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Antarctic Expedition To Track Down Extreme Living Creatures

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-forget-your-swimsuit dept.

WirePosted tips us to a story about a group of scientists who are heading to Antarctica to study organisms that thrive in climates too extreme for most other life forms. The team will be visiting a lake that has a pH "like strong Clorox," the sediments of which "produce more methane than any other natural body of water on our planet." The scientists hope to learn about the potential for life in other unforgiving climates, such as those on Mars or the various ice-covered moons in the Solar System. Expedition leader Richard Hoover was quoted saying, "This will help us decide where to search for life on other planets and how to recognize alien life if we actually find it." We've previously discussed Antarctic microbes as they related to conditions on Mars.

69 comments

  1. Extreme living, eh? by the_humeister · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sounds even more fun than extreme ironing!

    1. Re:Extreme living, eh? by gaspar+ilom · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Finding out more about the *origins* of life is far more interesting than terraforming,in my view.

      Terraforming is a far-off prospect, at best -- and quite possibly, not even feasible anywhere in this solar system. (the "gravity problem" of Mars may be impossible to overcome.)

      On the other hand, if more of these extremophiles and endoliths are found, and their DNA sequenced -- we could gain true insights in to the first lifeforms that lived on earth and how they arose. Furthermore, it is exactly their *slow metabolism* that may make it possible for such organisms to live for thousands or millions of years. (validating panspermia a real possibility.)

    2. Re:Extreme living, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well that interesting! kanati

  2. A first step to terraformation as well? by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Besides showing us how to recognize alien life, wouldn't a better understanding of extreme creatures help us decide which species to first release in a terraforming effort? In Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy beginning with Red Mars , Sax Russell's choice of initial seedings is inspired by an earlier sojourn in Antarctica.

    1. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Ahhh, another dork who doesn't seem to know what the words SCIENCE FICTION mean. Here's a hint - we know so little about our own planet and its environment that we can't even begin to effect serious change here. After all, if we knew how to do it with the precision that would be needed to terraform a planet, don't you think it would be a hell of a lot easier to work on the planet we're on instead of one 35 or so million miles away? Here's another hint - you won't see terraforming of another planet happen in your lifetime, or in your kid's lifetimes.

    2. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      But, I've seen it on Star Trek. The TV doesn't lie.

    3. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My TV just told me to kill my mother. I guess I should listen.

    4. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ahhh, another dork who doesn't seem to know what the words FORWARD THINKING mean.

      If you'd read the books, you'd know that while it is all fiction, those series are one of the few books out these days that had serious science done in them. Robinson was a fantastic writer, and very little was far from fact in that book. Terraforming a planet will in a number of ways be asier than changing our because we'd have a clean slate. Initial challenges aside, once we get the process going we can set up a runaway series of "reactions" to get the planet how we'd like it to be. On Earth, we're faced with the fact that the entire planet is alive and resisting nearly any change we put into it. We also have to account for the fact that we can't do anything radical because we're trying to keep everything currently alive still alive.

      Nothing needs to change in even my great-grand children's lives, but a long process needs to start somewhere, and it's with parent's thinking.

      --
      I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
    5. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Too late for it to be of any use to us.

    6. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Likewise, I should have pulled out of your mom sooner.

    7. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem with the idea terraforming Mars is that it doesn't seem to be able to hold its own atmosphere that well. It has a weak gravity and little magnetic field. To make terraforming an actual long-term project, there needs to be a good way to keep the atmosphere trapped, or else it's not going to last, maybe not even take hold.

    8. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing needs to change in even my great-grand children's lives, but a long process needs to start somewhere, and it's with parent's thinking.

      As you said, terraforming a world will be a long long long way off, if it ever happens at all. The parent post up there says that we need to be deciding which species to release first. Well guess what - as the article points out, we don't even know what species, if any, there even are in this Antarctic lake. So don't you think that heeding the parent's post up there is putting the carriage before the horse?

    9. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Hmm. If we're going to plan ahead, how about not making your great grandchildren so numerous that they need to terraform whole planets, eh? Sounds a lot easier, a lot more reliable, and a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

      I will never figure out the blind expansionism of the space-colonizer types...

    10. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Ahhh, another dork who doesn't seem to know what the words SCIENCE FICTION mean. Here's a hint - we know so little about our own planet and its environment that we can't even begin to effect serious change here. After all, if we knew how to do it with the precision that would be needed to terraform a planet, don't you think it would be a hell of a lot easier to work on the planet we're on instead of one 35 or so million miles away? I dunno about you, but I prefer to test on a lab system before deploying to the production systems. Just a thought.
      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    11. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Hizonner · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem with the idea of terraforming Mars is that there's no good reason to try it in the first place. Why would you want to do a thing like that?

      To preempt the most common answers--

      • It's not going to be a home for the teeming billions of Earth. It would cost too much, mostly in the form of energy, to transport that many people there. Anyway, it would just be a stopgap even if transport were free. Geometric growth is still geometric growth. The amount of time you'd gain may not even be the amount of time it would take to do the terraform job.

      • It's not a particularly efficient way to provide a "backup" habitat in case of the destruction of the human species on Earth. Open-space colonies would be cheaper and easier. Even that, of course, is only interesting if you really care about the issue in the first place. Personally, I don't care very much, definitely not enough to go to all that trouble. The big problem with species-destroying events, from my point of view, is the death of all those individuals, and a backup colony doesn't save many, if any, individuals.

      Complete boondoggle. And politically and economically impossible, as well...

    12. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A lab system that you have almost zero knowledge and understand of, I might add. Not exactly the best "lab" conditions.

    13. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a backup colony doesn't save many, if any, individuals. I think the point of the backup colony in this scenario is without it there would be *no* individuals.
    14. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Hizonner · · Score: 1

      Yes, but that's not that important. The same number of individuals will probably die in whatever the event is. If there are 12 billion people on Earth and they all get killed, it's not that much better if there are a million additional people somewhere else who don't get killed. The disaster is still a disaster.

    15. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well considering how the Bush administration killed an experimental low carbon emission coal power plan recently because it had "ballooned" $800M over budget, yet we have people who want to blow billions on revisiting the moon or planning manned expeditions to Mars. We are currently re-forming Earth's atmosphere and are scheduled to be finished before we can do anything serious on Mars. But hey I guess I am not FORWARD THINKING.

    16. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by khallow · · Score: 1

      After all, if we knew how to do it with the precision that would be needed to terraform a planet,

      Precision? That's the word to use here. If one looks at successful terraforming efforts on Earth (here, I define terraforming as making an environment more habitable for humans rather than more Earthlike), we don't need to be precise. Irrigation, city building, etc. These are very imprecise methods. We don't know what our cities will look like in 50 years, for example. So much for precision.

      don't you think it would be a hell of a lot easier to work on the planet we're on instead of one 35 or so million miles away? Here's another hint - you won't see terraforming of another planet happen in your lifetime, or in your kid's lifetimes.

      Yes. I agree that it is easier to work on Earth. Further, given the current short human lifespan, you are correct. We probably won't see terraforming (especially extensive terraforming) of another body in the above time period.

    17. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, You're like, the worst father, ever. How's about you take some responsibility for your kid instead of raggin' on him in a public forum. Jeez.

    18. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A disaster is still a disaster, but I'd take a situation where humanity can at least carry on vs. total extinction.

    19. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      It will be a disaster no matter what, but there's a big difference between a disaster and extinction. About 100 billion people have already died, but the human race as a whole manages to keep going. On a long enough time scale, every disaster is just another historical event, but extinction would be the end of (human) history - those seem quite different to me.

    20. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by khallow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hmm. If we're going to plan ahead, how about not making your great grandchildren so numerous that they need to terraform whole planets, eh? Sounds a lot easier, a lot more reliable, and a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

      You don't need population growth for a reason to go somewhere else. Besides Earth is out of room for many things. If you want to start a new nation, for example, it's hard to start one on Earth.

      I will never figure out the blind expansionism of the space-colonizer types...

      It helps to first try to understand a different viewpoint.

    21. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by hobbitFeet · · Score: 1

      I don't know... I read Spin, and it all seems pretty plausible to me.

    22. Re:A first step to terraformation as well? by tgrigsby · · Score: 1

      Dude, your dad totally sucks. I thought mine was harsh....

      --
      *** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
  3. Oh they'll find it by Nylathotep · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

    1. Re:Oh they'll find it by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Funny

      Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! Fucker, you beat me to it. :) But to remain on topic...

      Shoggoth, Shoggoth, Shoggoth, I made you out of flesh...

      The fun guys from Yuggoth

      Shoggoth on the Roof

      I saw mommy kissing Yog-Sothoth
      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    2. Re:Oh they'll find it by vhogemann · · Score: 3, Informative

      Unfortunatelly I don't have mod points... Let's see how long it takes until someone mod you up.

      Until then, let me enlight the rest of you that didn't got the reference:

      http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness

      Great history.

      --
      ---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
    3. Re:Oh they'll find it by SurturZ · · Score: 2, Funny

      >Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

      I see the eyes have it.

      Or maybe the other way around.

  4. Mix 'em up! by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Funny

    Add the Clorox to the methane producing dudes. Kill 'em off! Need to fix the gloabl warming.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  5. Producing Methane? by iknownuttin · · Score: 0
    the sediments of which "produce more methane than any other natural body of water on our planet."

    I'll take that challenge. They've obviously never been to my toilet after I've had Mexican food and beer!

    --
    I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
    1. Re:Producing Methane? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      They've obviously never been to my toilet after I've had Mexican food and beer!

      Oh, they've tried ... it's just none of the expeditions sent to date ever returned.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  6. Why, why why? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 0

    We have a weird circular loop going here.
    Searching the other planets for life etc is supposed to be telling us more about how life might have eveolved on earth.
    Now we're searching earth to find out how life might evolve on another planet so we can come back and say how it might have eveolved on earth. Does anyone else see the irony in thi?.
    Perhaps we should just skip the whole space searching deal and spend more time doing earth-based research?

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  7. X-Treme Life Forms by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 4, Funny

    Spock: Captain, sensors indicate that this creature subsists on a diet of Slim Jims and Cheetos... Fascinating. It's blood is a substance you humans know as 'Mountain Dew'.

    Kirk: SPOCK! How. Can that... BE... possible?

    McCoy: If what you're describing is true, we've discovered the most extreme organism in the entire galaxy.

    Spock: Indeed, Doctor. Most intriguing.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  8. Methane by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Very interesting, if somewhat unclear - are these extremophiles supposed to be the source or the consumers of the methane? If it is the latter, it would be nice to draw some comparison with, let's say, Lake Kivu. Reading TFA somehow didn't help. :)

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:Methane by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the article is perfectly clear on this--methane would be a waste product (or by-product) of any extremophiles living there (note that they haven't actually found any yet). If life there consumed methane, a different chemical compound would be given off as waste.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
  9. Go easy on the Extremophiles by Chakka! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    May seem like such organisms are hardy & tough, but those are super fragile environments - Images of tourists throwing coins into the Yellowstone thermal pools come to mind.... Please remember that not every animal, organism, and scrap of land on this planet has to have a human use.

    1. Re:Go easy on the Extremophiles by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fortunately, where these guys are going is unlikely to ever be much of a tourist attraction.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    2. Re:Go easy on the Extremophiles by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 1

      Antarctica is hardly a tourist attraction and will never be unless we get severe climate change. I hope the scientists don't screw anything up, but I think preventing contamination is a primary consideration on their minds anyway.

  10. This is asking for trouble... by Fallen+Seraph4 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Has HP Lovecraft taught us nothing?!

    1. Re:This is asking for trouble... by gotzero · · Score: 1

      I wonder if they will find Chuck Norris... Hopefully they find something beneficial, but not immediately promising enough that they tear up the environment and species of whatever the paydirt turns up to be.

    2. Re:This is asking for trouble... by corifornia2 · · Score: 0

      Of course they will. Everyone knows that Antarctica is one of Norris' favorite spots to do naked breakdancing.

    3. Re:This is asking for trouble... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chuck Norris and Cthulhu already have a play date set for December 24, 2012. Hmm, that makes sense now...

  11. I don't get it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They're going to the antarctic to show that things can live at the antarctic.

    Logically, if nothing could survive in the antarctic, then any expedition would be doomed, no?

    The mere fact that they are planning to go (and return) proves that things can be expected to survive out there. ...But it would make for some entertaining television otherwise.

    -Z

    1. Re:I don't get it. by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Logically, if nothing could survive in the antarctic, then any expedition would be doomed, no? The mere fact that they are planning to go (and return) proves that things can be expected to survive out there.

      I'm not sure why I'm responding to such an idiotic post as this, but here goes. They're looking for self-sustaining life in this Antarctic lake. I can guarantee that the scientists would die up there if we didn't send them along with food and fresh water.

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    2. Re:I don't get it. by g0dsp33d · · Score: 2, Funny

      ... We are approaching the ring of deat[no carrier]...

      --
      lol: You see no door there!
    3. Re:I don't get it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're going to the antarctic to show that things can live at the antarctic. I know you're just trolling, but no that line is false, and as such so is everything else following it.

      We know life can go into a cold area and return. Don't need to go there to see that.

      The reason they are going... well, it said in the article and was implied in the summary you didnt read, no reason to think youll read this either or care
    4. Re:I don't get it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can guarantee that the scientists would die up there if we didn't send them along with food and fresh water.
      And pants. Big, big pants.
  12. Tekeli-li! by jollyreaper · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Tekeli-li!

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  13. Dupe, or repeated trip by Mark_in_Brazil · · Score: 3, Funny

    I read about this already. Either this is a dupe or they're just repeating an expedition made years ago (1931 or something).

    Here's a description of the trip from one of the members of the expedition.

    Here's a Wikipedia entry on the expedition.

    --
    "It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
    1. Re:Dupe, or repeated trip by night_flyer · · Score: 1

      to whoever modded this a troll, you are a idiot, it is obviously a Shoggoth!

      --


      Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
      Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
  14. To the tune of "Jesus Loves me" by Xaositecte · · Score: 2, Funny

    Cthulhu hates me, this I know
    For the old ones told me so
    Human souls to him belong
    They are weak but he is Strong!

    Yah, Cthulhu Fh'tagn!
    Yah, Cthulhu Fh'tagn!
    Yah, Cthulhu Fh'tagn!

    The old ones told me so!

    1. Re:To the tune of "Jesus Loves me" by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sing this to the tune of Tiny Toon Adventures

      We're slimey, we're squishy, we're all a little fishy,
      and in this adventure we'll be feasting on your brains.
      We're abysmal creatures, with gross horrific features.
      In Cthuloid adventures, lose alot of sanity.
      So here's Miskatonic U. where all the creatures dwell,
      take a look at a mythos book and find yourself in hell.
      Your guns aren't defective, they just aren't real effective.
      Our feast of human flesh and souls is about to start.
      Your magic, and voodoo will not stop Great Cthulhu.
      Don't eat with the Tchoo Tchoo, and the Migo steal your brain!
      Here's Narly, Tsathoggua, over there's Cthugha,
      don't forget Ithaqua, and Hastur hates his name.
      So here's sunken R'lyeh where the angles are all wrong.
      You'll lose your soul, and go insane if you stay there too long.
      We're slimey, we're squishy, we're all a little fishy,
      Our feast of human flesh and souls is about to start.
      And now we'll eat your heart.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  15. Re:extreme facist crusader zealots cracking planet by tm2b · · Score: 2, Funny

    You forgot to add, "Vote for Ron Paul"

    --
    "It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
  16. Beware of Elder Things! by morari · · Score: 1
    Oh, oh! And shoggoths!

    Oh, and shit! Those giant, albino penguins!

    --
    "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
  17. Better do it soon... by HiVizDiver · · Score: 1

    Wilford Brimley isn't getting any younger...

  18. "Life" Is But A "Form" by buravirgil · · Score: 1

    Stanley Miller's experiments were the first efforts (of which i'm aware) to challenge the enormous chauvinsim implicit in the conventional definitions of Life, with a capital 'L'

    the discovery of volcanic 'smokers' did much to challenge the conventional definitions

    i found it perplexing that cosmologists proposed Life might needed to have been 'seeded' by asteroids as though the Earth itself were not more varied and complex in orders of magnitude than an asteroid and teeming with "Life" not yet discovered

    similar chauvinism sullies the definition of 'intelligence'

    this book by Louise B. Young, 1986
    http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=9tFQIEd7hnkC&dq=unfinished+universe&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=Rd-pCskvdo&sig=tgTg6GadMWnXbUFE2kO1ggU59As
    challenges many assumptions

    --
    Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
  19. hotheaded naked ice borer by Teilo · · Score: 1

    Perhaps now we will finally catch live specimens which will prove the existence of the hotheaded naked ice borer once and for all!

    --
    Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
  20. Re:extreme facist crusader zealots cracking planet by macabresoul · · Score: 1

    Holy tinfoil hat batman!!!!

  21. Aha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Extreme living creatures? Wow, living creatures that are extreme. How about that. Better than extreme creatures that are dead, of course, but extreme-living creatures could be more interesting.

  22. To Terraform or Not to Terraform? by spaceman375 · · Score: 1

    So now we'll have even more examples of earth life that could stand conditions in some niche elsewhere in the solar system. Not only can we grow stuff on Mars, we can also find things in underwater smokers and volcanic lakes that will live in the upper atmosphere of Venus. I'd bet that something in Lake Vostok could stand living under the ice on a moon around Jupiter or Saturn. Cool stuff, to be sure. I'd even argue that we have a justifiable, instinctual drive to spread not just humans, but life as far and wide as we can.

    But I wonder: How long do you study a new place to see if it already has life before you throw our, possibly hardier, alien invasion force at it? Destroying something native would be a far greater tragedy than letting a planet stay sterile for a while.

    I still want a moonbase.

    --
    On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
  23. The unborn by Gorimek · · Score: 1

    You're not thinking long term.

    Those 1 million will over time have many billion descendants.

    1. Re:The unborn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then what? The process repeats itself over and over again and we become like the aliens in Independence Day or the silver surfer?

      Seems we should spend time and effort to keep this one habitable rather than become leeches of the universe.

  24. Correct URL by azav · · Score: 1

    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/07feb_cloroxlake.htm

    Enjoy

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  25. It burns, it burns!! by HunkirDowne · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one that has a problem with the 'pH of strong Clorox' statement? Assuming they are talking about household bleach, the active ingredient of which is sodium hypochlorite, an oxidizing agent (as opposed to a reducing agent). This is different chemistry than acid-base chemistry where pH would be a more appropriate measure. Perhaps they meant to say lye.

    --
    insert pithy comment here