Wait, Is There Life In Lake Vostok? Researcher Still Says Yes
Lake Vostok Drilling Site Wikimedia CommonsThe bacterium found last week was an undiscovered lifeform. No, it was a contaminant. No! Yes! We never suspected this particular saga to go smoothly, and so the latest tit-for-tat over Lake Vostok and its possible Brand New Lifeforms is depressingly familiar. A quick primer: Lake Vostok is a large subglacial lake in the Antarctic. Scientists think that the water in the lake has been cut off from the outside world for up to 25 million years; that isolation could mean that Lake Vostok harbors forms of life now totally unknown to the modern age, trapped in a dark, frozen time-machine. Russian scientists have been drilling toward Lake Vostok for over a decade. After years of waiting to drill the last few meters into the lake (contamination of the unknown ecosystem was a big fear), the Russians finally reached Lake Vostok in February 2012. About...