Microscopic animals came back to life after 24,000 years frozen solid

In 2021, Russian scientists thawed bdelloid rotifers pulled from Siberian permafrost and watched them move, feed, and reproduce asexually. Radiocarbon dating put the sediment at about 24,000 years old. It's the longest confirmed survival of a multicellular animal in cryptobiosis, a near-zero-metabolism dormant state.

— Lyubov Shatilovich et al., A living bdelloid rotifer from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost — Current Biology, 2021