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Sub-Ice Antarctic Lake Vida Abounds With Life
ananyo writes "It is permanently covered by a massive cap of ice up to 27 metres thick, is six times saltier than normal sea water, and at 13 C is one of the coldest aquatic environments on Earth — yet Lake Vida in Antarctica teems with life. Scientists drilling into the lake have found abundant and diverse bacteria, including at least one new phylum (full paper (PDF)). The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa."
And that's because the article says -13C and not +13C which is quite a bit of difference. It'd be cool if the editors actually did their editing work ;-)
Yeah, the Wiki-Page talks about -13C (9F). Typo?
"... and at -13 C is one of the coldest aquatic environments ..."
TFA has the correct -13C, which is much more believable as "one of the coldest aquatic environments on Earth". For Americans 13C would be 55.4F, and -13C is 8.6F or 23.4F below freezing.
And for the nerds 13C would be 286.15K whereas -13C is 260.15K
Lake Vida was cool before it was hot.
The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa.
So life on other planets is dependent on our knowledge? Sounds doubtful. It may increase our reason to believe that such life is possible, but not whether that life actual exists/existed.
Apologies - typo in my submission.
Sorry, Sony. You know it's true.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
They only drilled into it this year. This couldn't have been known for years. its' been separated from the normal biome for hundreds if not millions of years.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
EDIT: Never mind. I got this confused with Vostok, which actually has been drilled into this year. First reports are that Vostok is devoid of life, but that is only on initial inspection. I thought this article as a correction to that.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Dallas?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Antarctica wasn't always icebound. Once it would have been filled with life until plate tectonics moved it to the south pole. So there is a significant difference to the likes of Mars and moons orbiting the gas giants in that life under the ice first evolved under different conditions somewhere else and has adapted to the changing conditions as the land iced over.
Is it the high salt concentration...?
You hit the nail in the head.
That means it is a statistical certainty that there is at least one planet somewhere that has at least one farm animal because: p = 1 - .5 x .5 x .5 ....
Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why? Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no odds, therefore we can round the average population of the Universe to zero, and so the total population must be zero.
Thank you Douglas Adams:-)
2800 years doesn't sound like a very long time for this lake to have had it's ice cap. 2800 years ago is still well within the range of human history! It's nothing to geology! So.. how was the lake uncapped 2800 years ago? I know that Antarctica was in a warmer, higher latitude before it moved to the polar region but 2800 years of continental drift should be what, between 100 and 1000 feet? Was there a warming trend back then even bigger than the one today? I wouldn't think there would be all that much evolution even during that short a time so if so the species we know survived it. That revelation sounds like a global warming denier field day! I'm not trying to hand them any arguments, I'm only trying to ask the question. What happened ~2800 years ago?
Everywhere we've looked on this planet, including sulfuric volcanic fissures miles under the surface, where there's water we've found life. Clearly this planet is infested with it.
At some point finding life in a weird new liquid water-based environment on Earth has to cease being news.
You hit the nacl in the head.
There FTFY.
For once that Fahrenheit unit is kinda useful, you could at least use it!
0F is more or less the coldest temperature you can achieve for a liquid mix of salt and water under standard pressure.
So it's entirely possible for a salt lake to have an average temperature of 9F.
"The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa."
Yeah, I wouldn't count on that. Life may be able to adapt to extreme environments, but I have serious doubts about it "spawning" in permanent sub-freezing conditions. Nevermind that we still have no idea whether or not life is unique to Earth. Let's not forget that the Antarctic once straddled the equator, giving life a chance to take hold, then adapt over its slow southward slide to the pole. And what djh2400 said.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped