course, how anthrax is delivered in spore form.

I think we should also look on the bright side. This might be the start of something new. Like a cure for a certain disease or a good bacteria that could provide health benefits.

How long do you think it will be before someone tries to smoke it ?

LMAO, they probably already have.

For example...

I, for one, welcome our new bacterial overlords.

Oh crap, we're too late. Spork obviously smoked it and now it has his brain. *sigh*

This may be a cure or a link to a cure for something people thought the earth was flat for so long because they didn't understand and now we understand much more thanks to "modern" science why would we do or think anything to deny the furthering of science. This one little microbe could be the key to something new and who know what untill we study it. This is just like the stem cell research arguements, well if we can clone someones heart that has cardiomiopathy or clone a new colon for someone with crones why would we not want to do that.

This little microbe could be the cure for HIV/AIDS or Cancer or Hepatitis C (I wish... I have that darn thing), or for some other chronic disorder/disease.

OR

This little microbe could be another disease with no cure to. It's like opening a Pandora box (Is that the phrase/term?). You don't know what's in it until you open it.

Of course however like many prescription drugs on the market now they often have seperate side effects one disease could be a cure for another we just have to decide how to deal with them as a whole.