Meet the nematode, a worm we might also dub the Sleeping Beauty: in 2018, scientists defrosted and revived nematodes that had been frozen in a 42,000 year slumber, the first evidence of natural cryopreservation of multicellular animals. One of the most common creatures on Earth, these tiny nematodes possess the ingenious ability to survive sub-freezing temperatures by producing proteins that act like styrofoam chips, which encase ice crystals that protect their cells and keep them from dying. As permafrost melts in Siberia at an accelerated pace due to global warming, nematodes that have been deep-frosted since the Pleistocene (the Ice Age that started 2.6 million years ago and went until about 11,700 years ago) are released and re-animated. There is so much to be learned from these humble worms: studying their power to survive freezing for thousands of years could have ramifications across disciplines ranging from cryomedicine and cryobiology (the study of extreme low temperatures on life) to astrobiology.