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Russian Team Prepares To Penetrate Lake Vostok
Lanxon writes "Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometers below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen — levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes."
I hope for new life forms and new genomes for us, bioinformaticians.
The more I learn about the way the phenotype is coded in the genome, the more in awe of the creation I am.
Subhana Allah
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I fail to see the need to drill to this lake so far below the surface. For one thing I would be worried about bringing back up who knows what with organisms and bacteria that we have not seen before that could be dangerous, also don't you think they would be contaminating this lake by drilling into it?
From the article:
Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent's environment, that it's come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: "Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
I think it's similar to this mission at Lake Ellsworth.
My work here is dung.
They'll dig up a strange UFO with some doppleganger virus that causes the whole crew to kill each other.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"Once you pop that bubble so to speak the place will never be the same"
That is true for almost everything we do on this planet whether we like it or not. It's our modus operandi.
"And what's the chance that there's organisms that are harmful to our current ecosystems? " Not a great chance. Harm is never the ultimate goal of microorganisms that are "harmful" to us. Harm is always a byproduct of being able to use us and in order to do that, microorganism must coexist with us for some time.
Randomness * really big numbers = very little probabilities.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Actually, Russia is way above Antarctica. Like "3/4 of the planet diameter" kind of higher.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
In Soviet Antarctica, buried lake penetrates drill hole!
Seriously. RTFA.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
What does Sarah Palin think?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Release the Piranha!
So what *are* the ramifications of releasing a large pocket of oxygen into our current atmosphere, both for us and for the lake which has been sitting isolated for 14 million years?
Your fears are unfounded, from the article:
Now, the team has satisfied the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which safeguards the continent's environment, that it's come up with a technique to sample the lake without contaminating it. Valery Lukin told New Scientist: "Once the lake is reached, the water pressure will push the working body and the drilling fluid upwards in the borehole, and then freeze again." The next season, the team will bore into that frozen water to recover a sample whose contents can then be analysed.
So they're taking the appropriate precautions there ...
Not so much being snarky as not being a scientist and am curious. It's great that we can go anywhere that's locked away and hidden, but should we?
The moon was "locked away" but we went there, didn't we?
Everyone needs to relax, there's an expedition to explore Lake Ellsworth and we've already explored an ultra-oligotrophic lake named Hodgson Lake and the results:
They found... nothing. The analyses show that the Hodgson Lake water 'is one of the clearest water lakes I have ever worked on, clearer than the distilled water we use in our lab, with almost nothing in it,' says Hodgson. The samples have virtually no nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and very low measurements of other chemical elements.
So they're going to take necessary precautions approved by a governing body and the odds are high that their results will just turn up some of the purest water we've ever seen. Of course the article notes that if they find extremophiles, it'll be a boon for studying the many protective enzymes the organisms need to live.
My work here is dung.
I am so utterly disappointed by the article.
Isn't this how the movie Alien vs Predator started?
The world is how you make it
Because it's there. Simple human curiosity, something your DNA seems to have deactivated. And this is real life, not a John Carpenter movie.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
A Colder War
Is that a trick question?
...release unknown, ancient pathogens into the atmosphere...
which can't survive in our environment which has 1/50 the oxygen they are used to?
...so they can drill it next year to extract specimens...
like 2012? uh oh, you may be on to something. :-)
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
It is a valid question, if you Drop the "What."
To be fair, theory and practice are in theory identical; in practice, not so much.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
It just means an environment which is low in nutrients.
The lake just happens to have high oxygen levels because of high pressure from the layers of ice - that doesn't make it oligotrophic.
No, it means that the lake has very few nutrients and is therefore not terribly productive biologically. see here. Many lakes that fall into the oligotropic chategory are also Oxygenated but it is not why they are oligotropic.
The real question I have is where that Oxygen is coming from. There probably isn't much photosynthesis going on at that depth which means either Oxygen is being imported to the system, it isn't being consumed very rapidly or it's being generated somehow.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Cool to see they have a plan for getting info without causing harm. Hopefully it all works well.
The researchers involved on site have my respect. Here's some info about where they work:
Ave. winter temp: -65C, ave. summer temp: -30C
Altitude: 3488m
Record low temp: -89C. Good thing they are at altitude, as CO2 freezing point is -78C at 1atm.
Polar night for 130 days.
I like science... but I don't like science that much.
Never drink and slashdot.
You mean some schmuck on slashdot didn't discover new problems that elitist scientists, probably played by Oliver Platt, with their Lexuses (Lexi?) and mistresses and ear of the president, up in their ivory tower of Oxford or Yale or Brown didn't think about?
Not much of a script writer, are you?
These scientists actually know the oxygen concentration because the scientists actually read the article. Yeah, I know. My logic is well shaped. I assert that "circular" is a shape.
Oh yeah "Ooh, aah", that's how it always starts. But then there's running and screaming.
It was clearly spelled out in the transmission from the pyramid. What part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" didn't you understand?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This will inevitably lead to a new brand of vodka advertised as being made with "14 million year old, subglacial, super-oxygenated water".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Perhaps she might think that "they're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." On the other hand, Tina Fey (playing Sarah Palin) might think "I can see Russia from my house." [source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_misconceptions#United_States_politics ]
Was the continent ever tropical/non-icy?
yes.
Free Martian Whores!
Gondwanaland's Law. This discussion's over.
Haida Manga
Would it be impolite to point out that she has accomplished far more in life than you or I have, or probably ever will? If Sarah Palin is dumb, therefore, there's a significantly greater than zero chance that you and I are even dumber.
That is based on the ridiculous notion that intelligence equates to fame. To make this point, I only have two words - "Jersey Shore".
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
I fail to see the need to drill to this lake so far below the surface. For one thing I would be worried about bringing back up who knows what with organisms and bacteria that we have not seen before that could be dangerous, also don't you think they would be contaminating this lake by drilling into it?
Any bacteria or other organism that are alive down there have spent the last 14 million years adapting to that environment.
It is a near certainty that they would find our bodies to be a completely inhospitable environment.
The dangerous bacteria are the ones that are adapted to human bodies -- or close enough bodies that it's only a small jump to humans. There are many, many viruses and bacteria that infect mammals but are incapable of reproducing inside our bodies. Antarctic under-ice lake bacteria? No chance.
The enemies of Democracy are
Accomplishments != intelligence. You can be very dumb and very accomplished. It isn't common, but it happens. I don't care what she accomplished or accomplishes, I can tell you with 100% certainty that I am not dumber than she is. I also have little doubt she could not have accomplished anything without a lot of smarter people making decisions for her. I would also like to point out that I still am at my job, and didn't quit halfway through, so I consider myself more accomplished in my employment record.
"But this one goes to 11!"
The lake has several million tons of ice sitting on top of it. It's a pretty safe bet that it's under a lot of pressure.
But I have no idea about the oxygen, either.
I wonder if Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or some Russian bottling company has thought of trying to acquire the rights to bottle water from the lake. It's Antarctica, so it's legally & technically challenging. But I can imagine quite a market for 14-million year-old bottled water. Seriously!
I think it's unlikely that most of the O2 will come out of solution. They're creating a relatively small-diameter bore into the container of the liquid, and then pulling the drill back out, allowing the pressure inside the container to push water back up into the bore. The water will freeze, resealing the bore, then they'll take a sample of the ice that re-froze in the bore hole to analyze, so nothing 'alien' will be introduced *into* the lake's container.
For an analogy, think of this as drawing blood by jabbing you with a needle, letting the resulting drop of blood scab over, and then scraping off a piece of the resulting scab to analyze. The chances are as good that this will cause some sort of catastrophic explosion of oxygen out of the lake as the chances that jabbing you with a small hypodermic would cause all the blood in your body to spontaneously erupt out of every orifice.
Is she more famous than 99% of the people on slashdot? Yeah, I'd say so. But more accomplished? I think it would be safe to say that you believe she's accomplished more than you, but I'm not sure if you could say that about everyone. Of course it all depends on what yardstick you're using to measure accomplishment. Is becoming a state governor more or less of an accomplishment than saving a person's life? Is raising a family more or less of an accomplishment than holding one together in poverty? etc... I think you get my point.
Except that's not even true.
His approval ratings are higher than Bush or Carter, he has had more victories for his agenda than most presidents in the first two years, has an astoundingly high approval rating OUTSIDE of the US, certainly higher than Bush and even Reagan during his first two years.
While the health care thing is probably a non-ideal solution, it is apparently too painful for republicans to realize that it was an almost exact copy of the bill originally drafted by Bob Dole and rejected by democrats for being "too conservative". Frankly, it sounds like partisan hackery or talking-point-itis to claim he's the most incompetent president on record.
I am hoping that when they finally puncture the final layer and break into the area with all that oxygen, the first thing that will happen the be the most epic balloon-neck pulling sound EVER. The most wacky, high-pitched WHEEEEEE noise you have ever heard, just like when you release all the air from a balloon slowly by releasing and pinching the neck. And they can push the drill up and down rapidly to make it sound even wackier. Just hoping.
Yes, praise Zeus!
Not to single you out personally, but this thread is supposedly about an under-ice lake in Antarctica, and you guys are arguing about Sarah Palin's popularity numbers on /.?
Why the !@#$ isn't this whole thread modded -99 off-topic?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Why the !@#$ isn't this whole thread modded -99 off-topic?
Why off-topic?
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Antarctica has lots of ice, so does the North Pole. The North Pole is somewhere in Alaska (at least the magnetic one). From Alaska you can see Russia, and the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Palin would like to drill in Alaska. There are concerns about the environmental impact. But the Russians found a safer way of doing it. Palin is against safer ways of doing it. But the Russians would like to penetrate Lake Vostok. So the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica. Russia borders the Arctic. The Arctic has Polar bears, but the Russians went to the pole with the penguins. Penguins represent Linux. Linux is communism. And communism is what the Russians do. No wonder, the Russians are drilling in Antarctica.
The Russians are drilling in Antarctica...