Life paused for nearly 50,000 years, then resumed the moment conditions allowed—a discovery that raises urgent questions about what else might be waiting to wake up as permafrost thaws.
A worm frozen in Siberian permafrost for 46,000 years — since woolly mammoths still roamed — was thawed in a lab dish and simply woke up, began eating, and started reproducing, because its species can shut its metabolism down to a complete standstill in a survival state biologists call cryptobiosis
Brendan Brown