This is pretty cool <arh-arh-arh!>- > A team of scientists has just set off to explore a > strange lake in Antarctica, which may be home to > exotic forms of microscopic life.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/07feb_cloroxlake.htm?list91324 "...Antarctica's Lake Untersee, fed by glaciers, always covered with ice, and very alkaline, is one of the most unusual lakes on Earth. The upper 70 meters of lakewater is so alkaline "its pH is like strong CloroxTM," says expedition leader Richard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "And to make it even more interesting, the lake's sediments produce more methane than any other natural body of water on our planet. If we find life here, it will have important implications." Lake Untersee is a sort of test case for other exotic places around the solar system (namely Mars, comets, and the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn) where life might be found in the extremes. Many of those places are cold and methane-rich--"not unlike Lake Untersee." "One thing we've learned in recent years," notes Hoover, "is that you don't have to have a 'Goldilocks' zone with perfect temperature, a certain pH level, and so forth, for life to thrive." Researchers have found microbes living in ice, in boiling water, in nuclear reactors. These "strange" extremophiles may in fact be the norm for life elsewhere in the cosmos..." Debbi Mellow Jello Maru ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
