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Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Ice
ToxikFetus writes "During expedition to Antarctica to research past climate patterns, Japanese scientists unearth million-year-old block of ice, breaking the previous mark by 200,000 years."
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is it still cold?
the sample was destroyed when the scientists decided to celebrate with drinks on the rocks.
Unpleasantries.
The Japanese don't have the technology to create ice cubes and are now ruining the environment for ancient ice cubes? Where's the Sierra Club when you need them!
you silly secular atheist. earth is only 6000 year old.
I'm a teenager, and my high school biology class here in Topeka School District has already performed a detailed analysis of these biased claims. Since the ice cannot be more than about 6,000 years old, and the article even advocates the "fact" of climate change and microbial evolution, you can easily see how they're trying to destroy religion in America.
This country (and Japan too) is going downhill fast. The end times are near.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
So, the important questions is this: What was water made of 1,000,000 years ago?
(Yes, it's a joke. Yes, I'm aware that this is significant because the trace amounts of other minerals and elements that they'll find in it will be major signifiers of the atmospheric composition back then.)
This guy's the limit!
Japanese scientists dig up million-year-old ice and find a giant moth. Godzilla saves the day.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
What I want to know is if there is frozen whale meat in that block of ice.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
I wonder, would this have been news if it was a rock core sample? Or perhaps some really deep dirt? Understanding of course that ice potentially contains more to study because it's a fluid at temperatures that live is able to exist in, but it seems a little strange to suggest that people outside this field of science should get excited. It's a piece of solid material which at some point in the past was a liquid:
Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Rock
News Science
ToxikFetus writes "During expedition to Africa to research past climate patterns, Japanese scientists unearth million-year-old block of rock, breaking the previous mark by 200,000 years."
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I think this is cool, but the more exciting thing that Japanese geologists are doing is planning to drill into the earth's core. link
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Researchers from McMurdo have been dispatched to investigate.
I read Usenet for the articles.
Why won't the fanatics give it up? We need to get with the program and learn as much as we can about this planet before we kill ourselves off permanently.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
The real question here is: will they find some neanderthal's "frozen" assets?
- A
A block of ice manages to make headlines on slashdot.......
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
These scientists apparently didn't watch the X-Files, or John Carpenter's The Thing for that matter. Of course the ice contains a microbe that will soon overtake the entire planet if not contained.
Oh, those guys. They're probably just using marketing hyberbole to see the ultimate luxury item -- DRINK THE BEST SCOTCH WITH THE BEST ROCKS: MILLION YEAR OLD ICE (supplied limited).
Goes with the Chinese "Thousand Year Old Eggs"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg
You can find more news articles about old rocks if you Google for a minute.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
I wonder what the scientists would do if they found nothing in that "1,000,000" year old block of ice. Just pure water. No organisms frozen for eons. Wonder what kind of excuses they would make up to still deny the existance of God.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Ice is a mineral. It fits every part of the definition:
* inorganic
* regular structure
* naturally occurring
* well defined chemical composition
* homogenous
If a "rock" is defined as a hard naturally occuring substance that didn't form as a direct result of biological processes, and often composed of minerals (which seems like a reasonable working definition), then ice is a rock.
So perhaps the interesting question is whether this ice is an igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rock. I'd say metamorphic; it's been recrystallized since it was deposited. That said, is snow igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary?
...and quite amusing when it all goes wrong.
Lots of japanese workers and scientists scrambling for the hills. It will be just like the movies!
Pining for the fjords
The million-year-old ice digs up YOU!
...fear the ice, I tell ya!
Why would the contents, components or age of anything that exists on this planet or anywhere else in the universe have anything whatsoever to do with the existence of [g|G]od[s] any more than the contents of my ham sandwich have bugger all to do with the existence of leprechauns?
This actually is somewhat important for establishing historical data for carbon dioxide density in the atmosphere. Presumably, the new data will allow someone to extend this graph, and see where we are now relative to a million years ago.
I just discovered a volume of spacetime in my bathroom that's approx. 13.7 billion years old. I win!
Turns out after DNA analysis the hair belonged to the great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandson of Ted Williams. Go figure.
I would expect that this ice would contain particles that might help estimate what the earth was made of a million years ago. Who knows how many comets have hit the earth effectively changing the content or even the ability to house life...
Isn't most or all of earth's "ice" about 4 billion years old?
He-he.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
The oldest known rocks are about 4 Billion years old; http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/rock.html
en tea.
I TOLD Matsumoto-san to clean out the back of the leefligelaytah!
Seriously, they quaranteened the astronauts after they came back from the moon trips for fear of microbial contamination. Wouldn't it be just as likely for some bad-ass microbe to exist in one of these frozen million-year-old ice samples?
If you look closely at the top-right of the picture you can see a noodley appendage.
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism holds that a decline in piracy leads to global warming. But hasn't there been a sharp increase in piracy through napster, winmx, kazaa, and now emule and bittorrent over the last six years?
they would have found the scotch I left behind. Alcohol and time travel a winnning combination..... Bwhahahaha It was I who killed the dinosaurs and removed the disclamer from the bible!
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
I would wonder if any microbes within the ice might be dangerous to humans because the microbes were frozen long before humans (supposedly) appeared on the scene so the human immune system has never had the necessary exposure to combat it.
They don't want to go about causing the Second Impact event, then we will have to put up with angst ridden teenagers in giant Bio/Cyborg Robots and crazy red heads from Germany.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...