万物简史 第436期:小生物的世界(7)

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Other microorganisms have leapt back to life after being released from a 118-year-old can of meat and a 166-year-old bottle of beer. 有一听118年的陈年罐头和一瓶166年的陈年啤酒，刚一打开，有的微生物就一下子活了过来。

In 1996, scientists at the Russian Academy of Science claimed to have revived bacteria frozen in Siberian permafrost for three million years. 1996年，俄罗斯科学院的科学家们声称，他们使在西伯利亚永久冻土里冻结了300万年的细菌恢复了生机。

But the record claim for durability⁴ so far is one made by Russell Vreeland and colleagues at West Chester University in Pennsylvania in 2000, 迄今为止，耐久力最长的记录，是2000年由宾夕法尼亚州西切斯特大学的拉塞尔·弗里兰和他的同事们宣布的，

when they announced that they had resuscitated⁵ 250-million-year-old bacteria called Bacillus permians 他们声称使2.5亿岁的细菌苏醒了过来。那种细菌名叫“二叠纪芽孢杆菌”，

that had been trapped in salt deposits two thousand feet underground in Carlsbad, New Mexico. 一直困在新墨西哥州卡尔斯巴德地下600米深处的盐层里。

If so, this microbe is older than the continents. 果真如此的话，这种微生物比大陆还要古老。

The report met with some understandable dubiousness⁶. 那个报告受到一些人的怀疑，这是可以理解的。

Many biochemists maintained that over such a span the microbe's components⁷ would have become uselessly degraded unless the bacterium⁸ roused itself from time to time. 许多生物化学家认为，在那么长的时间里，细菌的成分会退化，从而失去作用，除非细菌不时自我苏醒过来。

However, if the bacterium did stir occasionally there was no plausible⁹ internal source of energy that could have lasted so long. 然而，即使细菌真的不时苏醒，体内的能源也不可能持续那么长的时间。

The more doubtful scientists suggested that the sample may have been contaminated, if not during its retrieval then perhaps while still buried.  怀疑更深的科学家们认为，样品也许已经受到污染，如果不是收集的过程中被污染的，那么也许是埋在地下的时候被污染的。

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