Surprise microbes found in an Antarctic lake

[Eugene]

Source: Livescience.com

Surprise microbes found in an Antarctic lake

By Megan Gannon, Livescience.com / September 10, 2013

Researchers have found signs of life in mud pulled from the bottom of an ice-covered lake in Antarctica.

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Scientists with the British Antarctic Survey and other institutions drilled through the ice sheet to dig up clean sediment samples from the bottom of Lake Hodgson, which is on the Antarctic Peninsula and 305 feet (93 meters) deep.

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In the journal Diversity, Pearce and his colleagues reported that they grew 20 cultures of microbes found in the uppermost layer of the sediment core, proving that there are viable extremophiles, or life that thrives in extreme environments, currently living in Lake Hodgson. They also found fossilized fragments of DNA from many different types of microbes that seem to have adapted to Antarctica's extremes over the eons.

Understanding how microbes and other forms of life are thriving in the cold, dark, isolated and nutrient-poor places under the frozen continent's thick ice could help researchers learn about the origins of life on Earth and the possibilities of life on other worlds, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa. Several teams are racing to obtain pristine samples from Antarctica's nearly 380 subglacial lakes.

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Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0910/Surprise-microbes-found-in-an-Antarctic-lake

[steve2470]

1. amazing nt

[Marrah_G]

2. I think this is how the Zombie Apocolypse starts

[gtar100]

4. We are the Zombie Apocalypse.

We just don't know it.

Because we're zombies.

[Javaman]

6. Just add "Consumer" the phrase and you are correct. nt

[Marrah_G]

7. omg I am dead? I mean undead?

If I still had a thinking brain I would be confused, right?

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!!

[gtar100]

5. While we hope to build starships to preserve our lives beyond the confines of our home planet,

life itself is figuring out ways to preserve the seeds of life so that it can grow again and again on as many planets as it possibly can throughout space and time. Like it's baked right into planets from the get go. No accident here, just fertile soil.