Scientists studying ancient organisms locked in permafrost from Canada, Siberia and Antarctica say they have found evidence of living microbes more than half a million years old.

“Never before have traces of still living organisms that old been found,” says the international team that describes its “exceptional discovery” in a study published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The microbes, which were alive long before the first recorded presence of homo sapiens in Africa, may hold clues to the aging process and pointers about where to hunt for extraterrestrial life, says the team led by Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen.

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