Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok

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Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok Empty Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok

Post by RealGunner Fri Mar 08, 2013 6:26 pm

Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok 6a00d8341bf7f753ef017c37676998970b-500wi

Antarctica's vast Lake Vostok has been discovered to contain life at least one form of life not found elsewhere on Earth, Russian scientists announced this week. Preliminary analysis of water samples collected from the lake revealed a species of bacteria not belonging to any known subkingdoms."We call it unidentified and 'unclassified' life," the team's leader, Sergei Bulat of the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, told Russian news agency RIA Novosti. The bacteria's DNA was less than 86% similar to known bacterial DNA, indicating that it was a new species, Bulat said.

Because of the long isolation, it has long been believed that Lake Vostok could contain new lifeforms, and unique geochemical processes. The overlying ice provides a continuous paleo-climatic record of 400,000 years, although the lake water itself may have been isolated for as long as 15 million years.
The Russian team retrieved the samples in January, one year after successfully completing the 4000-meter drilling through ice to reach the lake's surface. To confirm the preliminary finding, the team plans to collect new samples of water from the lake during a return expedition, reportedly in May, although that's the middle of the Antarctic winter.

In May of 2012, the Russian research vessel Akademik Fyodorov arrived at St.Petersburg port with samples from the ancient subglacial lake. Lake Vostok is approximately 250 kilometers long and up to 50 kilometers wide (around the size of Lake Ontario), and is up to 800 meters deep. It is isolated from all the other 145 or so subglacial lakes in Antarctica.

Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok 6a00d8341bf7f753ef017ee90a6cb8970d-500wi

The Russian scientists drilled down to the oxygen-rich lake at the rate of four meters a day, which is buried beneath a sheet of ice almost four kilometers thick, and extracted water samples for analysis. If extreme life is found in the lake, this would have implications for the possibilities of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s satellite Enceladus, both of which host a similar environment..
Lake Vostok is supersaturated with oxygen, with levels estimated to be around 50 times greater than an average freshwater lake. Researchers hoped to find live organisms in the lake, particularly in the mineralized water near the bottom. If life does exist there, the organisms would be “extremophiles,” with many adaptations to allow them to survive.

At the very edge of the Antarctic ice horizon is a scattering of snow-drifted buildings and radio towers known as Vostok Station--a Russian scientific outpost on the ice above ancient Lake Vostok that researchers have manned almost continuously for 40 years.

Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok 6a00d8341bf7f753ef0168ebf39a42970c-500wi

Russian researchers have thawed ice estimated to be perhaps a million years old or more from above the ancient lake that lies hidden more than two miles beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica. Scientists used genomic techniques to determine how tiny, living "time capsules" survived the ages in total darkness, in freezing cold, and without food and energy from the sun.

Unidentified Bacterial Life Discovered in Antarctica's Lake Vostok 6a00d8341bf7f753ef017ee90a7f5a970d-500wi

A major issue is the reality that it is impossible to penetrate an isolated ecosystem without contaminating it. The "Catch 22" inherent in exploring Lake Vostok is that the very thing that make it potentially unique: because of its millennia of isolation from the rest of the world, it cannot be explored without introduction of microbes from the outer world.

Over the years, the Russian scientists here have endured temperatures colder than parts of Mars, dwindling support and reflexive skepticism about the quality of their research from colleagues in Europe and the United States.

Recent financial cutbacks in the Russian Antarctic Program meant that Vostok can be resupplied just once a year. Fuel and food are hauled overland by tractors about 900 miles from the coast. Mechanical breakdowns sometimes prevented the overland tractor trains from reaching Vostok.

It was Russian scientists at Vostok Station who discovered the lake and who first realized its unique potential. Now they hope that the international effort to explore the life in the lake might benefit their own faltering research program.

In our era of rapid climate change, it's important to realize that over 6 million cubic miles, about 70% of the planet's fresh water is locked in Antarctica's ice, about 90% of which is locked up in the apparently stable East Antarctic ice sheet, set on the rocky continental surface and partly hemmed in by mountains. Scattered in pockets between miles of ice and the rock foundation are at least 145 lakes of unknown origin, connected by streams in an entire unseen hydrologic plumbing network, a system researchers believe that may affect the stability of the ice sheets.

No other natural lake environment on Earth has this much oxygen as Lake Vostok -an oligotrophic extreme environment, one that is supersaturated with oxygen, with oxygen levels 50 times higher than those typically found in ordinary freshwater lakes. The sheer weight of the continental icecap sitting on top of Lake Vostok is believed to contribute to the high oxygen concentration. Microbial organisms in Lake Vostok must be capable of overcoming very high oxygen stress, and may have had to evolve special adaptations, such as high concentrations of protective enzymes, in order to survive.

The National Science Foundation and 11 countries involved in the research and exploration are seeking agreement on how best to study these unique environments, which include at least 145 lakes under Antarctica's massive ice sheets.

"This has the potential to be one of the most important scientific discoveries in years, since sub-ice water appears to be an important player in many different processes fundamental to Antarctica and our planet," said oeanographer Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt II of Texas A & M who heads the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

"We believe that these lakes are part of an interconnected system that spans the entire Antarctic continent," Kennicutt added. "These bodies of water are several miles beneath the ice sheet which took millions of years to form, meaning these lakes have been undisturbed and disconnected from our atmosphere for hundreds of thousands of years. It is highly likely that unique microbial communities that we never knew existed are lake residents."

Scientists believe that the lakes exert an important control over the large ice-sheet movement, and that they exist as above-ground waterways do, with streams, rivers and lakes commonplace. Believed to span underneath the entirety of the continent that is 98% ice, they represent the chance to look back several million years. With millions of years separating them from our current atmosphere, Kennicutt believes that “…It is highly likely that unique microbial communities that we never knew existed are lake residents.”

Lake Vostok an excellent Earth-bound staging-experiement for Europa, a moon of Jupiter believed to have ice-crusted oceans. Scientists believe Europa's ocean, which is warmed by gravitational forces, could be one of the best places in the Solar System to look for life.


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Post by Onyx Sat Mar 09, 2013 2:38 pm

How will that affect the rest of the World?

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Post by RealGunner Sat Mar 09, 2013 2:52 pm

Zombie Apocalypse hmm
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Post by Jack Daniels Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:08 pm

They found Captain America.
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Post by spanky Sat Mar 09, 2013 9:30 pm

maybe this will help us explain Messi's origins
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Post by RedOranje Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:30 pm

OOPS.

No New Life in Antarctic Lake, Russia Admits

Russian scientists on Saturday dismissed initial reports that they had found a wholly new type of bacteria in a mysterious subglacial lake in Antarctica.

Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics had said Thursday that samples obtained from the underground Lake Vostok in May 2012 contained a bacteria bearing no resemblance to existing types.

But the head of the genetics laboratory at the same institute said on Saturday that the strange life forms were in fact nothing but contaminants.

"We found certain specimen, although not many. All of them were contaminants" that were brought there by the lab during research, Vladimir Korolyov told the Interfax news agency.

"That is why we cannot say that previously-unknown life was found," he said.

Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica and scientists have long wanted to study its ecosystem. The Russian team last year drilled almost four kilometers (2.34 miles) to reach the lake and take the samples.

Russia had been hoping to discover a new life form at the pristine site and the drilling was of major importance for the prestige to the country's science program.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-new-life-antarctic-lake-russia-130310.htm
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Post by RedOranje Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:32 pm

And it's not like some scientists voiced concerns over Russia drilling into the lake and potentially contaminating samples/the lake itself before they actually did so either... oh wait, they did exactly that. :facepalm:
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Post by Tomwin Lannister Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:05 am

Russia trying to cover up the impending Zombie apocalypse Mad
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Post by Raptorgunner Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:12 pm

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:Russia trying to cover up the impending Zombie apocalypse Mad

Its time to invade Russia? hmm
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Post by RedOranje Tue Mar 12, 2013 8:56 pm

Raptorgunner wrote:
AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:Russia trying to cover up the impending Zombie apocalypse Mad

Its time to invade Russia? hmm

Why would you ever invade a country with zombies in it? Surely that's about the worst strategy possible. Quarantine and, if necessary, glass the place, but never, ever send in MORE bodies to get infected.
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Post by spanky Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:10 pm

RedOranje wrote:
Raptorgunner wrote:
AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:Russia trying to cover up the impending Zombie apocalypse Mad

Its time to invade Russia? hmm

Why would you ever invade a country with zombies in it? Surely that's about the worst strategy possible. Quarantine and, if necessary, glass the place, but never, ever send in MORE bodies to get infected.

or u are just scared because napoleon and hitler couldnt pull it off.
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Post by RedOranje Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:28 pm

What? When, exactly, did Napoleon and Hitler fight zombies? What sort of fever-dream world do you live in?
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Post by CBarca Wed Mar 13, 2013 12:11 am

The one you sought to create, Redoranje Proud
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Post by RedOranje Wed Mar 13, 2013 3:48 am

CBarca wrote:The one you sought to create, Redoranje Proud
Ever seen SuperJail? You'd better hope I never create a dream world that you're stuck in, because that would probably be it...
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