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Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

400-year-old Frozen Moss Brought Back to Life in Scientist’s lab

Author:     SHEILA PRATT
Source:     The Edmonton Journal (Canada)
Publication Date:     28-May-13
 Link: 400-year-old Frozen Moss Brought Back to Life in Scientist’s lab
Stephan:   This may seem very esoteric but I am publishing it because it is telling us something about how consciousness enters matter at the cellular level. I think what we call life is actually membership in the interconnected, interdependent network of consciousness, from cells to high order mammals. Clearly it is of a different order from physical structures that are expressions of consciousness, but lack consciousness of the same order as living organisms. In rough terms it is the difference between the log and the tree. What made this story stand out for me was what, after 400 years, made the chemicals that made up the detritus that had once been moss, turn on those chemicals so that consciousness created life.

EDMONTON — In Arctic summers, Catherine La Farge camps out at the toe of the Teardrop glacier on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s North.

The University of Alberta biologist has watched the ice retreat, up to four metres a year now, giving her an unprecedented view of what was entombed under the ice for 400 years – old rocks, mud, and her specialty, ancient moss.

One day, walking along the edge of the ice, La Farge noticed some of the moss had a greenish tinge. That gave her a hunch – could there be life in that old moss after all?

In an amazing experiment, La Farge found the frozen moss was able to revive itself though it had been buried since the Little Ice Age (1550-1850). Her study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is shaking up some basic assumptions about land plants.

In the past, when scientists occasionally came across plant material previously frozen under an Arctic glacier, they assumed the plant material was dead. Discoloured and lifeless, it certainly looked like it was.

In 2009, La Farge brought samples back to the lab. On closer examination, she noticed a tiny green stem. There were two possible explanations.

‘Either […]

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