Life found deep below Antarctic ice

[Insanity]

Cells containing DNA have emerged as the first evidence of life in a subglacial lake in West Antarctica. On January 28, a U.S. research team retrieved water from Lake Whillans, which sits 800 meters below the ice surface. The water hosted a surprising bounty of living cells.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348007/description/Life_found_deep_below_Antarctic_ice

No good will come of this.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Still Waters
Fixed broken source link

[Sean93]

Awesome.

[Coffey]

100,000 years... So if any contagious bacteria, viruses or diseases are found.... We won't be immune?

[Zaphod222]

Awesome.

It is unlikely that they are any danger for humans.

But to me this proves that there is probably alien life out there.

[AsteroidX]

The cells themselves are very terrestrial but it does show they extremes in which microbes can survive.

[equus hemionus]

life in extremes is a great reason to think that there is life on other planets

[Geladius]

[pallidin]

100,000 years... So if any contagious bacteria, viruses or diseases are found.... We won't be immune?

Good point. Hope they're careful, just in case.

[pallidin]

Welcome aboard, Geladius.

[AsteroidX]

Id be more worried about catching a cold from antarctic bacteria

[Nasty Gash]

It is unlikely that they are any danger for humans.

But to me this proves that there is probably alien life out there.

Please explain your reasoning for both of these statements.

I make these observations...

1. Ebola and Marburg viri passed from animals to humans after developing in animals segregated from humans when humans encroached on the animals' territories which previously where free of humans. Humans have had no opportunity to develop immunity to these organisms.

2. The ancestors of the organisms found in Lake Williams were trapped in the lake after the lake had been closed off from the rest of the Earth 100,000 years or so ago. Thus the organisms there now did not develop independently of the rest of Earth's life and since humans have not been exposed to them, they may not have immunity to them.

3. Life is found elsewhere on Earth in environments of similar temperature and light.

4. Bacteria and viri mutate rapidly (influenza is but one example).

Thus, since whatever bugs are there have had ample time to mutate into forms to which humans have little or no immunity, I beleive that your first statement has little merit (but very well could be true). Furthermore, I don't know what "proves that there is probably" is supposed to mean, but I see nothing in this discovery that would suggest that the existence of extraterrestrial is more likely (for the record, I do believe that there is extraterrestrial life but I have absolutely no evidence supporting that belief).

Edited February 4, 2013 by Nasty Gash

[lightly]

cool. i would be more surprised if no life was found in the lake.

[Silver Surfer]

If they release Nessie we are all doomed.

[Abramelin]

100,000 years... So if any contagious bacteria, viruses or diseases are found.... We won't be immune?

We've survived these:

Deep in the mine, within a pocket of salt water trapped in a 250 million-year-old salt crystal, two biologists and a geologist discovered the 2-9-3 virgibacillus bacteria. This would be unremarkable save for the fact that this bacteria was 100 million years older than the dinosaurs... and it was still alive.

http://boingboing.net/2009/06/17/salty-microbe-may-be.html

[Nasty Gash]

Id be more worried about catching a cold from antarctic bacteria

A "cold" is not caused by bacteria but by viruses. The "flu" also.

[paperdyer]

I agree with Nasty Gash. These microbes could be potentially dangerous.

@Abramelin - Just because our ancestors may have developed an immunity to a disease doesn't mean the immunity is still passed on to us. That's what makes bio-warfare so dangerous. All you need to do is find a long-gone "bug" cultivate it and release it. As we haven't been exposed to it recently, we probably wouldn't have an immunity to it bringing on an epidemic.

[Abramelin]

I agree with Nasty Gash. These microbes could be potentially dangerous.

@Abramelin - Just because our ancestors may have developed an immunity to a disease doesn't mean the immunity is still passed on to us. That's what makes bio-warfare so dangerous. All you need to do is find a long-gone "bug" cultivate it and release it. As we haven't been exposed to it recently, we probably wouldn't have an immunity to it bringing on an epidemic.

But the salt bacteria are 250 millions of years old, and I read about it when I was still in highschool, some 40 years ago. These bacteria were already there long before the dinosaurs, and certainly long before anything resembling us.

So if these bacteria would have been dangerous for us, we would have known it by now.