|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
Thanks colorado tanker:They probably contaminated the lake themselves.They were hoping the lake would be vodka by now. |
|
|
|
|
Posted on 03/07/2013 9:51:30 AM PST by Red Badger
Russian scientists believe they have found a wholly new type of bacteria in the mysterious subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on Thursday.
The samples obtained from the underground lake in May 2012 contained a bacteria which bore no resemblance to existing types, said Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics. "After putting aside all possible elements of contamination, DNA was found that did not coincide with any of the well-known types in the global database," he said. "We are calling this life form unclassified and unidentified," he added.
The discovery comes from samples collected in an expedition in 2012 where a Russian team drilled down to the surface of Lake Vostok, which is believed to have been covered by ice for more than a million years but has kept its liquid state. Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica and scientists have long wanted to study its eco-system.
The Russian team last year drilled almost four kilometres (2.34 miles) to reach the lake and take the samples. Bulat said that the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms. "In terms of work with DNA this is basically zero. A level of 90 percent usually means that the organism is unknown." He said it was not even possible to find the genetic descendants of the bacteria. "If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars. But this is bacteria from Earth." Bulat said that new samples of water would be taken from Lake Vostok during a new expedition in May. "If we manage to find the same group of organisms in this water we can say for sure that we have found new life on Earth that exists in no database," Bulat said.
Exploring environments such as Lake Vostok allows scientists to discover what life forms can exist in the most extreme conditions and thus whether life could exist on some other bodies in the solar system. There has long been excitement among some scientists that life theoretically could exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus and the Jupiter moon Europa as they are believed to have oceans, or large lakes, beneath their icy shells. The possibility that the lake existed had first been suggested by a Soviet scientist in 1957.
Scientific research drilling in the area started in 1989 and the lake's existence was confirmed only in 1996. The drilling project is of major importance for the prestige of science in Russia and Russian leader Vladimir Putin was given a sample of water from Lake Vostok last year when the expedition began.
There also was an early “X Files” episode, if I recall...
Perhaps it was buried under 2.5 miles of ice for a few million years for a reason............
In former soviet Russia, bacteria find you...
Love that movie!
I blame globull warming. We are so doomed.
There’s was one in the 50’s with James Arness as the monster.
“Watch the skies, watch the skies”.
“We were on the track ahead as the nightmare plastic column of foetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus; gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, re-thickening cloud of the pallid abyss-vapour. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.” (H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, 1931)
“Do not call up what you can not put down.” ;)
Read a lot of his stuff as a teenager in the late 60’s early 70’s..........
They both stole the idea from H.P. Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains of Madness”, from the 1930’s.
Yeah, I read him a lot as a teenager too. I guess there is something about his stories that resonates with alienated teenagers :)
I was, and still am, into Sci-fi and weird stories like that, Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, et al.........
The man could torture prose better than anyone. You can almost hear Mrs Lovecraft in the background saying “Honey, quit rambling and come to bed so Miss Frisky can ride the Love Pony”.
Lovecraft wrote like he was going to get a lash for every word he missed in the dictionary.
Ah you see... there was no Mrs. Lovecraft, he was a permanent bachelor who lived with his mother. Of course, that probably explains a LOT.
I’m more of a casual fan of all of those guys. I’ve read a few stories from each of them, but I’ve never gone and read their whole catalogue like the die hard fans. I did read most everything by Lovecraft, but that was mostly because he wrote a lot of short stories and the paperbacks were cheap :)
Loved the newer one. Great prequel to tie it all together. It was very well done...
When I was 8 I fell and broke my arm, the doctors
were incompetent and they had to break it and reset
it 5 times. Ether was in use at that time and lovecrafts
description is almost exactly what I saw EACH TIME.
They finally had to hold me down to put the mask on.
My parents finally woke up and took me to a specialist.
He cut the cast off manipulated my arm, put a new
cast on and I’ve been good as new ever since.
Honestly, it looked like a glowing brain with eyes
set all around it, filling the cavern and persuing
me until I reached a dead end at which time I blacked
out. Can see it today.
|
|
|
| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
|
|
|
Thanks colorado tanker:They probably contaminated the lake themselves.They were hoping the lake would be vodka by now. |
|
|
|
|
Your brush?
Just how close was your brush?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.