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Iceland Discovery Promotes Martian Life Hypotheses

Posted by michael on from the brrrr dept.

nusratt writes "This nature.com article reports research presented at the Bioastronomy 2004 conference in Reykjavik, Iceland. 'Scientists have discovered a community of bacteria living in the lake beneath an Icelandic glacier. The chilly world provides a model of Martian terrain and may boost speculation about the red planet's potential inhabitants. This is the first unequivocal example of life in a subglacial lake. The bacteria were definitely not introduced from above'."

31 comments

  1. hmmmm by nes11 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wonder if they read slashdot too....

    1. Re:hmmmm by DarkElf109 · · Score: 4, Funny

      They're very well-read bacteria, if that's the case

      --
      "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
      -Arthur C. Clarke
    2. Re:hmmmm by kiddisig · · Score: 1

      Yes. There's alot of people in Iceland who read Slashdot on daily basis and I'm one of them. :-)

  2. Nice but... by Zarks · · Score: 1

    The bacteria were definitely not introduced from above Which contrasts with NASA not bothering to sterilize its rovers before sending them off. So even if we do find bacteria on mars we wont know for certain they originated there.

    1. Re:Nice but... by Ieshan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This may be an ignorant comment, as I'm not really sure if they *do* make air-tight seals on spacecraft not carrying humans, but it seems as though nothing Nasa could do would be quite as effective as a few month ride through space with no possibility of nutrition followed by a real hot descent into an alien atmosphere with no water.

    2. Re:Nice but... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ..... Nasa could do would be quite as effective as a few month ride through space with no possibility of nutrition followed by a real hot descent into an alien atmosphere with no water.....

      No nutrition.. Check.
      Lack of Air.. Check.
      No water.. Check.
      Extreme radiation.. Check.
      Very high tempatures.. Check.

      SOunds like certain eggs(cockroaches) and Botulism could get there. Both, I believe can survive all of those for a respectable amount of time.

      --
    3. Re:Nice but... by shaitand · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The same organism has to survive both the highest of temperatures and the lowest of temps (you don't get alot colder than space, or mars for that matter).

      While there are organisms that can thrive in extreme temperatures, usually the same organism can't survive at both extremes.

    4. Re:Nice but... by sbaker · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In fact, the high temperatures on re-entry for meteorites are over-blown. Only the surface of the rock gets hot, the interior can still be very cold. Rock is a pretty good thermal insulator. Think about it. If you put a 5lb rock into a white hot oven - and took it out again 30 seconds later, the middle would still be cold. It doesn't take many seconds for something at 50 times the speed of sound to travel through a few miles of atmosphere.

      Also the outer layers of the rock (which DO get hot) tend to boil away, carrying the heat away in just the way that the heat shields on spacecraft (other than the shuttle) are designed to do.

      Critters riding (frozen) in the center of the rock might well thaw out quite gently long after they hit the ground.

      Hence, a robust space travelling bug would only need to be able to recover from beeing deeply frozen - it wouldn't have to be able to cope with high temperatures at any point in its journey.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
    5. Re:Nice but... by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 1

      Like a virus. A virus is ideally suited to survive nearly forever in a frozen environment.

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    6. Re:Nice but... by bcattwoo · · Score: 1

      But is a virus alive?

  3. The bacteria were definitely not introduced from a by gl4ss · · Score: 0

    "The bacteria were definitely not introduced from above'."

    what's this crap remark doing on it?

    especially when nobody is claiming that the bacteria spontaneusly developed out of condensed air underneath the glacier like the remark would make you assume.

    and the mars bit:
    "We suspect there were glaciers, and we are fairly confident there is volcanism." So if there is life on Mars, subglacial lakes warmed by volcanoes are a likely place for it to persist.

    subglacial lakes aren't that new of a discovery(lake vostok..).

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  4. "Not introduced from above"?! by Ianoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Is the summary serious in the suggestion that these creatures are separately evolved from all the other species on Earth? A totally separate ecosystem with its own spontaneous life-forming process which created original strands of basic RNA/DNA/amino acids as occured for our ancestors in the primeval rock pools of Earth?

    I somehow doubt it, for this would be a fairly phenominal discovery. In fact, if you RTFA, this isn't what's being suggested at all.

    Until we find such an ecosystem, on Earth or elsewhere in the solar system, the probability of life begining on a world with suitable conditions is the most uncertain variable in the Drake equation. This discovery shows that life can survive in such an environment, but it does not show that it can arise.

    1. Re:"Not introduced from above"?! by spin2cool · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's fairly obvious that the sumbitter is referring to the fact that the samples aren't contaminated with present-day organisms from the surface that infiltrated during the drilling or collection.

      This doesn't at all imply that it's seperately-evolved life, just that it's life that's been isolated for a very long time. These kinds of conditions can often create unique selective pressures. As a result, these organisms could contain novel biochemical pathways.

      A good example of a similar situation are geothermal bacteria living in underground hot springs. By finding and studying them, we found the enzymes used in PCR reactions. Without this discovery, DNA fingerprinting and genome sequencing would be much more difficult.

    2. Re:"Not introduced from above"?! by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      it's not fairly obvious as the submitter chose his words poorly(the remark would be totally unneeded anyways as you would expect them to fuck up like that). he could have used something that really implied that he meant the bacteria wasn't introduced from the above _during_ the process of retrieving it from the bottom of the glacier.

      but the catch is that as such it's not all that impressive at all(or even 'new', nor is just some bacteria the most impressive sample of such life in extreme hard barren cut off from the rest of the world biology) and the whole thing why this is on slashdot is that they mentioned mars and contained a _guess_ that mars might have lakes under glaciers which itself seems quite far fetched(first reference to such guess that i know).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:"Not introduced from above"?! by sbaker · · Score: 1

      But the finding of bacteria who could survive a prolonged space journey (which I believe we have now found) means that the mechanism that the Drake equation ignores completely (the probability of life travelling from one planet to another via pieces knocked off the planet by large scale meterorite impacts) could easily come to dominate the dissemination of life from a very small number of independently evolved sources.

      Since we know the probability of life spontaneously appearing in at least ONE place in the universe is 1.0 (because we're here), you can come up with a new set of equations to predict the rate at which life could spread on meteorite fragments.

      Some of the numbers in the Drake equations are truly unknowns - putting a huge uncertainty factor on the results. Using dissemination of life from a single point should provide much more reliable lower bounds on the estimates for intelligent alien life that we might search for with SETI.

      --
      www.sjbaker.org
  5. deception point by e**(i+pi)-1 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Reminds me of the story in Deception point by Dan Brown, which I read a few months ago. Its not the best of the books of Brown (the "Da Vinci Code" for example is better) but entertaining.

  6. Re:The bacteria were definitely not introduced fro by snake_dad · · Score: 2, Informative
    "The bacteria were definitely not introduced from above'."

    what's this crap remark doing on it?

    Oh.. I finally get to say it: RTFA! (I know, I know, I'm not new here.. but it's such an irresistable acronym) It's an overly dramatic way of saying that the bacteria found did actually exist underneath the glacier, and were not introduced by contamination of the samples. That's all, nothing to see here, move along. And, AFAIK, Lake Vostok has not been sampled yet.

    --
    karma capped .sig seeking available Slashdot poster for long-term relationship.
  7. Re:The bacteria were definitely not introduced fro by M1FCJ · · Score: 1
    If you are drilling with an unsterile drill, you can easily contaminate the sample, resulting with a positive lab analysis. That's the same problem with lake Vostok where the trouble is keeping the lake uncontaminated during and after the drilling.

    Crap? This is just logic.

  8. NASA has checked this. by Eevee · · Score: 4, Informative

    During the Apollo 12 mission, they recovered material from the Surveyor 3 probe. Examination of one of the recovered pieces showed that microbes had survived for over two years on the moon.

    While the moon doesn't have an atmosphere worth mentioning for heating the probe during descent, it does become boiling hot during the lunar day. And, considering that you'll want to protect many instruments from extremes of heat, it may actually stay much cooler than 'boiling' inside the probe during the landing.

  9. No foundation by LifesizeKenDoll · · Score: 0

    This proves nothing, Iceland is different than Mars in one drastic respect - Color. Iceland, as we all know is made entirely of ice, unlike Greenland, which despite being more northern, is all nice and grassy Mars is red from its rust, thus disproving any correlation between between life on Iceland and Mars. White != Red I truly hope someone realizes my innate sarcasm

  10. Living vs evolving. by noselasd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know, there's a diffrence between living in such a hostile
    environment and evolving there. I hardly think the life living
    under harsh conditions in iceland evolved there. It rather gradually adapted from things living under much 'friendlier' conditions.
    Conditions that might never have been present at Mars, allowing life to
    start at all.

    1. Re:Living vs evolving. by BillyBlaze · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That may be true, but consider that your definition of 'friendly' is very subjective. We don't really know under what conditions life here started, but they would probably be rather extreme by our standards. And that's just our specific form of life - we label conditions as extreme because the processes we see in local life aren't portable - but it may not be the case for other lifeforms. I personally think the chances for life on Mars are slim, but we really have no idea what conditions are needed for life to form.

    2. Re:Living vs evolving. by spin2cool · · Score: 1

      " hardly think the life living under harsh conditions in iceland evolved there. It rather gradually adapted from things living under much 'friendlier' conditions"

      What you're describing there is evolution, on a small scale. The process is nothing more than a collection of adaptations over time in response to selective pressures.

      And yes, I agree that Mars may never have had 'friendly' conditions. Still, this is a great example of a place where organisms might still be lurking if there ever were more hospitable conditions.

    3. Re:Living vs evolving. by Lord+Crc · · Score: 1

      That may be true, but consider that your definition of 'friendly' is very subjective.

      From what I recall, the first bacteria found oxygen to be toxic, due to its extremely oxidizing nature. Took them a while to adapt to be able to "breathe" it.

    4. Re:Living vs evolving. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Life is evolving, and though they can say that it is possible we can now start to understand the way in which bacteria, such as that in iceland, can evolve we shall never be alive to see it; that is if we have not destroyed the whole of the world by this point. Our existance as we know it is rapidly changing, some would suggest it was our further progression through evolution, others have adknowleged that our time is now very limited. It will all begin again, if bacteria can live under miles of ice and we can evolve through the extinction of a colossal race (ie. the dinosaurs ) life shall continue on earth, but now comes the time to realise that its nearly all over, we're due too many natural disasters...

  11. Re:The bacteria were definitely not introduced fro by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    no, it's crap. because the remark is made in a fashion that leaves the reader into thinking the possibility that the life indeed did spring from thin air underneath the glacier where in fact it seeped into there from somewhere else(adapted as the glacier grew more likely).

    and as such it's nothing new!(life under glacier) so the whole reason for this crap story here on slashdot is that they mention on the story that there's glaciers on mars and potentially lakes underneath them.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  12. Life IN Earth by Randym · · Score: 1
    Although the Antarctic lake is thought to be full of oxygen, the Icelandic water contains surprisingly little of the gas. It also contains few of the sulphurous salts normally found in volcanic lakes. "But the bacteria have the nutrients they need to sustain an ecosystem," says Lanoil. The microbes gather the carbon they require by absorbing carbon dioxide dissolved in the water. They ultimately get their energy from chemicals released during geothermal activity, rather than by absorbing light from the Sun.

    Check out Dark Life, which goes into much detail about extremophilic life, both here and on Mars.

    --
    DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
  13. what's this crap remark doing on it? by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 1

    You probably forgot where you were for a moment. This is slashdot.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  14. Re:The bacteria were definitely not introduced fro by M1FCJ · · Score: 1

    I can't understand how someone can draw such a conclusion. That would be akin to finding alien life . Since glaciers are only a couple (or in the order ) of thousands years old, surely no one can claim something like that.

  15. A halt to further discovery? by fygment · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The team used a drill that fires near-boiling water to bore a hole through the glacier.

    While they claim that the DNA print does not match bacteria from the snow above, is it not possible that the drilling equipment introduced organisms from elsewhere? Or was the drilling equipment (and "bucket") and near-boiling water sterilized prior to use?

    And now that the lake has been penetrated, what faith can there be in any future sampling? Bearing in mind that the article is quite "light" on details, this just seemed a very ham-fisted operation. Was there not an earlier article on /. that spoke of the hesitance in probing an Antartic subglacial lake because they could not find a way of _not_ altering the environment and thus casting doubt on any results?

    --
    "Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
  16. Re: Bacteria transport between planets by billstewart · · Score: 1
    That could explain life travelling between planets/asteroids/moons/etc. within a given solar system, though the probability of multiple planets being able to support the same kinds of life may be quite low. But interstellar travel is much less likely - there's not a lot of that happening, because there are very few events that can cause planetary material to get kicked out of a solar system. Occasionally stars may get close enough to each other to steal materials, but it's much rarer than planetary evolution.


    Also, while the Drake Equation numbers are, as you say, highly uncertain, there's no reason to assume the probability of life appearing is 1.0 - it could be 0.0000000001 and we just got lucky. There wouldn't be a Drake Equation if it hadn't happened :-)

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks