No Microbes In First Sample From Lake Vostok 60
ananyo writes "A first analysis of the ice that froze onto the drillbit used in last February's landmark drilling to a pristine Antarctic lake shows no native microbes came up with the lake water, according to Sergey Bulat of Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (Russia). The very uppermost layer of Lake Vostock appears to be 'lifeless' so far, says Bulat, but that doesn't mean the rest of it is. Bulat and his colleagues counted the microbes present in the ice sample and checked their genetic makeup to figure out the phylotypes. They counted fewer than 10 microbes/ml — about the same magnitude they would expect to find in the background in their clean room."
Re:they are going about this all wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a case where "Good Enough" is not good enough.
Looking for microbes, any microbes, the clean room must be made a sterile room, Class 0, with zero possibility of contamination. In this case, it's doubtful they even tried to get as close as possible.
Microbes observed can be compared to microbes known in the testing environment. A similar process is used in Class 10 and better semiconductor clean rooms to evaluate and investigate contamination sources. An thorough DNA and RNA comparison would tell them where the microbes found most likely came from. Nothing mentioned suggests that was done.
If they are only concerned with statistics and not with real facts, they wouldn't bother with any of that. Statistics, in addition to politics and greed, has replaced real science. Real science is hard, tedious, boring work. Statistics is far easier and perfectly suited for the lazy and negligent.
But then again, they may be hiding the truth because of political pressure, greed or something.
The science renaissance is over. Science is institutionalized and controlled by the powerful. Same as government, society and religion.
Re:Not fooled (Score:4, Insightful)