Ученые испекли хлеб на закваске из 5300-летней мумии человека-льда

Ötzi the Iceman died in the Alps roughly 5,300 years ago, and researchers have now used yeast recovered from his frozen body to bake sourdough bread. According to Smithsonian magazine, a team at Eurac Research's Institute for Mummy Studies found four cold-adapted yeast strains clinging to the mummified remains, one of them a Glaciozyma that came to dominate the culture. The yeasts trace back to the glacier that entombed Ötzi until hikers found him on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991. Writing in the journal Microbiome, the researchers report that the strains stayed metabolically active across the millennia. "These yeasts have accompanied Ötzi on his long journey through the millennia," said the institute's director, Frank Maixner. Not everyone is convinced. One paleogeneticist told the magazine that proving the microbes were genuinely alive, instead of merely waking up as the sample thawed, would require finding RNA. The team, undeterred, wants to try the ancient strains in other ferments next, including beer. Previously: • Historian explains why modern bread sucks • Otzi the Iceman and life after death