• Storksforlegs@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    1 year ago

    During this preconditioning, the nematodes begin pumping out a sugar called trehalose, which may be involved in helping protect their DNA, cells and proteins from degrading.

    Candied nematode!

  • Cylinsier@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 year ago

    By sequencing the genome of this Rip Van Winkle roundworm, scientists revealed it to be a new species of nematode

    If this nematode could read I bet it would be offended at being called “new.”

  • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    Imagine being that roundworm, waking up after being asleep for 46,000 years and wondering why everything has changed so much!

    Also makes me wonder just how long they could sit there in permafrost and still be able to wake up. Is there an upper limit?

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think you’re projecting a lot of your human cognitive ability on this particular worm

      • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yes, I’m aware of that. I know that worms are very, very simple creatures that don’t really have much of any cognitive ability at all. I think the key word in my post is “imagine”.

        • Akasazh@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          At the same time I was more enthused with the tought if the world would have changed as much from the worms’ perspective. I don’t think the siberian flora and fauna have changed very drastically. Probably the mammoths were still around back then, and that would be the most important change. The climate might be different.

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            The climate was definitely very different back then. So that would have affected the flora, and there was also a whole bunch of megafauna alive back then that have since gone extinct, likely taking a lot of their gut microbiome with them, since we know that the bacteria and parasites living inside larger animals can be species-specific. I think to the roundworms’ perception, there’d actually be a lot of changes in the soil that they would pick up on, that we wouldn’t. Like, you know, maybe they were used to eating mammoth poop and now they’re in a lab after being woken up, they’re eating something that just tastes weird to them because it’s not what they were used to. Even pretty simple animals can recognise and respond to changes in their environment, even if they don’t question it cognitively.

    • Quokka@quokk.au
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      “Ah, after fourty-six thousand years I’m free! It’s time to conquer Earth!”