34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive!

They're aliiiiiiiive! But difficult to spot. The bacteria are the tiny, pin-prick-looking objects,

It's a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something ... alive.
Thankfully this story doesn't end with the destruction of the human race, but with a satisfied scientist finishing his Ph.D.

"It was actually a very big surprise to me," said Brian Schubert, who discovered ancient bacteria living within tiny, fluid-filled chambers inside the salt crystals. Salt crystals grow very quickly, imprisoning whatever happens to be floating - or living - nearby inside tiny bubbles just a few microns across, akin to naturally made, miniature snow-globes. "It's permanently sealed inside the salt, like little time capsules," said Tim Lowenstein, a professor in the geology department at Binghamton University and Schubert's advisor at the time.

With the discovery of a potential energy source trapped alongside the bacteria, it has begun to emerge that, like an outlandish Dr. Seuss invention (hello, Who-ville), these tiny chambers could house entire, microscopic ecosystems. Live Science