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Many New Species Found Under Antarctica

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the natures-basement dept.

gt_mattex writes to tell us The Globe and Mail is reporting that quite a few new species have been found in the ocean beneath the Antarctic ice. From the article: "It is too early to say exactly how many new species were discovered in the Antarctic, many in the Weddell Sea, where ice crushed the ship of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1915. The scientists saw more strange creatures than familiar ones, says Ron O'Dor, an expert in octopuses and squid from Halifax's Dalhousie University and the chief scientist in charge of producing the first marine life census of the planet by 2010."

8 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing by Sneakernets · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's been millenia and we still don't know all the life on our planet. I always look forward to articles like this, they really tell us how little we do know.

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    "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
    1. Re:Amazing by LiquidMind · · Score: 5, Interesting

      i've been thinking about that too, especially about the life that resides at the bottom of our oceans....
      how interesting (and suicidal, but bear with me) would it be to somehow drain all the oceans of water just to see what's left over...

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      This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
    2. Re:Amazing by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Funny

      Drain the oceans?!? That's ridiculous -- where would they go??? I guess you could find something that sucks really hard, like Digg, put a straw in it, and plop it on the beach.

      But it would make much more sense to rapidly evaporate all of them, perhaps with a large scale hairdryer task force and/or a few strategically placed nukes.

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      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  2. ANCIENTS by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 5, Funny

    IT's the ANCIENT outpost

  3. Re:Anyone else worried after reading this? by nog_lorp · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't you worry! We will have those scary new species gone in no time!

  4. My god -- it's full of geeks by anagama · · Score: 5, Funny
    In the dark ocean beneath the Antarctic ice, researchers have found scores of species they've never seen before, including strange jellyfish and other gelatinous organisms that thrive without light

    My god -- it's full of geeks.
    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  5. Re:Could they be harmful? by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everything in Australia is deadly. The spiders are deadly, the snakes are deadly, the crocodiles are deadly, the plants are deadly, the driving in Sydney is definitely deadly, the TV commercials are lethal... I never did find out what happened to those rabbits that escaped from a research facility on a Government-owned island and made it to shore, back in '95. As I recall, they were being used for some research into some lethal pathogen or other. Since there are Australians still alive, I take it that the crisis was brought under control, but that was cutting it a little fine. I guess we can add the Australian Government to things that are lethal, though.

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    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  6. Re:shouldn't it be... by lawpoop · · Score: 5, Informative

    The word 'pus' is Greek for foot, and the plural in Greek is 'podes', so it would be octopodes -- except the name of the animal is not 'eight-feet', it's 'eight-foot', so it's one 'eight-foot' or 'octopus' and many 'eight-foots' or 'octopuses'.

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    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
    -- Pablo Picasso