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katatonic
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posted April 16, 2009 05:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
" Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com andrea Thompson
senior Writer
livescience.com – Thu Apr 16, 2:09 pm ET

A living time capsule of sorts has been found buried under hundreds of feet of Antarctic ice - a colony of microbes that have been sealed off from the rest of the world for more than 1.5 million years.

The finding, detailed in the April 17 issue of the journal Science, could serve as a model for how life might survive on icy planets elsewhere in the galaxy.

The microbes, which live without light or oxygen, were detected in meltwater flowing out from Taylor Glacier, one of the outlet glaciers of the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the otherwise ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys.

The Dry Valleys are considered one of Earth's most extreme deserts, devoid of animals and complex plants.

Scientists took water samples from Blood Falls, a curious blood-red waterfall-like feature that sporadically flows from the edge of Taylor Glacier.

Analyses revealed that the glacier water held microorganisms that use sulfur compounds to extract iron in the bedrock below the glacier (this iron also accounts for the rusty hue of the water).

"When I started running the chemical analysis on [the samples], there was no oxygen. That was when this got really interesting, it was a real 'eureka' moment," said researcher Jill Mikucki, who conducted the research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, while a graduate student at Montana State University and a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. She currently works at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

The researchers can't drill down to the pool that is home to the microbes because the ice is too thick and too far back from the edge of the glacier, but they think the pool is less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) across and was formed about 1.5 million to 2 million years ago.

Genetic tests suggest that the microbes are similar to ones found in marine environments today, which the researchers think are a remnant of a larger population of microbes that once lived in a fjord or sea that was cut off when sea levels fell and left the pool behind. The pool was eventually capped off by the flowing glacier.

"It's a bit like finding a forest that nobody has seen for 1.5 million years," said study team member Ann Pearson of Harvard. "Intriguingly, the species living there are similar to contemporary organisms, and yet quite different - a result, no doubt, of having lived in such an inhospitable environment for so long."

The water the microbes dwell in averages a temperature of 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius), but doesn't freeze because the water is three to four times saltier than the ocean.

This briny pond "is a unique sort of time capsule from a period in Earth's history," Mikucki said. "I don't know of another environment quite like this on Earth."

Learning more about this unique environment could shed light on how microorganisms might survive on icy planets in our solar system, such as below the Martian ice caps or in the ice-covered ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa.

* Video - Under Antarctic Ice
* Antarctica News, Images and Information
* Images: Alien Life of the Antarctic

* Original Story: 1.5-million-year-old Antarctic Microbe Community Discovered"
* * *
it seems that when one door closes another opens indeed. we may be losing species but global warming or whatever is going on is maybe saving us from ourselves by exposing species we've never seen before! how serendipitous is that?

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Azalaksh
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From: New Brighton, MN, USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted April 16, 2009 07:13 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Azalaksh     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
How cool that they've discovered a "living time capsule"!!

I know species die out all the time, kat -- but it still seems so very sad that because of human activity (and fear) my son's children may never see a tiger (or a wolf) other than in history books.....

Did you read Arthur C. Clarke's "2061"?? The series (2001, 2010, 2061) is one of my faves ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2061_Odyssey_Three )

About possible life in the ocean(s) of Europa ~ http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&f ile=article&sid=2969&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

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Lara
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posted April 16, 2009 07:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lara     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This was years ago they found this... it was all over our TV about 3/4 years ago?!

Global Warming is such a fallacy anyway

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katatonic
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posted April 16, 2009 08:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
i know what you mean zala but these organisms are similar to ones we have right here, they've just been preserved. so there is hope for "alternate" tigers etc too.

there are more than one species out there that were fading fast awhile ago and have been nurtured back. don't give up on our beautiful creatures yet!

but i think it's also exciting that new species are being uncovered. maybe they will even turn out to be toxic waste consumers...

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Azalaksh
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From: New Brighton, MN, USA
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posted April 16, 2009 08:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Azalaksh     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
kat ~

We already have critters here that are toxic waste consumers
The company I work for is part of a joint venture to get biofuels from algae, and out in our warehouse we have gro-lights and big tanks filled with slimy green stuff
Our Mad Scientist who's babysitting the tanks was working in the windpower sector ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teZgQannjK0 ) but moved into renewable fuels.

Algae devour garbage and produce vegetable oil!! There are prototypes of algae CO2 scrubbers for coal power plants (sending the smokestack contents thru screens upon screens full of algae) ~
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.html

"Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86 percent less nitrous oxide.

After the CO2 is soaked up like a sponge, the algae is harvested daily. From that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles. Berzin hands a visitor two vials - one with algal biodiesel, a clear, slightly yellowish liquid, the other with the dried green flakes that remained. Even that dried remnant can be further reprocessed to create ethanol, also used for transportation."

Removal of CO2 flue gases by algae - report to US DoE ~
http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2007/02/removal-of-co2-from-flue-gases-by-algae.html

Biofuel made from power plant CO2 ~
http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2006/10/biofuel-made-from-power-plant-co2.html

And: http://www.biofuelreview.com/content/view/1230/

.....and for water filtration ~
http://www.hydromentia.com/Products-Services/Algal-Turf-Scrubber/Product-Do cumentation/ATS-FAQ.html

"HydroMentia’s proprietary MAPS include the Algal Turf Scrubber® (ATS™) and Water Hyacinth Scrubber (WHS™).

The two technologies are similar in that they capitalize on nature’s restorative abilities to remove pollutant nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) from water resources using cultivated plants. The Algal Turf Scrubber® (ATS™) capitalizes on the rapid growth of attached algal assemblages, while the Water Hyacinth Scrubber (WHS™) utilizes the floating macrophyte, water hyacinth to perform treatment. Both systems use natural processes in controlled, engineered systems in order to maximize their capacity for nutrient pollutant removal.

The Algal Turf Scrubber® provides the industry’s highest nitrogen and phosphorus removal rates. Capable of operating within a broad range of temperatures, the Algal Turf Scrubber® offers superior level nitrogen and phosphorus recovery when applied to stormwater runoff, impaired surface waters and agricultural and domestic wastewater."

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moonpie
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posted February 24, 2012 06:07 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for moonpie     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I don't believe in Global Warming especially that we are causing it. The earth is actually cooling. Its called something...cycles, starts with an l. Polar caps were melting on Mars so its got something to do with the Sun. I have to admit carbon tax, emissions is a clever scam.

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Randall
Webmaster

Posts: 20563
From: Saturn next to Charmainec
Registered: Apr 2009

posted February 24, 2012 02:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I concur with moonpie.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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Randall
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posted March 09, 2012 10:09 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Gore seized the day on that one.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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Randall
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From: Saturn next to Charmainec
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posted April 03, 2012 09:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I thought it was due to all of the BBQ grills and cars on Mars.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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Randall
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From: Saturn next to Charmainec
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posted August 10, 2012 11:23 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Actually a not so clever scam, but people will buy into anything if an authority figure tells them so.

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"Never mentally imagine for another that which you would not want to experience for yourself, since the mental image you send out inevitably comes back to you." Rebecca Clark

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