American biologists extracted five samples of bacteria that were between 100,000 and 8 million years old from Antarctica.
Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and his colleagues extracted DNA and bacteria from ice found between 3 and 5 metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica.
What will happen if ice melts due to global warming? Well, scientists do not worry, as the process has been going on for billions of years and the bugs are unlikely to cause human disease.
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