40,000-year-old worms brought back to life

A group of Russian scientists have successfully revived a pair of nematodes – microscopic worms that usually live in soil – after they were frozen in permafrost for between 30,000 and 42,000 years. Permafrost is rock and soil that has been frozen for at least two years. Previous permafrost finds have included the preserved remains of woolly mammoths. These enormous shaggy animals lived during the Pleistocene epoch – a period that ended 11,700 years ago. They would have lived at around the same time as the nematodes that have been revived. The apparently indestructible worms were found in permafrost samples that the Russian scientists dug up at locations throughout the Arctic. The team took the creatures back to their laboratory in Moscow, Russia, and placed them in Petri dishes with…

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The Week Junior (Digital) - 1 Issue, No. 140

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