Bdelloid rotifer survives 24,000 years frozen in Siberia

By Dilip -

A microscopic multi-celled organism has returned to life after being frozen for 24,000 years in Siberia, according to new research. Scientists dug up the animal known as a bdelloid rotifer from the Alayeza River in the Russian Arctic. Once thawed, it was able to reproduce asexually, after spending millennia in a state of frozen animation known as crytobiosis. Previous research said they could survive frozen for up to 10 years.

But the new study, published in Current Biology on Monday, suggested they could last for thousands of years, if not indefinitely. "The takeaway is that a multicellular organism can be frozen and stored as such for thousands of years and then return back to life - a dream of many fiction writers," Stas Malavin, of Russia's Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, told the Press Association...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57386706

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