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Antarctic Lake Vida Provides Clue To Alien Life
By Sara C Nelson Posted: 27/11/2012
The discovery of bacteria which thrives in a salty, ice-sealed Antarctic lake has strengthened the possibility of alien life on planets such as Mars.
Lake Vida, which is located in the region’s McMurdo Dry Valleys, contains no oxygen, is mostly frozen and possesses the highest nitrous oxide levels of any natural water body on Earth.
A briny liquid that is approximately six times saltier than seawater percolates throughout the icy environment that has an average temperature of minus 13.5 degrees centigrade (8 degrees Fahrenheit).
The discovery of bacteria in an Antarctic lake strengthens the possibility of alien life on other planets (file picture)
Dr Peter Doran, of the University of Illinois in Chicago, told New Scientist: “Lake Vida is a model of what happens when you try to freeze a lake solid, and this is the same fate that any lakes on Mars would have gone through as the planet turned colder from a watery past.
“Any Martian water bodies that did form would have gone through this Vida stage before freezing solid, entombing the evidence of the past ecosystem.”
The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal (PNAS), and were co-authored by Dr Alison Murray and Dr Christian Fritsen, of Nevada’s Desert Research Institute (DRI).
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/27/antarctic-lake-vida-alien-_n_2198485.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Hints of life in the deepest scientific marine samples ever collected
- By Jeffrey MarlowEmail Author
- November 16, 2012 |
- 9:12 am
Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert recently returned from the Research Vessel Chikyu off the coast of Japan’s Shimokita Peninsula, where she served as a member of the microbiology team aboard a (literally) groundbreaking leg of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. The expedition resulted in a new world record for deepest scientific marine drilling to 2,440 meters beneath the seafloor. But were there signs of life so far down? Here, Trembath-Reichert offers some answers … or at least what pass for answers for a suitably cautious scientist….
Mars rover Curiosity scoops, detects bright object
Doctors and Farmers Find That Eliminating GMOs Prevents Disease
‘In recent years, more and more doctors have started warning their patients to avoid genetically modified foods and the results are paying off. Jeffrey Smith now tells us that thousands of doctors are reporting the elimination of disease simply when patients cut genetically modified foods out of their diets. They are finding the elimination of immune disorders, arthritis, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, allergies, skin problems, general pain, migraines, and restless leg syndrome, among other problems. According to one doctor, the results happen pretty quickly too.
“In terms of allergies,” Dr. Lindner tells us, “it might take two to five days. In terms of depression, it starts to lift almost instantaneously. When I change people from a GMO diet to a GMO-free diet, I see results instantaneously in people who have foggy thinking and people who have gut symptoms like bloating, gas, irritation.”
Dr. Lindner is getting her patients off the most common genetically modified foods including soy, corn, canola oil, and sugar and recommending that they buy organic to avoid even more of them. Full results, she tells us, normally take four to six weeks.’
Read more: Doctors and Farmers Find That Eliminating GMOs Prevents Disease
Prehistoric bugs from 230 million years ago found in amber
These photomicrographs are of the two new species of ancient gall mites in 230-million-year-old amber droplets from northeastern Italy, taken at 1000x magnification. The gall mites were named (left) Triasacarus fedelei and (right) Ampezzoa triassica. Credit: University of Göttingen/A. Schmidt
(Phys.org)—An international team of scientists has discovered the oldest record of arthropods—invertebrate animals that include insects, arachnids, and crustaceans—preserved in amber. The specimens, one fly and two mites found in millimeter-scale droplets of amber from northeastern Italy, are about 100 million years older than any other amber arthropod ever collected. The group’s findings, which are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pave the way for a better evolutionary understanding of the most diverse group of organisms in the world.
Amber is an extremely valuable tool for paleontologists because it preserves specimens with microscopic fidelity, allowing uniquely accurate estimates of the amount of evolutionary change over millions of years,” said corresponding author David Grimaldi, a curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Invertebrate Zoology and a world authority on amber and fossil arthropods.
Globules of fossilized resin are typically called amber. Amber ranges in age from the Carboniferous (about 340 million years ago) to about 40,000 years ago, and has been produced by myriad plants, from tree ferns to flowering trees, but predominantly by conifers. Even though arthropods are more than 400 million years old, until now, the oldest record of the animals in amber dates to about 130 million years. The newly discovered arthropods break that mold with an age of 230 million years. They are the first arthropods to be found in amber from the Triassic Period.
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-prehistoric-bugs-million-years.html
How Antibiotics Destroy Your Immune System
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
‘Your immune system is constantly on a seek-and-destroy mission status – on the lookout for foreign invaders, naturally occurring cell defects and mutant cells. The immune system has a vast capacity to remember bad guys and deploy tactics that worked in the past to annihilate the enemy. Some of the fastest growing cells in the human body are immune cells.
Over 80 percent of the body’s immunity is built in the intestinal tract by the friendly bacteria balance that resides there. The intestinal flora starts building in an infant while in the womb but doesn’t really take off until after eight days of age. Starting with the colostrum milk, the gut begins to populate with more bacteria while the infant’s immune system starts an inventory of good and bad cells in the body. This inventory is a life-long process and the immune system never forgets an invader.’
Arctic Biologist Shares Astonishing Sea Creatures With the World
- By Pete Brook July 11, 2012 |
There is no road to the White Sea Biological Station, which sits at latitude 66° N on the cusp of the Arctic Circle. Located on the shores of its namesake, the White Sea, the only way to get there is by boat in summer and snowmobile in winter since the waters of Kandalaksha Bay are frozen six months out of the year.
Inside the station is an unlikely photo studio where Alexander Semenov, 25, is sharing his stunning photographs of arctic sea creatures with the global online community.
“I’m trying to act like the Discovery channel, but as a single unit,” says Semenov.
Read more: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/07/arctic-sea-creatures/?pid=2706
Giving Ancient Life Another Chance to Evolve: Scientists Place 500-Million-Year-Old Gene in Modern Organism
July 12, 2012
“This is as close as we can get to rewinding and replaying the molecular tape of life,” said scientist Betül Kaçar, a NASA astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution. “The ability to observe an ancient gene in a modern organism as it evolves within a modern cell allows us to see whether the evolutionary trajectory once taken will repeat itself or whether a life will adapt following a different path.”
Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711100726.htm
Merck’s Deceptive New Entertainment Product Campaign Pushes Drugs Like Candy on Young Children
Wednesday, 04 July 2012 07:50
‘The same multinational drug company responsible for thrusting the Gardasil vaccine on masses of young boys and girls is now targeting children with a deceptive new advertising campaign that likens allergy medication to candy.
Adweek and others are reporting that Merck & Co. has leeched itself onto a promotional campaign for the upcoming Dreamworks film Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, a move that has prompted the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) and several other advocacy groups to file a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Packaging for Claritin allergy medication apparently now features characters from the Madagascar 3 movie emblazoned right on the label. The labels also entice children with offers of free stickers, downloadable Madagascar 3 interactive games, popcorn containers, and other knick-knacks.’
GlaxoSmithKline to Pay $3 Billion Fine After Pleading Guilty to Healthcare Fraud – the Biggest in U.S. History
Tuesday, 03 July 2012 10:06
‘A UK drugs firm has been hit with a $3billion penalty after admitting to the ‘biggest healthcare fraud in history’.
GlaxoSmithKline paid U.S. medics to prescribe potentially dangerous medicines to adults and children.
It handed out cash as well as everything from Madonna concert tickets to pheasant-hunting trips. Authorities branded GSK as ‘cheaters who thought they could make an easy profit at the expense of public safety, taxpayers, and millions of Americans’.’
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