63: Ancient Round Worms

Speaker 0 00:03 Welcome to brain jump. I'm trace <inaudible> and I'm Amy Barton. And this is a brainstorm about roundworms cause we've talked about flatworms recently. Now we're going to talk about roundworms traces. Excited I can tell already. Um, these are Siberian roundworms. Does that make you more excited about it? I know hurdle, they sound exotic. I'm imagining them drinking vodka and wearing fuzzy hats. I am sorry to report that that's not their life. Their life is that they have been buried in Yakutia Siberia for somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 years down in the permafrost. So, um, for those that need a little bit of a refresher that haven't been watching, a lot of nature shows certain areas, it never thaws beyond. In this particular area, they have about a three foot, it'll thaw in the summertime about three feet down. So if you're making your garden or your burying a body, it's going to have to be in the three foot zone. Speaker 0 00:58 Otherwise you're going to need a concrete buster. So these guys were farther down than that. A team of Russian scientists working in collaboration with Princeton University found viable specimens while they were looking at 300 soil samples in the Arctic permafrost. So they're taken samples, they're looking to see what's in there, looking for other things. One was a squirrel borough located in Duvone Yar. I don't know, I'm probably pronouncing that in the French way. It was in an outcrop that dated about 32,000 years ago. And they also found a sample that was about 41,000 years old, so very old, very deep. And they found nematodes roundworms and they are, they're both think they were female roundworms. Oh. So they had the samples out there in a 68 degree environment and they're just hanging out. And scientists noticed that they began to move again and not just like, cause like after a day or so or like when something thaws, it changes shape a little. Speaker 0 01:55 But it wasn't that, it was after days and days they began moving and eating. Holy Cow. Yeah. 41,000 year old worm. That's stunning and kind of disturbing because what else is up there that's gonna throw out eventually that we aren't ready for? Like maybe we should have frozen Michael Jackson. I don't know. Maybe he is, I'm not sure what happened, but it does make me wonder like cryogenics maybe I always thought that was just science fiction fodder for fun novels. Well, but they're worms. There's, there's simple animals, you know. But yeah, there's a whole kind of like how were they frozen antifreeze, blood sort of. Cause there are frogs that can do that and fish that can do that. So, but 40,000 years. Holy Cow. Yeah. Robin M Gib, Lynn Davis is a neonatologist and the acting director of the University of Florida's Fort Lauderdale Research and education center. And he was referenced for this. Speaker 0 02:47 He said that if there is protection from physical damage that would compromise their structural integrity during their frozen and determined if they were protected from that. It is indeed possible to revive the thing like this upon thawing and rehydration. But also cautions don't get too excited. Um, he thinks that there could have been or he hypothesizes you can have contamination of sources, but the scientists also acknowledge that. They said, yeah, we totally agree. That can definitely happen. But these ladies were found at 15 feet and a hundred feet down, so they don't think it's contamination. They think it's the real deal. Wow. You imagine they saw them more moving and then immediately ran to their drill and they're thinking, oh my gosh, is there something on the drill? Was there something on core taker or like in the scary movies where the person on the autopsy table starts moving and instead of rendering aid, they bang, Bang, Bang. I'm sorry. Those nematodes were totally moving a minute ago. Twice mashed them my paper. Oh Man. Yeah. That's roundworms ancient roundworms man. Ancient Zombie. Roundworms no, that is not what this is about. It could be. Well, if you want to hear more, if you want to hear more, we're on Facebook and Instagram as brain junk podcasts and you can find us on Twitter as at my brain junk. Amy and I will catch you next time with more of everything. You never knew. You wanted to know and I guarantee you will not be bored. Speaker 2 04:23 <inaudible>.