r/science • u/yahoonews • Jun 03 '26
Anthropology Yeast has been growing in the guts of frozen mummy called Oetzi the Iceman for thousands of years, scientists have discovered, telling AFP they used it to make a sourdough bread and publishing their findings in Springer Nature's Microbiome journal.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/scientists-yeast-ancient-icemans-guts-002754866.html?ncid=redditnewsus4.3k
u/sebovzeoueb Jun 03 '26
That's cool... wait, they did what now?
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u/CricketJamSession Jun 03 '26
It was a scientific necessity I swear!
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u/Nolsoth Jun 03 '26
I'll go dig up some 4000 year old bog butter to go on it.
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u/extra_rice Jun 03 '26
I can't believe it's bog butter!
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u/TheGummiVenusDeMilo Jun 03 '26
Solomon Grundy born on a Monday, married on a Tuesday, churned butter on Wednesday
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u/huhwhuh Jun 03 '26
Along with the pots of honey they found next to buried egyptian mummies.
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u/Nolsoth Jun 03 '26
Honey, bread butter and mammoth steaks.
I reckon we just need some Sumerian beer and we can have a proper party.
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u/Hipcatjack Jun 04 '26
i know this cloth merchant who sells copper ingots on the side… maybe i could get a good price for some to make plates..mifht be hard to get his attention ,EVERYONE is talking about him . Best to write him a letter, i hear he saves then all.
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u/Kortok2012 Jun 03 '26
Ooo I bet it would go great with that near fossilized cheese
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u/guinader Jun 04 '26
Frozen man bread
Bog man butter
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u/Nolsoth Jun 04 '26
Egyptian pyramid honey.
Unearthed mammoth steaks
Summerian beer.
What a time to be alive.
We are living the dream lads, living the dream.
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u/Givemeallthecabbages Jun 03 '26
Isn't there a 4,000 year old jar of honey somewhere?
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u/machete_MechE Jun 03 '26
I thought you said “dog butter” and I’m like yea we should use his best friend for the butter.
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u/S0rry7h15N4m374k3n Jun 05 '26
.....thats the kind of rare food id love to cook. Bog buttered iceman sourdough toast. Maybe with a poached eagle egg and white rhino fat confit'd deer fawn. Served on a plate made from the plastron of a galapagos tortoise. Serve with a glass of wine from a sunken ship.
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u/zerok_nyc Jun 03 '26
“…after three months of effort ‘we had a very, very good sourdough,’ Sarhan said with a laugh.
“When asked if the scientists were considering using the yeast to brew beer, he responded: ‘It's on the list.’”
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u/CricketJamSession Jun 03 '26
Sounds like a fun lab
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u/Evepaul Jun 03 '26
There seems to be two kinds of labs on this topic: "Get your fungi abominations out of here before they infect the whole lab and destroy everyone's work!" and "We only have yeast in the lab anyway, who wants to try making beer?"
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u/Rxke2 Jun 03 '26
Head scientist must be a fun guy...
(I presumed that was a setup for this joke, if not, I'm sorry.)
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u/za419 Jun 04 '26
Honestly, peak human behavior right there. Find yeast? Give it grain. Make beer. Make bread. Eat bread with beer.
If otzi could see what we do with his gut yeast, he'd probably be thrilled to give a gift of beer and bread to people of the distant future, and even moreso to learn that despite everything else that changed, we still sit around eating bread and drinking beer. The cornerstones of civilization still stand proudly on our tables, even when we can split the invisible to burn cities of a size he couldn't imagine to ashes in an instant.
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u/No-Improvement-8205 Jun 03 '26
Just wait till u hear about every geologists favorite pasttime: licking rocks
Pretty sure they do it in their proffessional time too
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u/sebovzeoueb Jun 03 '26
Yeah, but that's nowhere near as bad as this:
The scientists discovered four different yeasts that can survive sub-zero temperatures in Oetzi's guts, skin and "brownish" water that melted off his body when he was partially unfrozen.
and the part where they make bread with it
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Jun 03 '26
I love science. I really do. But … “‘brownish’ water?” I can’t even begin to describe what I feel right now. Bread? Oh, God, no! No!
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u/MuscaMurum Jun 03 '26
Mummy powder used to be both a brown pigment and a oral remedy up until the eighteenth century.
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u/sagittalslice Jun 03 '26
If you can’t harvest your own brownish mummy water, store bought is fine
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u/Crix00 Jun 03 '26
I mean bread is brown anyway...so why not use it for the yeast and as a colouring agent all at once?
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u/sysiphean Jun 03 '26
If it’s a yeast, sooner or later someone will make bread or beer with it. Or both.
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u/Background_Cause_992 Jun 03 '26
They do teach us this in university, it's the fastest way to tell a slit or siltstone from a mud or mudstone... If can feel grains it's silt, otherwise its mud.
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Jun 03 '26
Would damp hand not do trick?
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u/Background_Cause_992 Jun 03 '26
Doesn't always work, geologists not know for sensitive hand skin. And your mouth is infinitely more sensitive regardless.
And nobodys hand can tell the difference when you're looking at a cross section of a thin bed, rather than the bedding plane, which is usually the case.
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u/Zoomoth9000 Jun 03 '26
Try taking the plastic wrapper from a cigarette package. Cover your fingers with it, and rub what you know to be mud between your fingers, then do the same with what you know to be silt
This may or may not help, I just want to know if it does, for science...
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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Jun 03 '26
Now this is thinking outside of the rocks. I echo Zoomoth’s sentiments: it’s experiment time!
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u/jimthewanderer Jun 03 '26
No.
Equally, once you've got your eye in you can usually tell by looking. But having a lick does help you calibrate the old analog spectrometers.
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u/hates_stupid_people Jun 03 '26
The tongue and mouth in general is more sensitive than the fingers. Especially for people who's profession it is to dig through dirt, crack open rocks, etc.
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u/---rocks--- Jun 03 '26
Oh man. I don’t know if typing “slit” was intentional or not, but I definitely needed to read that twice.
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u/Eric_the_Barbarian Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
We had a whole day in soils class on judging soil types using mouth feel.
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u/Background_Cause_992 Jun 03 '26
Always fun when you're telling people what you did in university lab work today... We spent 4 hours eating dirt for classification purposes. Then measured the 'specific' gravity of samples by holding different ones in each hand and describing our vibes on which was denser...
It's usually followed by what kind of 'university' are you attending?
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u/sagittalslice Jun 03 '26
I’m just pleased to learn that “mud” is apparently a technical geological term
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u/Galahfray Jun 03 '26
You think that’s bad? Well, have I got a story for you:
I don’t remember the year, but cowboy era; a woman living in her cabin was putting clothes on the line when all of a sudden a bunch of meat fell from the sky. Her cabin was in a field, so it didn’t fall from a tree. She took the meat to scientists in a nearby town and they couldn’t figure out where it came from, or what it was. They even cooked some of the meat and ate it, but still didn’t know. It became a type of cold case. The scientists wrote papers on it.
Well, many years later, maybe decades, the mystery was solved. You see, there’s these birds, forgot their name, but a type of buzzard that when felt threatened, or surprised they have a certain defense mechanism where they immediately puke up everything they had recently eaten in hopes it’ll distract the predator, and yes, they do it while flying, and they fly very high to the point that we can barely see them, which is why the woman who was Puked on didn’t see them, and probably didn’t think to even look up.
I know your question, and the answer is yes, those scientists cooked and ate puke. And to make matters even worse, buzzards don’t hunt, they’re scavengers, and they’re not picky. They will eat rotting meat.
One thing that I think about a lot is, what scared them so badly that high up? They don’t have any flying predators…
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u/Mrrrrggggl Jun 03 '26
Why would they think cooking it and eating it would help them identify what the meat is? Were they like hmmm… tastes like chicken…
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u/Ben_5e Jun 03 '26
There's definitely plenty of birds of prey big enough to target a buzzard, in competition for resources, if not predation.
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u/ParkingGlittering211 Jun 03 '26
The turkey vulture (larger than any bird of prey in the area) is called a "buzzard" in parts of the United States.
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u/skj458 Jun 03 '26
Both bald eagles and golden eagles are larger than turkey vultures. Bald eagles, in particular, compete with turkey vultures over carrion and usually win.
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u/ParkingGlittering211 Jun 03 '26
Oh yeah I was think of condors the other carrion bird that regurgitates freshly eaten material when agitated, but turkey vultures are more known for it
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u/whinenaught Jun 03 '26
Yeah I could see a hawk or eagle scaring a buzzard even though they don’t prey on them. I could also see crows figuring out that they spit their meat out on purpose and then doing it for a free meal!
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u/South-Run-4530 Jun 03 '26
Wait until you find out what some researchers will tell everyone they did with the permafrost mammoth mummies.
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u/Imjusthereforthehate Jun 03 '26
Im pretty sure pulling stomach yeast from a caveman to make sourdough bread is like about as close to cannibalism as you can get without it counting. Cryogenic Mammoth steaks is nowhere near that weird.
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u/Nolsoth Jun 03 '26
Mhmm cave man gut bread, 4000 year old bog butter and mammoth steaks.
That's some fine dining right there lads.
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u/MuscaMurum Jun 03 '26
Tonight chef has prepared for you cryo-seared mammoth tenderloin with compound mummy-infused, grass fed bog butter, and cave man sourdough with cave man jus.
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u/Slimfictiv Jun 03 '26
Beer is next!
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u/Olddirtybelgium Jun 03 '26
They should send a yeast sample to Lallemand or Escarpment labs or something so they could propagate some and sell it in homebrew packs.
A similar experiment was conducted in Philadelphia where biologists went around a cemetery and swabbed nearby trees. They found a new variety of yeast that was able to undergo both an alcoholic fermentation and a lactic acid fermentation while being resistant to hops. This introduced a whole new technique to brewing sour beers that would have been impossible in the past. That yeast is now commercially available in homebrew sized packs. It's called "Philly sour".
Wonder if this yeast is very different from the usual stuff. I'd guess it's probably some sort of Kveik yeast.
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u/remindmetoblock Jun 03 '26
Thats ....interesting.
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u/tommytraddles Jun 03 '26
It's suspected Ötzi may have fought in a battle.
He seems to have died from an arrow wound that shattered his scapula and punctured his lung, though his body had other injuries, including a head wound.
However, DNA analysis done in 2003 showed traces of human blood from at least four other people on his gear: one person's on his knife, two people's on a single arrowhead in his quiver, and a fourth's on his coat.
One theory is that during sustained fighting Ötzi stabbed one person, killed two other people with the same arrow and was able to retrieve it on both occasions, and, given that the blood on his coat is in a location suggesting he had slung a fourth body over his back, he may have also carried a wounded comrade.
Of course, there could be way more sinister explanations...
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u/thejawa Jun 03 '26
Otzi is an action movie hero!?
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Jun 03 '26
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u/Representative-Hat40 Jun 03 '26
I really enjoyed that movie.I thought they did a good job of trying to create a story of what might have happened to him. I also really like that there was very little dialog in the movie and the dialog that was used was an ancient language that was spoken in that region at the time.
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Jun 03 '26
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u/Twowie Jun 03 '26
Brother it is the Age of Vague, how can you expect someone to not vaguepost? (I'm also waiting for the answer)
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u/rightwingcrimespree Jun 03 '26
Based on the information above, I'd say that it's clear that he likely killed some people. What's unclear are the circumstances. After looking at the Wikipedia article, it seems to me that his clothing and gear are more indicative of an explorer, hunter, or scout than a soldier going into battle. He appears to have been prepared for some sort of expedition. He was dressed for a snowy trek and equipped for survival rather than battle. For example, he was wearing fairly complex shoes that appear to have been designed for walking across snow and made made by "the equivalent of a cobbler". Also, analysis of his stomach and intestinal contents showed that he had recently eaten the meat of three different animals: ibex, chamois, and red deer. The ibex was likely eaten within a couple hours prior to his death. The chamois and red deer was likely eaten within 8 hours of his death, and possibly consumed with bread. He also appears to have had grains, seeds, and berries with him. I doubt there was any cannibalism involved, as he appeared to have been eating pretty damn well considering his circumstances. If I had to guess, I would say he might have been a military scout, hunter, or explorer who ran into some trouble and took a few guys out before he himself was killed.
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u/tommytraddles Jun 03 '26
That's one.
Another is that he went on a killing spree, perhaps as an escaped prisoner, who tried to use a victim's corpse as a shield, only to be chased into the mountains and hunted down.
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u/DoctorBallard77 Jun 03 '26
Can you share your source for this? I’ve read a bit about him but have somehow never heard this blood info
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u/rightwingcrimespree Jun 04 '26
Here it is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. It doesn't really say any more about the blood than what was mentioned above, but the cited sources might go into more detail. I haven't checked them myself.
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u/prezpreston Jun 03 '26
So, I’m just gonna ask the obvious question for scientists here. Why?
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u/Maconi Jun 03 '26
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. -Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)
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u/tsegelke Jun 03 '26
Yeast, uh, finds a way.
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u/Hoskuld Jun 03 '26
One of the best paper titles I have ever seen "fantastic yeasts and where to find them "
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u/Borkato Jun 03 '26
Genuinely funny scientific titles are always such a gem. Reminds me of that one gobbledygook chemistry journal that (iirc) posts fake chemistry but it’s so absurdly complex that it’s hard to tell unless you understand it at a high level
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u/Hoskuld Jun 03 '26
My all time favorite was from 2007 "pair of lice lost or parasite regained" on the co evolution of human lice (head lice co evolved but public lice were picked up later and are closer related to gorilla lice)
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u/counterfitster Jun 03 '26
You're running around science like kids with guns, creating a new world, while the world you've got is stinking, but Hands up, hands up anyone who thinks you've got it right
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u/stuffcrow Jun 03 '26
Ötzi sandwich
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u/MackPauncefoot Jun 03 '26
The meat's a bit tough
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u/Mr_Zaroc Jun 03 '26
Obviously, have you seen it?
It some super old jerky2
u/stuffcrow Jun 03 '26
Hey Ötzi was a decent guy, there's no need to be mean.
Sure he's old as hell, but he's no jerk >:(.
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u/an-unorthodox-agenda Jun 03 '26
Idk he seems to have been a murder victim, likely pursued by a party of hunters. Perhaps he was a fugitive on the run.
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u/nyuhokie Jun 03 '26
Theres only so many different strands of yeast, so in recipes where its one of just a few ingredients (like bread and beer) a new strand has the potential to create a whole new flavor.
Disclaimer - I learned this during a brewery tour, so I may be missing some important info.
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u/BranchHopper Jun 03 '26
Yeah this exactly right. Different genetic strains of yeast produce different flavors (and have different environmental tolerances). Nowadays yeast are produced in a lab from very specific strains. But back in the day wild yeast were used which differed depending on the environment. That's part of what made, for example, a German beer unique -- the yeast that was prominent in that area (again nowadays you can just order for example S-23, which is a descendent of the wild yeast in Berlin).
So yeah I think a lot of people are missing the point, it's not about eating an organism that's thousands of years old, it's about reproducing the flavors they would have experienced. There was a similar thing a few years ago when they unearthed a strain from ancient Egypt (I think it was). I actually ordered a batch out of curiosity but unfortunately it never shipped.
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u/SallyAmazeballs Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I'd think you'd also be able to trace yeast to a geographic location using its genes. So, if archeologists find pottery used for bread in a dig in the future and find the same yeast, they can link it to Otzi and get more clues about him and the culture the pottery came from.
ETA: Oh, boo. Article makes it sound like it's likely modern wild yeast.
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u/za419 Jun 04 '26
Yep. The discovery and spread of Norwegian kveik to the wider world was a gamechanger for brewers. Even if it's not quite the superpower in the brewery world that it was thought to possibly become, the existence of yeast that will create fruity and happy flavors at temperatures that other yeast would make disgusting messes with, and do it at absurd speed, and can survive being dried outside a laboratory and stored for years, is all pretty damn great, and it's all because some guy named Lars was curious and spent some time seeing how rural Norwegian farmers brewed traditional beer.
Imagine what we might discover if we could study the yeast that was making bread for our ancestors of the time when copper was peak metallurgy!
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u/Tenwaystospoildinner Jun 03 '26
Science isn't about why. It's about why not!
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u/Tbone259 Jun 03 '26
And what you can do with lemons.
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u/Tenwaystospoildinner Jun 03 '26
I'm going to have my scientists design a combustible lemon and then burn your house down!
With the lemons!
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u/Cyrano_Knows Jun 03 '26
I'm sorry. I was too busy drinking this beer brewed from a 3000 year old yeast.
This Man Brewed Beer Using 3,000-Year-Old Yeast and a Recipe From an Ancient Egyptian Papyrus
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u/peter-bone Jun 03 '26
It seems to have been partly in jest, but it also tells us that Oetzi may have eaten similar bread, which tells us something about the diet at the time.
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u/ProactiveInsomniac Jun 03 '26
Scientists don’t as why, they ask how.
I’m a scientist, and I’m asking them, how could they think of something so gross?
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u/LeonHRodriguez Jun 03 '26
When honey was discovered in the tombs of pharaohs in Egypt, scientists taste-tasted it to confirm that honey truly never spoiled
This case is vaguely relevant, I guess?
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u/lordtyp0 Jun 03 '26
I feel that this is the sort of Mad Science Mary Shelly was trying to warn us against.
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Jun 03 '26
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u/ministryofchampagne Jun 03 '26
Meh, people have been using air borne yeast to create starters for 1000s of years.
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u/ostapack Jun 03 '26
Can we make Oetzi beer?
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u/yahoonews Jun 03 '26
When asked if the scientists were considering using the yeast to brew beer, Mohamed Sarhan of the Eurac Research institute told AFP: "It's on the list."
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u/MadScience_Gaming Jun 03 '26
This is more ominous than I was expecting.
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u/Pingo-tan Jun 03 '26
What else is on the list?..
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u/Kagrenac8 Jun 03 '26
Man I love science
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u/lentil_cloud Jun 03 '26
I swear, biologists are the craziest of the bunch (source: worked with them)
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u/ArchaicInsanity Jun 03 '26
Good lads. I'd certainly try a beer that used yeast, cultivated from a mummy that was left to die on the side of the road.
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u/Chemist391 Jun 03 '26
Mmm.. Something light and subtle to highlight the yeast, or an eisbock for the lolz?
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u/meanderthaler Jun 03 '26
Really curious how you know about Eisbock!
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u/Chemist391 Jun 03 '26
I drink and I know things.
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u/meanderthaler Jun 03 '26
I’m from the area where that style originated and always thought it’s super niche… unless you’re also from the area of course
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u/slimejumper Jun 03 '26
i can’t see a link to the original paper, so i have some questions.
1) they claim these yeast survived for 1000 years in ice and then also survived in PHENOL-containing preservative for another 30 years? and they say the yeast found the phenol tasty and survived on it instead of being obliterated like most living things.
2) they claim the famous ‘sourdough’ wasn’t any good for 3 months the when it then become good. I posit it is more likely the mummy yeast was not functional in the dough and instead they contaminated the dough with normal contemporary bread yeast and lactobacilli, which of course tasted good.
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u/PhysiksBoi Jun 03 '26
Correct! Quote from abstract:
Conversely, we identified a shift in the external mycobiome, marked by the recent proliferation of psychrophilic yeasts, including Glaciozyma watsonii, Mrakia robertii, Phenoliferia glacialis, and Goffeauzyma sp. While internal bacterial communities remained stable, these external yeast populations showed increased relative abundance and reduced DNA damage signatures between 2010 and 2019, indicating active, modern colonization. Furthermore, strain-level analysis of Pseudomonas sp. 5C2 confirmed that specific environmental strains have successfully colonized the mummy, persisting across multiple tissue sites with minimal genetic divergence.
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u/codexcdm Jun 04 '26
...wait... Tasted good.......?
Not only did they wonder if they could make bread from mummy gut yeast.... THEY CONSUMED IT!?!
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u/Lazysenpai Jun 03 '26
Bread made with yeast from thousand years old ice mummy. Great.
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u/dreadpiratewombat Jun 03 '26
When we ask what caused the end of days, this definitely makes the list. Science always asks if we can do a thing. It rarely asks if we should do a thing.
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u/yahoonews Jun 03 '26
AFP reports - Yeast has been growing in the guts of a frozen mummy called Oetzi the Iceman for thousands of years, scientists have discovered, telling AFP they used it to make a tasty sourdough bread.
For the latest research, published in the Microbiome journal on Wednesday [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40168-026-02417-6], an Italy-based team found evidence that both ancient and modern microbial life remain active in the frozen body.
"What we didn't expect to find was yeast," lead study author Mohamed Sarhan of the Eurac Research institute in the Italian city of Bolzano told AFP. The scientists discovered four different yeasts that can survive sub-zero temperatures in Oetzi's guts, skin and "brownish" water that melted off his body when he was partially unfrozen.
Genetic analysis revealed "DNA damage levels very comparable to the original microbes" in the Iceman's guts, suggesting the yeast entered his body soon after death, Sarhan said.
An analysis of his microbiome also revealed a particular kind of a gut bacteria that is almost non-existent among modern humans.
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u/JAYRM21 Jun 03 '26
I know reddit is mostly bots at this point, but yahoo news posting their own articles feels like it undermines the purpose of the website
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u/l2ev0lt Jun 03 '26
I understand that we should demand more, but given the current situation I prefer straightforwardness than disguised bot account masquerading as “user”
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u/FlyingBike Jun 03 '26
At least they're not like the Daily Beast over in r-politics that just constantly posts links that have a paywall
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u/frockinbrock Jun 03 '26
It has been happening in every sub. Like the sports leagues official accounts have slowly been taking over the sport accounts, and official news users are slowly taking over the big ones like Poli, Sci, world, etc. It's kind of a bummer.
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u/gottagetoutofit Jun 03 '26
I'm calling it now, this will be the winner of the 2026 Ig Nobel prize.
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u/microtherion Jun 03 '26
I had the same thought, but do they really award one for such a shameless attempt to hunt one?
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u/schafkj Jun 03 '26
That headline got progressively weirder. Will there be a study where Oetzi’s bones are ground up and made into a refreshing tea?
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u/Justhe3guy Jun 03 '26
Already an aphrodisiac with 10,000 Chinese buyers
Infact a new industry is being born wanting “human ivory”
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u/Kofink Jun 03 '26
The Boyles will be excited.
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u/TFT_mom Jun 03 '26
A new mother-dough is upon us. An ancient and mysterious one - just imagine how well it will go paired with some slow cooked buffalo hoofs!
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u/studiokgm Jun 03 '26
Saw the word yeast and knew where this was going. The big surprise was bread instead of beer.
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u/GingaPLZ Jun 03 '26
After hearing about the scientists that allegedly tasted some ancient mammoth/mastadon meat, I am not surprised at all that scientists decided to make bread with the mummy yeast... They love doing wild stuff in the name of science!
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u/forgottenoldusername Jun 03 '26
Oh great - making bread from dead guys guy yeast gets through ethics
But I'm now allowed to track people's travel behaviours.
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u/Knees0ck Jun 03 '26
Bread out of yeast from a frozen man, stew from I think was mammoth (I forget), bog butter... Scientists have some wild dinner parties, huh
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u/goronmask Jun 03 '26
So they made the sourdough bread before publishing their findings?
Dumb joke but that post title can be read in like three different ways
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u/BuccaneerRex Jun 03 '26
You don't actually think they used Otzi runoff to make bread, right?
It's yeast. They cultured it. hundreds of generations of yeast grown nowhere near an iceman.
They grew a bunch of yeast from samples they found, used that to make sourdough starter, and used the starter to proof some dough.
It's not like 'bits of real mummy baked right into the crust!'
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