Yeast Found in Iceman's 5,000-Year-Old Gut Has Been Used to Make Sourdough
Researchers reproduced a yeast strain from the mummy’s gut and turned it into sourdough, highlighting microbes that survived for millennia.
- Researchers at Eurac Research reproduced a yeast strain from Ötzi's gut and kept it alive for three months to produce sourdough bread in a unique experiment.
- Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old Copper Age man discovered in the Alps in Italy, remained shockingly well-preserved after being trapped in a glacier for millennia.
- Researchers identified three distinct microbial worlds: his original gut bacteria from preindustrial times, cold-adapted yeasts from the glacier itself, and modern microbes accumulated during three decades of museum storage.
- Scientists believe these cold-adapted microorganisms could improve energy-efficient industrial processes like low-temperature fermentation, while their next plan involves using the ancient yeast to brew beer.
- Frank Maixner, director of the Institute for Mummy Studies at Eurac Research, stated the mummy is a "dynamic biological system," while South Tyrol Museum director Elisabeth Vallazza confirmed preservation conditions remain stable.
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Scientists Just Discovered Something Still Alive Inside Ötzi the Iceman 5,300 Years Later
Have you met our ancient, dead caveman friend Ötzi the Iceman? He died 5,300 years ago, but his body was shockingly well preserved by the glacier in which he was trapped in what is now northern Italy’s Ötztal Alps. Ötzi was so well preserved, in fact, that some parts of him were still alive thousands of years later. According to a new study published in Microbiome by researchers at Eurac Research, the Iceman’s corpse is a small but thriving ecos…
Yeast found in iceman's 5,000-year-old gut has been used to make sourdough
Microbiologist Mohamed Sarhan examining colonies of yeast taken from a sample of Ötzi’s stomach (Picture: Eurac Research/Andrea De Giovanni/Cover Media) Scientists have used yeast from the gut of Ötzi the Iceman to make sourdough bread. The 5,300-year-old hunter, who was found frozen in the Alps in 1991, has fascinated reseachers for decades. Now a team has uncovered new insights into the complex microbial ecosystem surrounding Ötzi, revealing t…
Researchers were also surprised to find that the 5,300-year-old mummy of Ötzi still harbors active microbes that may have originated from the Ice Age environment.
bndestem.nl
destentor.nlScientists have baked bread with yeast that has been growing for thousands of years in the intestines of the frozen ice mummy Ötzi. The scientists revealed to news agency AFP that it was ‘very good’ sourdough bread.
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