Antarctic Bacteria

It’s alive! An Antarctic bacteria hasĀ been revived after more that a hundred millennia. Never mind that eerie feeling you once read a John W. Campbell story warning against this sort of thing. How can science be sure a warning is valid unless it courts disaster?

American scientists, showing the reckless disregard for the warnings implicit in quality science fiction that is so regrettably common in the boffinry community, have revived an ancient lifeform which has been slumbering beneath the Arctic ice pack for 120,000 years. To add insult to injury, the scientists believe that their laboratory revenant may be related to indestructible super-aliens yet to be discovered on extraterrestrial iceworlds.

The creature in question is named Herminiimonas glaciei, and was revived from its aeons-long sleep by Dr Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and her colleagues from Pennsylvania State University. The purplish-brown, blobby entity was “coaxed back to life with great patience”, according to Penn State.