Under The Wagon

Scientists awaken 120,000 year old frozen microbe 

Seriously, have we learned nothing from “28 Days Later,” or “Left 4 Dead?”  

The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles (3 km) beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce.   “We don’t know what state they were in,” said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. “They could’ve been dormant, or they could’ve been slowly metabolizing, but we don’t know for sure.”

Know what I know for sure?  That scientists are pretty goddamn trigger-happy about defrosting ancient bacteria before they even know what the thing does.  Devour human tissue?  Give dinosaurs a cold?  Make your dick fall off?  Who cares!  The important thing is that we’re popping this fucker in the microwave for 7 months just to see what happens.

“Microbes have found ways to survive in harsh conditions for long times that we don’t yet fully understand,” Brenchley told LiveScience.

The key phrase here is “we don’t yet fully understand.” That’s what scientists usually say right after the Space Marine returns to Earth with super-human intelligence, and right before he impregnates his wife with the Alien Anti-christ.

The resulting colonies of the originally purple-brown bacteria, now named Herminiimonas glaciei, are alive and well.  “We were able to recover it and get it to grow in our laboratory,” Brenchley said. “It was viable.”

So not only are they defrosting the thing, now they’re GROWING MORE OF THEM.  Six months from now, if we end up dreaming fondly of the days of Swine Flu because Hermione Glacier has caused world-wide zombie apocalypse, we’ll all know who to blame: 

SCIENCE

It’s like the old saying goes, “let sleeping microbes lie, lest they awaken with a terrible and insatiable hunger for man-flesh.”

I’ll be in the bunker until someone puts those suckers back in the deep-freeze next to the Otter Pops.

 

 

 

[side note:  If this thing turns out to cure cancer, pretend I didn’t say any of the shit above.  Thanks!]

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings //