Sub-Ice Antarctic Lake Vida Abounds With Life 122
ananyo writes "It is permanently covered by a massive cap of ice up to 27 metres thick, is six times saltier than normal sea water, and at 13 C is one of the coldest aquatic environments on Earth — yet Lake Vida in Antarctica teems with life. Scientists drilling into the lake have found abundant and diverse bacteria, including at least one new phylum (full paper (PDF)). The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa."
Re:As cold as 13C? (Score:5, Informative)
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Is it the high salt concentration...?
You hit the nail in the head.
Re:As cold as 13C? (Score:5, Funny)
You hit the nacl in the head.
There FTFY.
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For once that Fahrenheit unit is kinda useful, you could at least use it!
0F is more or less the coldest temperature you can achieve for a liquid mix of salt and water under standard pressure.
So it's entirely possible for a salt lake to have an average temperature of 9F.
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For once that Fahrenheit unit is kinda useful, you could at least use it!
Fahrenheit is a VERY useful scale, for humans (that is what it was designed for) I wouldn't go so far as to claim "for once .. kinda useful" in terms of science.
Re:As cold as 13C? (Score:5, Informative)
And for the nerds 13C would be 286.15K whereas -13C is 260.15K
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Apologies - typo in my submission.
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Why not put it in Rankine, Delisle, Newton, Réaumur and Rømer as well? Only the 'Merkens use Fahrenheit for god knows what reason. Maybe they cling onto it so they keep the brains sharp. Converting 3/7 cubic inch to gallon by head is just difficult... And more useful than sudoku's if I may add.
Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_conversion_formulas
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13 C is not cold (Score:5, Informative)
And that's because the article says -13C and not +13C which is quite a bit of difference. It'd be cool if the editors actually did their editing work ;-)
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"And that's because the article says -13C and not +13C which is quite a bit of difference. It'd be cool if the editors actually did their editing work ;-)"
It would indeed be cooler.
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And that's because the article says -13C and not +13C which is quite a bit of difference. It'd be cool if the editors actually did their editing work ;-)
I don't know. 13C is already a little cool in some parts of the country.
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And that's because the article says -13C and not +13C which is quite a bit of difference. It'd be cool if the editors actually did their editing work ;-)
I don't know. 13C is already a little cool in some parts of the country.
In late November? Maybe in Texas or Arizona, but here in northwestern Missouri, it's closer to 13F than 13C.
Missing a minus sign in the summary (Score:2)
"... and at -13 C is one of the coldest aquatic environments ..."
In other words (Score:3)
Lake Vida was cool before it was hot.
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Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)
The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa.
So life on other planets is dependent on our knowledge? Sounds doubtful. It may increase our reason to believe that such life is possible, but not whether that life actual exists/existed.
Re:Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you're not clear on the concept of probability. This is used to reason about things of which we lack certain knowledge.
Life on other planets is not dependent on our knowledge, but the probability of life on other planets definitely is.
A clue that probability is being referred to is the use of the phrase "increases the chances".
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Wow, a double whoosh. Awesome.
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Logicians and mathematicians all agree that the paradox is true. Observing a non-black non-raven is positive evidence that all ravens are black. The "resolution of the paradox" lies either in arguing that this positive evidence increases the probability of all ravens being black by an extremely tiny amount, or in arguing that we only see the situation as paradoxical because we already know the outcome.
Indeed, one finds the same situation in modern science: the only observed scalar particle is the
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They just seem to be baffled by the fact that creating a rule, i.e., creating a description/definition, has implications. The problem with logic is that it works with givens, and in reality there are no givens, we just have workable descriptions. Godel-Escher-Bach, rinse & repeat.
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You see, the problem with numbers is that there doesn't exist
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As to the halting problem: yes, I think "waiting until everything has interacted with everything" captures the crux of it. If time and space were equal, there would be no problem. But in that case I do not understand how a being would exist in the first place.
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You see, the problem with numbers is that there doesn't exist 2 of anything in reality. The concept of 2 is derived from generalizations of reality imposed by the limitations of our sensory apparatus.
That sounds like a worthless proposition that seeks to deny everyday reality without any justification.
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Don't get me wrong, we need the monkeys. I just thought it would be more interesting to work on a unifying theory of science and spirituality, just because people seemed to view, and largely still do, that as ridiculous, impossible, opposites b
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There's a difference between not wanting to do math versus denying the basic reality of the number 2. As for "menial labour", that's bullshit. Mathematicians are clever. The naive, bunch of monkeys typing away approach doesn't work very well.
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Children with meccano can be clever as well, but they're still limited by the building blocks they have at their disposal. Try not to take ridiculous things literally, there are such things as analogies, metaphors, etc...
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Please explain the basic reality of the number 2 to me as it seems to be so apparent to you.
I'd like to better understand how you could deny such a basic concept that can be seen everywhere. I have two apples and give one to my friend. I have one apple left to eat. Repeat ad nauseam for just about any item. Numbers are used for counting sheep, money in your bank account, or the number of letters in this sentence. I could go on and on, and I'm sure you don't deny this.
Now you can get into a philosophical debate about what it means to "really" exist, but I find that it's pointless. It's an undeniabl
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You asked for my explanation, and I gave you one. As you provide no counter-point, I go back to my original statement: "That sounds like a worthless proposition that seeks to deny everyday reality without any justification."
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If you failed to understand it, there's nothing I can do about that.
Perhaps there's nothing you can do about it because the problem is with your ability to explain, or more fundamentally, your claims are specious.
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Sometimes smart people can be really stupid.
Yes, and sometimes people who claim others are stupid are making a mistake. I won't go so far as to say you're being stupid.
The paradox only exists in not understanding logic.
It's about intuition. I think it's a fascinating and illustrative problem.
Logic doesn't speak to truth but to relativity.
Relativity to what? Logic is about finding truth.
Sometimes people confuse reality (well, actually, their subjective reality) with thought games...
Yes, but then those "thought games" can be very useful models of reality, and paradoxes serve to refine their usefulness.
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Re:Probability abuse (Score:5, Funny)
That means it is a statistical certainty that there is at least one planet somewhere that has at least one farm animal because: p = 1 - .5 x .5 x .5 ....
Simple mathematics tells us that the population of the Universe must be zero. Why? Well given that the volume of the universe is infinite there must be an infinite number of worlds. But not all of them are populated; therefore only a finite number are. Any finite number divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no odds, therefore we can round the average population of the Universe to zero, and so the total population must be zero.
Thank you Douglas Adams:-)
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"First, assume we start with a spherical chicken..."
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So.. the aliens are cats?
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They only drilled into it this year. This couldn't have been known for years. its' been separated from the normal biome for hundreds if not millions of years.
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EDIT: ...hundreds of thousands if not millions... Also read as several interglacials.
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EDIT: Never mind. I got this confused with Vostok, which actually has been drilled into this year. First reports are that Vostok is devoid of life, but that is only on initial inspection. I thought this article as a correction to that.
Meanwhile, Lake Vita reeks of death (Score:3)
Sorry, Sony. You know it's true.
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...of mostly water
oh noes (Score:1)
let's hope they won't dig up any shoggoths...
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let's hope they won't dig up any shoggoths...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Shoggoth_on_the_Roof [wikipedia.org]
summary Caveat (Score:2)
It in no way increases the chance of finding life in those places.
It merely increases our perception of the chance of finding life.
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Kind of. The presence of life indicates that life is more likely to be present in cold lakes than if there were no life down there. "Chance" was a poor choice of words. "Likelihood" is better. "Chance" indicates that someone rolls the dice when we get there, and the presence or absence of life hangs on the dice roll. And lets not get into macroscopic quantum waveform collapse... :)
Didn't start there though (Score:5, Insightful)
Antarctica wasn't always icebound. Once it would have been filled with life until plate tectonics moved it to the south pole. So there is a significant difference to the likes of Mars and moons orbiting the gas giants in that life under the ice first evolved under different conditions somewhere else and has adapted to the changing conditions as the land iced over.
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Mars wasn't always a frigid desert. Once it could have been filled with life and liquid water until it drifted further from the sun.
Same goes for moons, but substitute closer to the sun with more geologic activity or greater tidal stresses... either of which could have caused significantly different environments than they have now.
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Regardless of the method that caused climate change, the point still stands that Mars could have easily had a very different climate than it does today... so life could have had a similar environmental opportunity on Mars as it had on Earth (although maybe millions of years apart). That life could have then adapted in the same manner as the featured life in Antarctica.
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Granted, but the point I was trying to make is that we know there was definitely life on the Antarctic continent before it became glaciated. Regardless of what environmental changes the other places might have gone through over the millennia, we cannot yet be certain that they ever supported life.
Maybe Curiosity will find evidence on Mars but it's going to be a long time until that question can be answered for the gas giant moons.
Want is not relevant (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like the life there has a choice of where to live.
Only 2800 years? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only 2800 years? (Score:4, Informative)
It just said sealed for 2800 years... nothing about being in a warmer climate then. There's any number of things that could have caused it to be unsealed (which is not the same thing is completely open) up until ~2800 years ago. Maybe there was a subsurface channel connecting it to the ocean, maybe there was a chasm leading from the surface, maybe a meteor strike penetrated the cap.
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Bacteria evolve very quickly. 2800 years is billions of generations for life in that lake.
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Was there a warming trend back then even bigger than the one today?
Yes. Maps from even more recent times show the coastlines of Antarctica that we can only recently confirm (through the ice sheets) with modern technology.
Much of that three miles of ice on Antarctica was distributed throughout the climate. The Sahara wasn't a monstrous desert, for instance, and the Middle East was a font of life and commerce.
But the real modern concern is property values in Western Europe, which are 'propped up' by the Gul
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I've heard of those Antarctic maps but not from a reputable source. Have you?
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I've heard of those Antarctic maps but not from a reputable source. Have you?
I've seen them. Nobody disputes their authenticity, only what they represent. I've literally read something along the lines of "the indicated land mass can't be Antarctica because it wasn't spotted until 1815". On Wikipedia or something.
They seems to be largely compiled from Chinese maps. We know for a fact that China had massive seafaring prowess early in the last millenium and gave it up. The critics will say the maps could
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Some of the information I've heard indicates this (the Holocene) is probably one of the long (24,000 year) interglacials so it might be another 10,000+ years before the next glacial starts. However, the CO2 we've added to the atmosphere is probably causing enough warming that the next glacial is probably postponed indefinitely.
Water = Life (Score:5, Insightful)
Everywhere we've looked on this planet, including sulfuric volcanic fissures miles under the surface [nationalgeographic.com], where there's water we've found life. Clearly this planet is infested with it.
At some point finding life in a weird new liquid water-based environment on Earth has to cease being news.
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So for you "news" is anything that would have been surprising 30 years ago?
Slashdot is a great place for you then.
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No one said this was a shocking, groundbreaking discovery, only that it adds to what we already know.
(Also, I'm a fan juvenile dicks making useless troll comments, so people like you have made Slashdot a fabulous place for me. Thanks!)
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Not everywhere. Lake Vostok so far appears to be dead.
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As a portuguese... (Score:1)
Increasing chances (Score:1)
The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa.
Isn't the find kind of irrelevant to the chances that life exists elsewhere? It's like saying that, if I lose two socks and find one 3 years later, then I therefore have an increased chance of finding the second sock sooner rather than later. The first has nothing to do with the second. The existence of life in one place on Earth has little to do with chances of finding life elsewhere, since they're two independent events.
I Wouldn't Count On It (Score:2)
"The find increases the chances that life may exist (or have once existed) on planets such as Mars and moons such as Jupiter's Europa."
Yeah, I wouldn't count on that. Life may be able to adapt to extreme environments, but I have serious doubts about it "spawning" in permanent sub-freezing conditions. Nevermind that we still have no idea whether or not life is unique to Earth. Let's not forget that the Antarctic once straddled the equator, giving life a chance to take hold, then adapt over its slow southward slide to the pole. And what djh2400 said.
This isn't just about cold water (Score:2)
The BBC article [bbc.co.uk] goes into more detail:
The find doesn't increase chances.... (Score:2)
I don't think any find here on Earth can increase chances anywhere else.
The chances of life existing elsewhere is unchanging. Regardless of what humans discover.
I think it just increases the hope of those wishing for the discovery life on other planets.
I personally think it's a false hope, although I'd be excited to be proven wrong.
I also think it's dangerous to rely on a belief in life on other planets, as far as we know life here is rare and uni
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And a plotline from that shitty Patrick Duffy show from the 70's, and probably a few Aquaman retcons too.
Re:Game idea... (Score:4, Funny)
Dallas?
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There are few new things imagined by anyone. Most stories are rehashes of old stories, often mashups of all stories. How many versions of Romeo and Juliet are there, only with different names, different wordings, different characters' characteristics, time settings, etc?
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I thought rehashing At the Mountains of Madness as Prometheus was pretty ballsy.
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