Today's science news

[Dolmot]

Supergiant crustacean found in New Zealand trench

"In a trench off the coast of New Zealand, a crustacean has been found that's 10 times larger than its regular-sized cousins. -- The next task for the team is to try and solve the mystery of why the creatures grow so large."


Russian scientists seeking Lake Vostok lost in frozen 'Land of the Lost'?

"A group of Russian scientists plumbing the frozen Antarctic in search of a lake buried in ice for tens of millions of years have failed to respond to increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues - and as the days creep by, the fate of the team remains unknown."

 

[Penchour]

Excellent ! That just gave me tons of ideas ! 

[aggro84]

Thanks for sharing those Dolmot.

The frozen lake of ice story is very creepy.
I hope the scientists are alright.

[gauntman]

Reminds me of so many of my favorite sci-fi movies and tales.

[styx]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/lake-vostok-makes-waves-225755527.html

Seems that the russians are ok...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/lake-vostok-was-once-a-german-nazi-base-russian-news-agency-says/2012/02/07/gIQAKo9RwQ_blog.html

The one above is amusing...Secret Natzi Sub Base and HP Lovecraft Oh my!
Amusing thing is Lovecraft never wrote anything about the Natzi's and came about later when Mountains of Madness was published.

[tnjrp]

It's all a conspiracy by the sciento-political elites to hide the fact of the eldritch, mocking cries of "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!" were heard on the site... And that the Russian dined exclusive on the flesh of albino penquins!

This must be true because I wrote so on the Internet!

[argsilverson]

further to the above, being a little bit of glaciologist I had to follow matters.
RIA Novosti (the Russian News agency) has released some news that according to some "scientific source" the team of scientists drilled the last meters of ice and reached the molten water and took samples.
Hopefully the samples would be analysed and will have results. I would say interesting results, that might help us to reconstruct the past climates, past climates andpossibly find new interesting forms of lives, living in an oligotrophic oxygen saturated environment under high pressure etc.

As they claim they reached the bottom of the ice and reached the surface of water but they found no nazis!!!!

BTW the British are ready to commence drilling to reach lake Ellsworth in the next antarctica summer while an american team is planning to do the same in a suglacial waterway. Interesting stuff.

Hope that's all true and we shall have some exciting news in the future.
Also note that the above efforts will also help the space organisation to plan a mission on the ice cold planets-satellites Europa and Enceladus in the future!

[Steve F]

I'm just glad that they weren't all eaten by the giant crustaceans from the OP.

[styx]

Yea, still anything under there has 200 million years to evolve. We could find a suprise down there yet....what I wonder is if something viral or other nasty germ has been down in the ice all these million of years and we bring it back by accident.

[argsilverson]

Yea, still anything under there has 200 million years to evolve. We could find a suprise down there yet....what I wonder is if something viral or other nasty germ has been down in the ice all these million of years and we bring it back by accident.

You are right.
But can be done and vice versa. Some years ago they stopped drilliing approx. 120 meters from the water surface because they found a pathogenic organisms that can be carried only by humans!
Imagine, that this pathogenic organism was placed on the equipment by the hand of a worker!!! in spite to the fact that the whole personnel, equipment, clothing, gloves and whatever was used was sterilised. the pathogenic microorganism not only survived the sterilisation process but survived the travel via the kerosene, extremely low temperatures asnd high pressures!

I think of course that you refer to Europa, there the problem are very high just imagine the length of the travel and that they have to penetrate approx. 60 km (Yes it is 60.000 meters) ice thickness. to the modest calculations.  

[Alfrik]

Reading the article I was amused by Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

"In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."

But in conclusion the researchers must have had their minds altered by the Mi-Go to keep their secret base hidden!

[styx]

Reading the article I was amused by Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

"In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."

But in conclusion the researchers must have had their minds altered by the Mi-Go to keep their secret base hidden!

While the Natzi's was fruitcakes and psychopaths, they also was rather brilliant also and had many ideas of merit. I read some book long ago that talked about what if they had won the war and how the world would have changed.

[tnjrp]

Yea, still anything under there has 200 million years to evolve

In 200 million years, everything has 200 million years to evolve

[Hammers]

Supergiant crustacean found in New Zealand trench

"In a trench off the coast of New Zealand, a crustacean has been found that's 10 times larger than its regular-sized cousins. -- The next task for the team is to try and solve the mystery of why the creatures grow so large."

Interesting... Mymymy ,the things that walk, or crawls, God's great green earth. Must be good eatin', don't you think, grilled with some chili sauce?

The adjoining article 'Mouth to Anus project' had we wondering what kind of website you are linking to but then I read it and found it quite fascinating.


Also, hands up everyone who is skeptical about the Russians really have gotten through the ice. I need pics of alien virus or massive tentacles shooting up through the drill hole to be convinced.

Good point, there, tnjrp!

[styx]

In 200 million years, everything has 200 million years to evolve

True, but what I mean is it has had time to evolve isolated all these years. So, we could come into contact with something we have never in our evolution come in contact with....there also has been fewer X factors to influence the pattern of evolution for anything down there. Everything has alaways been a constant.