The scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could they didn't stop to think if they should.
Well, it's too late now. Tatiana Vishnivetskaya, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, apparently decided that nothing could possibly go wrong from thawing out a worm species that had been thought long dead. She found them locked in ice in Siberia, then decided that leaving well enough alone wasn't enough. The Sun reports:
Nematode expert Gaetan Borgonie, from Extreme Life Isyensya in Gentbrugge, Belgium, said the nematodes are well equipped to survive millennia of being locked in permafrost.
She said: "These buggers survive just about everything.”
Yeah, that's the problem.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: BAS/P. Boelen