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Complex Life Found Under 600 Feet of Antarctic Ice
Chroniton writes "NASA ice scientists have found a shrimp-like creature and a possible jellyfish 'frolicking' beneath 600 feet of solid Antarctic ice, where only microbes were expected to live. The odds of finding two complex lifeforms after drilling only an 8-inch-wide hole suggests there may be much more. And if such life is possible beneath Earth's oceans, why not elsewhere, like Europa?"
The amphipod is actually a Lysianassid, not a Lyssianasid, if someone tries to google it :)
All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
This year, even.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If you're going to point out that Europa is different from Antartica at least take the time to point out how it's different. Namely, the complex life in Antarctica evolved in different, more comfortable conditions. Complex life under hundreds of feet of ice on Earth says nothing about whether or not it's possible for life to begin or become complex in those conditions. It just says that once started, life is very adaptable.
But did life really begin in such "comfortable" conditions? I don't think its too far-fetched to imagine most life beginning in even less habitable conditions than it currently thrives in.
Natural selection seems to suggest that life must be more robust than the pressures of its environment, and that life only becomes less robust if it can afford to do so. Not the other way around.
My page.
This doesn't surprise me too much. The SCINI Project has been finding neat stuff for some time now, even while they were just testing their equipment.
Microbes have even been found living in the ice of the polar plateau (at constant temperatures around -50C).
And check out Anoxycalyx Joubini (Volcano Sponge), some specimens of which are thought to be 15,000 years old and still living. These are animals that make those Sequoia look like juveniles.