Multicellular animal revived after ‘24,000 years’
A microscopic multicellular animal, a bdelloid rotifer, was revived after being frozen in permafrost supposedly for 24,000 years. It was recovered in north-eastern Siberia after drilling 3.5m below the surface. Despite being the longest reported case of rotifer survival, when defrosted it quickly went on to reproduce.
“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,” said Stas Malavin, one of the lead researchers. Study of the animal showed it already had “effective biochemical mechanisms of organ and cell shielding necessary to survive low temperatures.” Ice crystals, normally detrimental for cells, could therefore form relatively slowly, and the rotifer survive.
Some were keen to apply such biological knowledge to cryobiology or biotechnology. However, Malavin cautioned, “Of course, the more complex the organism, the trickier it is to preserve it alive frozen and, for mammals, it’s not currently possible. Yet, moving from a single-celled organism to an organism with a gut and brain, though microscopic, is a big step forward.”
Researchers ascribed the amazing ability to survive frozen permafrost to evolution, but it belongs instead to the creator God of Genesis. Without such ability already being present no resuscitation would have been possible. For context, the bdelloid rotifers would have been frozen in the permafrost towards the end of the Ice Age, around 4,000 years ago, after Noah’s Flood.
- Shmakova, L. and 6 others, A living bdelliod rotifer from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost, Cur. Biol. 31(11):PR712-RZ713, 7 Jun 2021.
- Hunt, K. This animal survived 24,000 years frozen in the Siberian permafrost; edition.cnn.com, 8 Jun 2021.
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