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00:03 This all started when our Russian colleagues dug up
00:21 a bit of permafrost for their studies.
00:24 And they found that after thawing this,
00:27 some nematodes crawled out of it.
00:29 So they knew that this piece of soil
00:32 had been frozen for a very long time.
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01:46 It's kind of a super fascinating finding
01:48 to suddenly see live, living animals crawling out
01:51 of a piece of soil that has been deep frozen for 46,000 years.
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02:26 Our main finding is really that we
02:31 could describe a new species.
02:32 So looking in online databases, we
02:35 couldn't find any genetic sequences
02:37 that were the same as in the worms that we found.
02:41 So it's a new species.
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02:52 They build this sugar, triallose,
02:55 which somehow helps them protect their DNA and proteins
02:58 while they are in this resting stage.
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03:11 But I wouldn't say there's like an imminent danger
03:14 enough that these worms bring some bacteria that suddenly
03:17 start killing humans.
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03:37 We can learn things that could inform us to maybe save
03:42 endangered species and think about protection measures
03:46 and all these things.
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