Science

Scientists discover live organisms in Lake Vostok

Russian scientists reported that they had extracted an ice core from over 3,600 meters depth – containing what was expected to be water forced up under pressure into the borehole from Vostok before freezing solid.

It could be the first time this water has seen sunlight in millions of years. At the top of the scientific to-do list was to find out if anything lives in Vostok, leading an existence as isolated as its water.

Vostok is perhaps the greater prize though, and eyes have been on Russia waiting for word on whether anything has indeed come up from the pitch black depths of the coldest place on Earth.

Now, through Russian state media, it has been announced that preliminary examinations of the water indeed reveals signs of life. Not just any life though, the message is that this is microbial life of an ‘unclassified’ nature.

It’s being reported that seven samples from the extract ice core show signs of this bacterial DNA. While the technical details are not yet available it seems that when the scientists compared this DNA to a database of known species they found no clear match. The closest they could come was about 86% similarity, which is far enough off to suggest a new species.

Obviously we’ll need to wait to see the details.