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KF5JRV > TECH 14.07.19 15:16l 11 Lines 1581 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 10586_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Frozen Worms?
Path: IZ3LSV<F1OYP<ON0AR<VE2PKT<N3HYM<KF5JRV
Sent: 190714/1415Z 10586@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.18
If you’ve been online recently, you probably read the news that40,000-year-old worms trapped in permafrost wriggled back to life afterthey thawed out.
Lots of news outlets, Futurism included, picked up the story — but acloser look at the research calls into question the real age of thesesupposedly-ancient nematodes. Taking to Twitter, University of Maine IceAge ecologist Jacquelyn Gill laid out the argument that the wrigglylittle fellas were likely introduced to the permafrost samples after thefact through contaminat
As Gill points out, only two of the 300 samples analyzed in thepermafrost study contained any worms, and both had been used forprevious research experiments. That means scientists had already handledthe samples and then put them back into storage — meaning they weren’texactly pristine.
The research also dates the frozen soil samples — not the frozen worms —back 40,000 years. Since nematodes can be found everywhere, from tapwater to our guts to the worm food that the scientists added to the soilsamples, Gill concludes that it’s far more likely that the nematodeswere accidentally added into the samples after the fact, not frozen tensof millennia ago like we previously reported.
“Right now, as an ice age ecologist, I have no confidence that these arereal ice age nematodes, and not modern nematodes that got into two outof >300 samples,ö Gill tweeted. “Journalists should not be reportingthis finding as a credible fact unless and until we get a lot moreinformation.ö
73, Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV @ KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
Email: KF5JRV@GMAIL.com
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