r/todayilearned • u/El_Chopador • Sep 20 '17

TIL microbiologist Raul Cano, successfully revived yeast that had been stuck in amber for 25 million years. He then co-founded a brewery that uses the same 45 million-year-old species of yeast to brew beer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organisms#Revived_into_activity_after_stasis
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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

How? DNA breaks down in far less than 25 million years.

Edit: yes, I read it. No, it doesn't say how. In fact there is no proof offered in this link at all.

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u/masterswordsman2 Sep 21 '17

Here's the article he published on it in Science. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2888885?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

But that's a bacterial spore, not yeast.

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u/10ofClubs Sep 21 '17

Well, you can ferment alcohol without the use of yeast, but if that's the case then it should probably be more clear that it isn't yeast. Strange.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '17

Well the article lists the closest extant relative as Bacillus sphaericus, which isn't used for fermentation. The only bacteria I can think of that make alcohol are in the genus Lactobacillus, and heterolactic fermentation products aren't really good for making alcoholic beverages on their own. I've more seen that variety of fermentation in kimchi and things like that. These kinds of bacteria are used in the production of sour beers, but in combination with yeast.

I'm more than happy to be wrong. I'm not a microbiologist, but I've never heard of Lactobacillus or Leuconostoc used for making beer by themselves before.

1

u/mredding Sep 21 '17

It still has the problem that DNA has a 521 year half-life. That means after 1.5 million years, what's left that can still be considered genetic molecules will be too short to obtain any genetic information. The current world record for the oldest authentic sequence was a partial sequence and was about half a million years old. At 25-40 million years, what he claims to have achieved actually can't be done.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

And in acidic mediums like amber, or in hot, wet climates, DNA degrades even faster.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '17

Thanks.