A “LAZARUS” bacterium which thrived millions of years before dinosaurs walked
the Earth has been brought back to life. Biologists are astonished that the
250-million-year-old bug could be revived, suggesting that if conditions are
right, bacterial spores might survive indefinitely.
It also adds weight to the controversial notion that life was scattered
throughout the cosmos by comets. The theory, put forward in 1981 by astronomer
Fred Hoyle, suggests that comets “seeded” life on Earth.
Provisionally named Bacillus permians to denote the geological
period from which it originates, the born-again bacterium is unknown to science.
“It is alive and, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, there’s no…
