Lake Vostok mysteries: Biologists find over 3,500 life forms in isolated Antarctic basin

I bet thats where good old clover came from?

reply to post by wmd_2008


Actually, my link does take you to the article where my thread title states.

I don't know where you are getting this....

reply to post by SLAYER69


Well, Sir Slayer, the wiki article on Vostok says that it could mirror Ice moons like Europa and Titan.

Guess I'll have to go back on RT to check if there are any updates.

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by OccamsRazor04
reply to post by Harte

 

Still surprised that nothing "unique" has been found. So far they seem to have found microbes that are common in the ocean.

Edit: I did some digging and apparently they say there are many unknown lifeforms found, which is what I expected.

The majority were found to be bacteria, many of which are completely new to science

www.wired.co.uk...

So the question now becomes - how many of the unknowns are prehistoric, and how many evolved in Lake Vostok?

Harte

And the last question is how much if any contamination occured and what will the effect be on the lake's ecosystem?

From what I remember reading in their need to be "first" they used a methodology that was very risky and could contaminate the lake, but it's faster.

Actually there's another question too, are there any more advanced lifeforms living there, now that would be an amazing find.

It's always funny to me that 9 out of 10 people with any higher function of their brain would say that scientists on Earth are probably incapable of assessing what is or is not required for life on other planets but always surprised at these sporadic and "shocking" admissions.

We know nothing and the fact that we find this out on Earth after hundreds of thousands of years should alert your common sense to the fact that we have zero fing clue what to look for on other planets.

Your best guest is about as good as that guy making 2 million a year at JPL. Grats!

Seems to me I remember reading several years ago that they were drilling but they stopped for some reason - and if I recall correctly, that reason was the fear of contamination. Whether or not they fixed the issue or decided to continue I don't know; I read this on ATS some time ago. My guess is it was in Fragile Earth, but I can't seem to find it.

I assume we have now exposed these 3500 life forms to outside influences, so, adios 3500 life forms.
Adapt or cease to exist.

funny how the article doesn't say anything about the organisms being alive. Perhaps it is just remnants of the dna that was left there and preserved long ago. Show me a critter or I dont believe it. Not even a photo or video of one swimming around? I don't accept these half arsed results from a little mouthful of water. They need to do better than that.

Originally posted by Helious
It's always funny to me that 9 out of 10 people with any higher function of their brain would say that scientists on Earth are probably incapable of assessing what is or is not required for life on other planets but always surprised at these sporadic and "shocking" admissions.

We know nothing and the fact that we find this out on Earth after hundreds of thousands of years should alert your common sense to the fact that we have zero fing clue what to look for on other planets.

Your best guest is about as good as that guy making 2 million a year at JPL. Grats!

We have more than a clue, We can look for oxygen, liquid water, methane etc.

I like how Carl Sagan put it, that whatever you can dream up in your head most likely exists somewhere simply because of the vast number of stars. Perhaps even another you degrading humanity on a forum right now.

I should have posted this before, but I have been told to say that in case this bacteria is of the parasitic alien variety, Kurt Russell is on my speed dial for such emergencies

What great news of the discovery on something I've made a bit of a pet project off and on. A speech and a couple school reports/essays on it have certainly kept it a focus on the side for me anyway. I'd missed the updates recently though so thanks for sharing, to be sure. Now here is a question for any of the science type people who really know their stuff...here, from the article:

Scientists have discovered more than 3,500 unique gene sequences in Lake Vostok – the underground Antarctic water reservoir isolated from the outside world for 15 million years – revealing a complex ecosystem far beyond anything they could have expected.

"The bounds on what is habitable and what is not are changing," said Scott Rogers, Bowling Green State University professor of biological sciences, who led a genetic study of the contents of half a liter of water brought back from the lake after it was drilled by Russian scientists last year.

So, there are the two pieces of relevant data. Can anyone tell me what the comparable finding would be in water out of one of the Great Lakes or the Ocean? I'm curious as to whether this is real high or real low?

I can't wait until they figure out all the issues to getting a submersible down there with lights, camera and good running time to explore. Particularly the metallic mass registering on one shoreline. Even if it's boring and natural, just which mineral sits in such a high concentration there will be interesting to see too.

Why do we assume simple life on earth living in extreme biomes means aliens must exist? Even finding fossilized life on mars still would not mean we are not alone.
The universe is vast and way more complex then just earthlings being the only way life as we know it is, alien life would be alien and we aint never gonna find it in our life times.

Originally posted by EPICwhale
Why do we assume simple life on earth living in extreme biomes means aliens must exist? Even finding fossilized life on mars still would not mean we are not alone.
The universe is vast and way more complex then just earthlings being the only way life as we know it is, alien life would be alien and we aint never gonna find it in our life times.

I can certainly understand your pessimism here, but I believe that the bolded statement depends more on the age of the reader than the possibility of finding such.

Harte

reply to post by Harte


Not pessimism mate just cold hard facts, We need something or anything on another world to make us believe but there is nothing so far and going to moons in our own solar system right now even with robots is not looking likely because we would rather shoot each other with hi tech drones than explore the universe :I

Originally posted by EPICwhale
reply to post by Harte

 

Not pessimism mate just cold hard facts, We need something or anything on another world to make us believe but there is nothing so far and going to moons in our own solar system right now even with robots is not looking likely because we would rather shoot each other with hi tech drones than explore the universe :I

We can do both.

Yes we can!

Harte