back to article Strange alien-like life zones found beneath Antarctic glacier

Back in March, we reported on “Blood Falls”, a peculiar spot in Antarctica stained red by hypersaline brine. Despite being ever-so-salty, the waters that fuel Blood Falls show signs of hosting microbial life. The boffins behind that report reckoned that the pools of brine that leak out from beneath Taylor Glacier to make Blood …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Science is hard

    My brine hurts!

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: Science is hard

      Science in fields of realisation with virtualisation are advanced astute applications of alien imagination for astute alien application of advanced imagination by remote virtual machine learning ..... SMART RobotICQ Networking.

      It is nothing to fear though whenever one behaves oneself and doesn't become an odious burden and ogre.

    2. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

      Re: Science is hard

      Indeed it is, and it's a moving target which makes it doubly difficult. Just when you get up to speed with all of the names and timelines of the "periods" and "epochs", you then have to get real to the fact that some of these "eras" actually have their own secondary eras, but that they are called the same as the preceeding era, but actually happened prior to the start of the next econtiguous era...

      Take this one for example...

      "the glacier sits atop a fjord-like valley that, as it filled with ice after the Miocene era Miocene era"

      Brainfuck!!! :-$

  2. mr. deadlift
    Pint

    To the Miskatonic University

    Stat!

    Interesting side note, Scott's 2012 Prometheus pretty much put the boot into Del Toro's long time ambition to take and adapt 'At the Mountains...' to the big screen.

    Now that would be worth a watch.

    Beer because, happy May Day!

  3. hplasm
    Terminator

    "... then detour to Mars"

    Shurely we should take our asses, no?

    Arnie Icon...

  4. Mitoo Bobsworth
    Happy

    Masters of existence

    Bacterium & microbes surely are the most versatile survivors known - with the exception of Keith Richards & Lemmy Kilmister, of course.

    1. Alien8n

      Re: Masters of existence

      I do believe that Lemmy and Keith have discovered the chemical makeup of the fabled fountain of youth by accident. Unfortunately there's no way to tell which exact combination of illegal narcotics and Jack Daniels is the correct one to duplicate their efforts and as many celebrity deaths will attest random experimentation to unlock the secret formula is ill advised.

      1. tony2heads
        Devil

        Re: Masters of existence

        No, they have really creepy old looking pictures of themselves locked away.

    2. Dan Paul

      Re: Masters of existence

      Don't forget "Sea monkey's" or brine shrimp if you rather.

      Their encysted eggs will hatch in brine after being dried out for two years, as I am told.

      The cysts will survive temps as low as -190 C and as high as +105 C.

      That's pretty extreme.

  5. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    Raising hopes...

    ... that life may be reasonably widespread, even in the solar system. Sadly only at a microbial level though.

    Looks like those Orion slave girls will have to remain a fantasy.

  6. Graham Marsden
    Alert

    What's that noise?

    Sounds like Tekeli-li!

  7. Ashton Black

    Mr Stross.

    The Laundry Files are great, a cross between the action of Ian Flemming, the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and with a large dollop of well informed geekyness!

    1. ssharwood
      Happy

      Re: Mr Stross.

      Write El Reg into a novel and I feel duty bound to mention it occasionally ;-)

  8. hi_robb

    Erm

    May I just be the first to welcome our strange Antarctic Dwelling Alien Overlords.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If you want to see strange, alien life living in inhospitable conditions...

    ...then pay a visit to Stevenage town centre on any Friday or Saturday night.

  10. tony2heads
    Joke

    But

    like that great exo-biologist George Harrison said What is life?

  11. MrDamage Silver badge

    Any news of alien life on mars

    I'll take with a grain of salt.

  12. Faux Science Slayer

    RT > Over 3500 gene sequences found at Lake Vostok....

    After drilling through 2 miles of ice, recording the lowest ever Earth surface temperature of -89C, Russian scientist took water samples, up to 50F containing multiple life forms, including multi celled.

    The single celled forms reported in "New ! Amazing ! Wrongco Proxy Crock !" and followup,

    "Proxy Crock Memos" both posted at Canada Free Press. We are LIED to about EVERYTHING.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: RT > Over 3500 gene sequences found at Lake Vostok....

      Yay! FSS is back! It's been too long since I last read a barely-coherent post from the Reg's second-most-preeminent1 net.kook.

      We are LIED to about EVERYTHING.

      Yeah, THAT'S what Epimenides TOLD ME, too. Of course I didn't believe him.

      1After amfm1, of course.

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