We're talking about "bizarrely low-key bacteria have been found in sediments 100 feet below the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean" — at least 1,000 and maybe millions of years old:
Their metabolism is dialed down to almost nothing, an adaptive advantage in a place with so few resources. The bacteria that survive are the ones that can satisfy themselves with minute traces of oxygen and a parsimonious diet of organic material laid down millions of years ago....
This made me think of the Beatles lyric:
"Isn't he a bit like you and me?" Nowhere bacteria, please listen/You don't know what you're missin'...
“These organisms live so slowly that when we look at it at our own time scale, it’s like suspended animation,” said Danish scientist Hans Roy, a biologist at Aarhus University and the lead author of the study. “The main lesson here is that we need to stop looking at life at our own time scale.”
Yes. Exactly! I'm going to readjust to this bacteria point of view. It's a strategy....
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Low level metabolism is a well-known strategy for higher life forms, as well. Bears hibernate and whales show their metabolism when they go for long dives. It's what it is. I am more interested in the life forms that will be recovered from Mars and asteroids.
Whales slow, nor show, their metabolism.
The Life of Julia--The Sequel
CS Lewis suggests that the very fact that we mention time as if it were an alien thing means that our souls exist in an eternal perspective, and the artificiality of time is imposed by our time in our body. His analogy is that fish are comfortable in water and it's their true home. They don't swim around saying or thinking "It's really wet in here." because they have no concept of not wet. People have known both timelessness and time because they had and will have experience in eternity. On Earth we find time to be artificial. He say's it better, but that's the gist.
Michael thought of the same thing I did in terms of hibernation, except that this is their whole life.
When the idea of extending life comes up, it always means just extending old age. Study of these animals may mean extension of all stages of life.
Very cool stuff. But what I'm interested in are the counter factual species. For example, I understand that hummingbirds are relatively long lived. Why?
The bacteria and molds are really running the planet. They have us more than we having them.
And darwinists say that we must be their descendants.
And there is a good chance that buried bacteria are what has produced the earth's oil and gas deposits rather than a few collections of buried dead dinosaurs and dead forests.
And hubris takes another step back. It always rankled me when people, and especially scientists, would say that life was not possible in this or that situation. "Life as we know it" might not be possible but who really thinks we have a complete understanding of life in every possible permutation. Every year we discover something new is possible. This is yet one more.
traditional guy,
I, for one, welcome our new bacterial overlords.
Alice, in Wonderland:
"But then, shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way -- never to be an old woman -- but then -- always to have lessons to learn!"
Quick, someone call the Long Now Foundation, Danny Hillis & Stewart Brand!
Also, should Comcast change their DSL Turtles to DSL Ameoba?
I thought they were describing DMV employees until I read a little further.
Locusts?
Can they infect humans?
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