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Evidence of 100,000-Year-Old Life Found In Antarctic Subglacial Lake
Researchers taking advantage of retreating ice shelves in Antarctica have discovered evidence of life that's been sealed away for nearly 100,000 years. Lake Hodgson on the Antarctic Peninsula, once covered by over 400 meters of ice, is now obscured only by a thin layer three to four meters thick. Scientists carefully drilled through the ice and took samples (abstract) from the layers of mud at the bottom (as much as 93 meters below the lake's surface). "The top few centimetres of the core contained current and recent organisms which inhabit the lake but once the core reached 3.2 m deep the microbes found most likely date back nearly 100,000 years. ... Some of the life discovered was in the form of Fossil DNA showing that many different types of bacteria live there, including a range of extremophiles which are species adapted to the most extreme environments. These use a variety of chemical methods to sustain life both with and without oxygen. One DNA sequence was related to the most ancient organisms known on Earth and parts of the DNA in twenty three percent has not been previously described."
and like avian bird flu can take down humans, as well.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Are my global warming carbon credits still accepted in this millennium?"
Wasn't this the exact premise for an X Files episode?
Most of the people on this site would agree that 100,000 years is shorter than one million. You shot your own foot.
"have you heard of Nebuchadnezzar's dream?"
Yes. It was about a hovercraft, and something about machines being the new overlords eating humans controlled under a matrix, wasn't it?
Jesus said: When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into existence before you, which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
--Thomas
Adding some Old Earth counterpoint here. Viewing the images is left as an exercise for the reader.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Link: carbon dating can't be trusted beyond 150 million years.
Conclusion: The date of 100,000 years given here is wrong.
If you'd taken time to scan the paper, you'd easily find the section on dating (2.2): "A chronological model was
developed using a combination of radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and relative
palaeomagnetic intensity dating. [...] OSL measurements suggested that material incorporated into the basal sediments might date to
93,000 ± 9000 years ago."
I.e. the 100,000 years is independent of carbon dating. (Actually, I'm surprised they even attempted carbon dating in this environment.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Most people think radio-dating is only done by carbon, they don't understand that we use different element in different context.. ;)
They usually don't understand the principle of half-life and think we have to wait that time to measure it..
Typical creationist argument
To aliens from another planet, we humans might appear to be extremophiles. At least we'd be worthy of study. There's that.
And as far as I know there are more than one carbon radio dating method each of which can test different time frame. Creationists suck.
It never ends well.
Have you read my blog lately?
Most of the people on this site would agree that 100,000 years is shorter than one million. You shot your own foot.
Yeah, what a goofball. Links to a site that says radio carbon is accurate to one million years, when even Discovery says it is only good to 50,000.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
50,000 years is the max for C-14 radiocarbon dating (other sources say 70,000 or 100,000 depending on published date, technique, and circumstances of the sample in question), but the article the young-earth creationist linked to is for a dating method involving the C13/C12 ratio, both of which are stable isotopes of carbon, and the max age of which is around 150 million years as per that link. So not knowing the difference between radiocarbon dating and C12/C13 ratios is one thing, but believing the Earth is 6,000 years old? Goofball is damned light.
I am a biologist and I don't know what "fossil DNA" is.
'You believe it's the year 2013, when in fact it's closer to 102013.'
So that's where they buried Dick Clark.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Yeah, I know, right? Most people think internet-dating is only done by geeks, yet here I am...taking a break from Half-life on Slashdot...
Not until converted to BitCoins.
I guess the Viking were there first again.
How did this article pass peer-review? What is "the most ancient organisms known". The article doesn't cite anything for this. I'm a molecular ecologist, and have never head of such thing. Another thing, it seems like they didn't have a clue of how to analyze 16S amplicons. Yes, 23% of their reads couldn't be assigned into a genus. So what? That's a very normal outcome. Why didn't they cluster these into OTUs and see where the OTUs go in the 16S tree? There are super easy-to-use pipelines for this. Yeah. Incompetence at its finest. Another thing, in the article they give accession number to their data. I go to GenBank, nope, it's set to private. Fail, fail, fail.
Am I the only one thinking of H.P. Lovecraft's classical novel?
I, for one, welcome our new Reaper overlords!
Life was created 4k years ago... If you listen to the bible humpers..
"Yes, but we're trying to warm the planet now to prevent an ice age. Those are now considered debt."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"Also I'm one of the aliens who has populated the planet in your absence. Hi! Wow we're really similar except for the foreheads."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Thanks for waking it up, guess we're all doomed.