5,300-year-old red blood cells have been recovered from the body of Ötzi the Iceman.
The Iceman as he has come to be known, (also known as Ötzi) has been the object of intense scrutiny ever since being found embedded in an Alpine glacier back in 1991—he is believed to have died approximately 5,300 years ago. Attempts to find examples of actual red blood cells within his body have failed in the past, but in this new effort, the researchers used a new technique—a nano-sized probe they moved very slowly over parts of the mummified body that had been wounded, leading to open cuts. Because it moves, the probe allows for capturing 3D imagery—it revealed the clear doughnut shape of red blood cells. To confirm that the images they were seeing represented real red blood cells, the team shone a laser on the same material and read the wavelengths that were reflected back—that revealed that the molecular makeup of the material matched that of red blood cells—a finding that marks the oldest known preserved instance of a red blood cell.
Story: Bob Yirka, Phys.org | Photo: Journal of the Royal Society Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.0174
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