We already know that microbes can survive deep below our planet’s surface, even though nutrients are generally scarce. Biologists suspect that the microbes enter a minimally active mode to stay alive. But whether they can emerge unscathed has been unclear. In the lab, the researchers gave the microbes nutrients laced with distinctive isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. Within 10 weeks, these isotopes began showing up inside the microbes, indicating that they had begun to feed like typical bacteria. it means that they can survive over million years .
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