Tag: siberia

Have 46,000 Year Ago Nematodes in Suspended Animation Really Been Resuscitated?

For more than two decades scientists have been collecting frozen microbes from deep layers of the Siberian permafrost, to see if they can be thawed and brought back to life. In the most recent revival experiments, a team of genetic researchers from Russia and Germany first reawakened and then identified a previously undiscovered nematode species, which they claim is 46,000 years old. Assuming this is true, this is the most ancient type of microscopic lifeform to have even been recovered from the freeze-dried Siberian soil.

In an article about their research just published in  PLOS Genetics , the genetic researchers describe how they confirmed the existence of this new species of roundworm, which was unearthed near  Siberia’s Kolyma River and has now been named  Panagrolaimus kolymaensis  (or P. kolymaensis ). There are many  nematode species that belong to the  Panagrolaimus line, so this ancient species has living relatives.

Interestingly, P. kolymaensis  was not recognized as a new type of nematode when it was  first revived in 2018 . It was incorrectly identified as belonging to another previously identified species, which lived 42,000 years ago.

But in the latest study, anomalies were detected that threw the initial identification of this variety of microscopic roundworm into doubt. Further analysis revealed it was a different species altogether, and one that had lived in an earlier time period.

 “The radiocarbon dating is absolutely precise, and we now know that they really survived 46,000 years,” study co-author Teymuras Kurzchalia, a cell biologist affiliated with the the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, told  Scientific American.

Keep reading

Previously Unknown Group Of People In Prehistoric Siberia Found By DNA

Genetic analysis has unveiled a previously unknown group of people who lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age around the borders of modern-day Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. It appears this mysterious group of people also had links to the multiple waves of humans who made the daring journey to North America. 

By the looks of things, some people actually migrated back in the “opposite” direction from North America to North Asia via the Bering Sea. This ancient legacy of the Americas still lives on in some people currently living in northeastern Siberia.

To reach their findings, scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology analyzed the genomes of ten individuals who lived in the Altai region of southern Siberia around 7,500 years ago. Paired with this, they looked at the genetic makeup of Eurasian and Native American populations in the present day. 

Their data revealed the Altai hunter-gatherers had a “unique gene pool” that indicates they were descendants of two key groups that lived in this part of Eurasia at the time: the paleo-Siberians and the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people. 

“We describe a previously unknown hunter-gatherer population in the Altai as early as 7,500 years old, which is a mixture between two distinct groups that lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age,” Cosimo Posth, senior study author from the University of Tübingen in Germany, said in a statement. 

“The Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was,” he added.

Keep reading

What Caused The Patomskiy Crater in Siberia?

In the Summer of 1949, a geologist named Vadim Kolpakov discovered a strange feature on the surface of the earth in the Bodaibo, Irkutsk, region of South-Eastern Siberia. Encircled by a largely treed area, this anomaly is oval with a conical crater that contains a small ball-like mound in its middle. The entire structure consists of broken grey limestone. Its width is between 130-160 meters, while the cone is up to 80 meters high. Oddly, few trees grow on the formation, however, the surrounding conifers have experienced rapid growth. Named the Patomskiy Crater, the Kolpakov Cone, and the Fire Eagle Nest, the geologic mystery has baffled scientists who are uncertain of what caused this weird formation.

Far Out Theories on the Patomskiy Crater

I don’t know if it is a meteorite or a spaceship, but there is definitely something under the crater.ALEXANDER DMITRIEV

Named for the river that runs near the anomaly, the Patomskiy crater has spawned many interesting theories. Wild ideas speculated that it was a secret Stalin-era uranium mine that used Gulag labor forces. Ancient astronaut theorists chimed that it was the landing site of an alien UFO. Other popular theories include: an underground uranium or natural-gas explosion, a dust-sized meteorite that burrowed through the planet and left the crater as an exit wound, a cylindrical metallic object of unknown origin, and the Tunguska Event.

The uranium theory may sound unlikely. However, this area is known to be rich in naturally occurring radioactive elements. A precise series of events would need to take place in order to create the circumstances for an explosion, but it lies within the realm of possibility. However, the trees do not indicate large explosions from uranium or the Tunguska event which would have leveled the conifers.

Keep reading