New strains from Mars???

roc · 02-24-05, 14:40

This is so freakin cool....

Creatures frozen for 32,000 years still alive
Bacteria found in Arctic tunnel come to life in the lab
NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover takes ice samples
Richard Hoover / NASA
NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover takes ice samples from the permafrost deep inside the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory near Fox, Alaska.

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior writer
Updated: 3:17 a.m. ET Feb. 24, 2005

A new type of organism discovered in an Arctic tunnel came to life in the lab after being frozen for 32,000 years.

The deep-freeze bacteria could point to new methods of cryogenics, and they are the sort of biology scientists say might exist on Mars and other planets and moons.

"The existence of microorganisms in these harsh environments suggests — but does not promise -- that we might one day discover similar life forms in the glaciers or permafrost of Mars or in the ice crust and oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa," said Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Other microbes have been discovered in similar frigid environments, sometimes clinging to pockets of liquid water in ice packs. And some microbes survive in ice as spores, but they need to be cultured to bring them to life.

NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice."

"They immediately started swimming when the ice melted," Hoover told LiveScience, adding that the cryopreserved bacteria were instantly ready to eat and multiply.

Cousins on Mars?
The announcement of the discovery Wednesday comes just a day after a team of European researchers said they found blocks of ice just under the surface of Mars near the equator. The Europeans said the ice, between 2 million and 5 million years old, could serve as storehouses for life.

Bacterium under microscope
Photo Courtesy Of Asim Bej / University of Alabama at Birming
The new bacterium thrives under a microscope despite having been thawed from ice dating back some 32,000 years, to the Pleistocene era. Living bacteria are stained green.
Hoover said the creatures he has found might be able to survive in their suspended state for millions of years. The discovery opens up a whole new possibility that a future mission to Mars might be able to retrieve any life that's there.

"Ice samples from this [Martian ice] sea could contain cryopreserved microorganisms if life ever flourished on the surface of Mars," Hoover said in a telephone interview. He is particularly excited about the instant revival qualities of the creatures found in Alaska.

"You might actually get them growing in pure culture," he said of the potential Martian cousins. It would be a "wonderful way of retrieving intact, viable Martian organisms, if they are there."

Water does not guarantee life, but it is a crucial ingredient.

Hoover said the Martian ice blocks are so near the surface that they might partly melt in summer, creating underground pools of water that would allow any microorganisms to grow and reproduce. (Life above ground is considered unlikely due to Mars' dry surface conditions and intense radiation.)

Long process
The discovery process goes back to 1999, when Hoover and a colleague started a search for extremophiles in a tunnel north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The tunnel was dug by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-1960s to help scientists study permafrost prior to construction of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline.

Hoover went in search of one type of creature, but also found bacterial cells that surprisingly came to life as soon as the ice thawed. The bacteria thrive on sugars and proteins in total absence of oxygen.

"Life is far more diverse, and far more resistant to conditions we consider hostile, than was thought possible only a decade or two ago," Hoover said. "Studying these organisms helps us understand that life may be far more widespread in the cosmos than we previously imagined."

The bacteria, called Carnobacterium pleistocenium, might also be interesting to medical researchers.

"The enzymes and proteins it possesses, which give it the ability to spring to life after such long periods of dormancy, might hold the key to long-term, cryogenic — or very low temperature — storage of living cells, tissues and perhaps even complex life forms," Hoover said.

Microbiologist Elena Pikuta of the University of Alabama in Huntsville contributed to the research.
© 2005 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

I_am_me · 02-24-05, 15:42

Thats crazy!

Thanks for sharing.

Sweetness · 02-24-05, 16:37

Very interesting.

rocketman · 02-24-05, 16:38

man, makes you wonder what they could be unthawing too....

bipolar · 02-24-05, 16:59

I hear the theme from Twilight Zone playing.........arghhhhh........

sinthetic · 02-24-05, 17:09

i've seen a frozen fly unthaw and fly away in a biology class in hs

roc · 02-24-05, 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocketman

man, makes you wonder what they could be unthawing too....

Let's hope it's not something that destroyed any past civilizations!

rocketman · 02-24-05, 19:12

thats what went through my mind roc, some deadly disease that was only stopped from killing all other life on earth because it was frozen in the ice age. man u could write a good book on this.....greenhouse gas causes death to mankind because thawing of ice caps frees the deadly virus responsible for the death of all other planetary life forms.......sci fi movie anyway.

Hippie3 · 02-25-05, 07:26

interesting stuff.
we'll see if the euros are correct about that ice,
right now confirmation is lacking.

02-25-05, 07:46

Great, they've discovered a new contaminant and everybody is excited..lol

viraljimmy · 02-25-05, 08:17

I think it's doubtfull there is the life on other planets.
The odds are against it.

destroy_erase_improve · 03-01-05, 12:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by viraljimmy

I think it's doubtfull there is the life on other planets.
The odds are against it.

i dont agree
id say the odds are stacked just the same either way. life doesnt have to be like what we know it.
besides, for every sun that exists there are planets that orbit around it, the odds of life existing somewhere else under the right conditions are actually stacked in favor of it.

this bateria thrives on sugars and proteins with total lack of oxygen, who knows what other forms of life are out there that could survive on different things.

rocketman · 03-01-05, 14:59

life may not be on any other planets in our solar system, but i strongly disagree with us being the only life anywhere.

there has to be a system somewhere that has a similar set up as the earth. the odds are higher there is life out there.

millions of suns, millions of planets revolving around them at near the same distance as the earth, i think it would be narrow minded or even elitest to believe otherwise....just my opinion and i could be wrong....nah

Son of O'or · 03-10-05, 19:11

"deadly virus responsible for the death of all other planetary life forms......"

Not possible. Even the most deadly Viri we know of now leave a few people alive. There are children being born everyday with a natural immunity to HIV. Nature is strange, but never self destructive. Ebola does not kill 100% of the people it infects.

If such lifeforms where found on mars I would be very interested in their genetic structure. I suspect the genetic structure would be very close to such organisms on earth. It would be very unlikly that such organisms would be pathogenic as they did not evolve in a vector that includes humans and other animals. LOL! Unless they came from here in the not so distant past or from another world with animal life in the very distant past. There is one thing that does concern me though. Mars is very rich in iron oxides, so is human blood.

If they could live at human body temperature, and tolerate the high saline content of the human body, it is hard to say what they would do. I have seen studies where samples of dust have been taken from near space in the upper atmosphere. They have found many types of microorganisms there. It just may be that our planet is bombarded by extraterrestrial forms of life everyday. Some of these life forms may be from outside the solar system, who knows? Perhaps these "martian" life forms are already here and have been for a very long time. I would suspect our immune systems would already have knowlege of them if this where the case.

mycpooper · 08-25-07, 17:26

Yeah there's lots of things to beware of if the icecaps melt. flooding, oceans rise ,bacteria etc. have done lots of research on ancient people, cities. there's places that were built 60 - 80 feet under water only explanation would be the ice caps were bigger and it made the oceans lower. Think its just another cycle like alot of other things. the icecaps are just on a bigger cycle they either grow or shrink depending where we are in the universe and other body's in space that fluctuate earth's system.

Hippie3 · 08-25-07, 19:07

it simply is not true that
if the ice caps melt
the planet will flood,
no more than
melting ice will over-fill a glass of ice water
the earth's oceans are already displaced by
the ice and as everyone should know
water expands as it freezes
meaning that as ice returns to water
it actually requires less volume than did the ice

mycpooper · 08-25-07, 19:59

well thanks hippie....forgot about the "expanding" part of ice. Have any idea how we get all this extra water on earth? from space or just from production of oxygen and hydro over the yrs maybe?

Hippie3 · 08-25-07, 20:08

no sir, i have no idea how earth ended up with so much water on the surface. not that damn old.

i.p.freely · 09-17-07, 13:14

interesting read

mjshroomer · 09-18-07, 09:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinthetic

i've seen a frozen fly unthaw and fly away in a biology class in hs

I have seen flys in amber fossilized for millions of years. If they could only talk we might learn what they saw when they first lived and flew the the planet.

aumbrellaforainydays · 09-18-07, 12:37

a lot different world probably.

Quote:

The bacteria thrive on sugars and proteins in total absence of oxygen.

This is a good discovery for the martian terraformers since mars is mostly CO2. Studying life in the coldest darkest depths of earth should reveal similar organisms like these on martian ice.

I am just waiting for the day that a mars lander picks up some of this ice, returns to earth, and is cultured by scientists on earth.

What if they make a genetically modified Martian terraforming organism spliced with genes from a Terran arctic organism, which was then reintroduced, fortified and healthier back onto the martian ice? Theregoes the first step towards making life on mars feasible... in a million years... unless we warm up the planet with giant mirrors and pump nitrogen and oxygen into the its atmosphere... then we got a living, and liquid mars.

stonie · 09-23-07, 22:00

interesting stuff there, sat here and read the whole thing, and as far as i'm concerned, if this bacteria is from mars with has the make-up of human blood, what happens when they test it on human to freeze then in suspended animation?

Hippie3 · 09-23-07, 22:13

nothing happens is my guess.
his speculation is too far-fetched , imo.
seems pretty unlikely to me that martian microbes could
even briefly live inside an earthly lifeform such as a human.
they haven't face temperatures nor pressures that high
in billions of years...

eastwood · 09-23-07, 22:16

Damn ..I dont know what to think of this ... theses scientists mean well and research an experments must be done.. I hope it will not be pandora's box they are researching one of these times ... Hell pandoras box probabley has already been opened anyway..very interesting but scary stuff .....

karmakraze · 07-15-08, 21:00

Was there any description as to what it looked like? Maybe 1970's retro sea monkey or protazoe

.

roc · 07-15-08, 22:21

Talk about resurrecting an old thread... damn it took us a while to get to mars!

FDK · 07-15-08, 23:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Cottontail

Great, they've discovered a new contaminant and everybody is excited..lol

"Oh great, Penecillin in the dish,, Aw crap, it's shot a gooey strand out that's grabbed my arm!!! Why does it feel like theres a bunch of bugs under my skin?!?"

Dang, now I hafta watch Creepshow again, "Meteor Shit!?!"

Hippie3 · 07-15-08, 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hippie3

interesting stuff.
we'll see if the euros are correct about that ice,
right now confirmation is lacking.

looks like the euros had it right.
http://forums.mycotopia.net/lifestyl...land-mars.html (Pheonix set to land on mars)

scorpius · 07-17-08, 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by viraljimmy

I think it's doubtfull there is the life on other planets.
The odds are against it.

I think you mean to say intelligent life. It seems the point of this thread is the life has already been found on another planet. Another planet in our solar system no less. To me that would signal the possibility of finding life on other planets and solar systems to be even greater.

Intelligent life on another planet, now that is something to debate. As well as if there is, have we had contact with them, and if so why have we not actually been told anything about them.

www.disclosureproject.org

steeq · 07-17-08, 18:45

Life hasn't been found yet, just soil that could possibly support life is my understanding.

scorpius · 07-17-08, 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by roc

NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice."

"They immediately started swimming when the ice melted," Hoover told LiveScience, adding that the cryopreserved bacteria were instantly ready to eat and multiply.

boldness added for emphasis

roc · 07-17-08, 20:19

I have always believed that there was and is life on other planets/galaxies - I have had that "vision" many times in my life.

Time tells all...

Hippie3 · 07-18-08, 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by steeq

Life hasn't been found yet, just soil that could possibly support life is my understanding.

100.0% correct

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02-24-05, 14:40	#1 (permalink)
roc Old Man Join Date: Mar 1970 Posts: 2,791	New strains from Mars??? This is so freakin cool.... Creatures frozen for 32,000 years still alive Bacteria found in Arctic tunnel come to life in the lab NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover takes ice samples Richard Hoover / NASA NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover takes ice samples from the permafrost deep inside the U.S. Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory near Fox, Alaska. By Robert Roy Britt Senior writer Updated: 3:17 a.m. ET Feb. 24, 2005 A new type of organism discovered in an Arctic tunnel came to life in the lab after being frozen for 32,000 years. The deep-freeze bacteria could point to new methods of cryogenics, and they are the sort of biology scientists say might exist on Mars and other planets and moons. "The existence of microorganisms in these harsh environments suggests — but does not promise -- that we might one day discover similar life forms in the glaciers or permafrost of Mars or in the ice crust and oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa," said Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Other microbes have been discovered in similar frigid environments, sometimes clinging to pockets of liquid water in ice packs. And some microbes survive in ice as spores, but they need to be cultured to bring them to life. NASA described the newfound critter as "the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice." "They immediately started swimming when the ice melted," Hoover told LiveScience, adding that the cryopreserved bacteria were instantly ready to eat and multiply. Cousins on Mars? The announcement of the discovery Wednesday comes just a day after a team of European researchers said they found blocks of ice just under the surface of Mars near the equator. The Europeans said the ice, between 2 million and 5 million years old, could serve as storehouses for life. Bacterium under microscope Photo Courtesy Of Asim Bej / University of Alabama at Birming The new bacterium thrives under a microscope despite having been thawed from ice dating back some 32,000 years, to the Pleistocene era. Living bacteria are stained green. Hoover said the creatures he has found might be able to survive in their suspended state for millions of years. The discovery opens up a whole new possibility that a future mission to Mars might be able to retrieve any life that's there. "Ice samples from this [Martian ice] sea could contain cryopreserved microorganisms if life ever flourished on the surface of Mars," Hoover said in a telephone interview. He is particularly excited about the instant revival qualities of the creatures found in Alaska. "You might actually get them growing in pure culture," he said of the potential Martian cousins. It would be a "wonderful way of retrieving intact, viable Martian organisms, if they are there." Water does not guarantee life, but it is a crucial ingredient. Hoover said the Martian ice blocks are so near the surface that they might partly melt in summer, creating underground pools of water that would allow any microorganisms to grow and reproduce. (Life above ground is considered unlikely due to Mars' dry surface conditions and intense radiation.) Long process The discovery process goes back to 1999, when Hoover and a colleague started a search for extremophiles in a tunnel north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The tunnel was dug by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-1960s to help scientists study permafrost prior to construction of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. Hoover went in search of one type of creature, but also found bacterial cells that surprisingly came to life as soon as the ice thawed. The bacteria thrive on sugars and proteins in total absence of oxygen. "Life is far more diverse, and far more resistant to conditions we consider hostile, than was thought possible only a decade or two ago," Hoover said. "Studying these organisms helps us understand that life may be far more widespread in the cosmos than we previously imagined." The bacteria, called Carnobacterium pleistocenium, might also be interesting to medical researchers. "The enzymes and proteins it possesses, which give it the ability to spring to life after such long periods of dormancy, might hold the key to long-term, cryogenic — or very low temperature — storage of living cells, tissues and perhaps even complex life forms," Hoover said. Microbiologist Elena Pikuta of the University of Alabama in Huntsville contributed to the research. © 2005 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved. __________________ ubuntu! Member of Native Geekaho Tribe. "Think for yourself and question authority"

02-24-05, 15:42	#2 (permalink)
I_am_me Masked Moderator Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 1,365	Thats crazy! Thanks for sharing. __________________ Kindness is a cure.

02-24-05, 16:38	#4 (permalink)
rocketman GATE KEEPER Join Date: Feb 1973 Posts: 3,229	man, makes you wonder what they could be unthawing too.... __________________ robbing a man of his cherished delusions does not make you any wealthier, it just makes him poorer. H3

02-24-05, 16:59	#5 (permalink)
bipolar Mycotopiate Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 284	I hear the theme from Twilight Zone playing.........arghhhhh........ __________________ On opening his eyes he found himself with the professor and the guide, Looking around he saw an ocean stretching as far as the eye could see, And a forest of mushrooms...........

02-24-05, 16:37	#3 (permalink)
Sweetness Mycotopiate Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 337	Very interesting.

02-24-05, 17:09	#6 (permalink)
sinthetic i party like a rock star Join Date: Apr 1970 Posts: 870	i've seen a frozen fly unthaw and fly away in a biology class in hs

02-24-05, 19:12	#8 (permalink)
rocketman GATE KEEPER Join Date: Feb 1973 Posts: 3,229	thats what went through my mind roc, some deadly disease that was only stopped from killing all other life on earth because it was frozen in the ice age. man u could write a good book on this.....greenhouse gas causes death to mankind because thawing of ice caps frees the deadly virus responsible for the death of all other planetary life forms.......sci fi movie anyway. __________________ robbing a man of his cherished delusions does not make you any wealthier, it just makes him poorer. H3

02-25-05, 07:26	#9 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,133	interesting stuff. we'll see if the euros are correct about that ice, right now confirmation is lacking. __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

02-25-05, 07:46	#10 (permalink)
~Peter Cottontail Guest Posts: n/a	Great, they've discovered a new contaminant and everybody is excited..lol

02-25-05, 08:17	#11 (permalink)
viraljimmy Mycotopiate Join Date: Jan 1973 Posts: 454	I think it's doubtfull there is the life on other planets. The odds are against it.

03-01-05, 14:59	#13 (permalink)
rocketman GATE KEEPER Join Date: Feb 1973 Posts: 3,229	life may not be on any other planets in our solar system, but i strongly disagree with us being the only life anywhere. there has to be a system somewhere that has a similar set up as the earth. the odds are higher there is life out there. millions of suns, millions of planets revolving around them at near the same distance as the earth, i think it would be narrow minded or even elitest to believe otherwise....just my opinion and i could be wrong....nah __________________ robbing a man of his cherished delusions does not make you any wealthier, it just makes him poorer. H3

03-10-05, 19:11	#14 (permalink)
Son of O'or Mycophiliac Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 70	"deadly virus responsible for the death of all other planetary life forms......" Not possible. Even the most deadly Viri we know of now leave a few people alive. There are children being born everyday with a natural immunity to HIV. Nature is strange, but never self destructive. Ebola does not kill 100% of the people it infects. If such lifeforms where found on mars I would be very interested in their genetic structure. I suspect the genetic structure would be very close to such organisms on earth. It would be very unlikly that such organisms would be pathogenic as they did not evolve in a vector that includes humans and other animals. LOL! Unless they came from here in the not so distant past or from another world with animal life in the very distant past. There is one thing that does concern me though. Mars is very rich in iron oxides, so is human blood. If they could live at human body temperature, and tolerate the high saline content of the human body, it is hard to say what they would do. I have seen studies where samples of dust have been taken from near space in the upper atmosphere. They have found many types of microorganisms there. It just may be that our planet is bombarded by extraterrestrial forms of life everyday. Some of these life forms may be from outside the solar system, who knows? Perhaps these "martian" life forms are already here and have been for a very long time. I would suspect our immune systems would already have knowlege of them if this where the case.

08-25-07, 17:26	#15 (permalink)
mycpooper Mycophiliac Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 59	Yeah there's lots of things to beware of if the icecaps melt. flooding, oceans rise ,bacteria etc. have done lots of research on ancient people, cities. there's places that were built 60 - 80 feet under water only explanation would be the ice caps were bigger and it made the oceans lower. Think its just another cycle like alot of other things. the icecaps are just on a bigger cycle they either grow or shrink depending where we are in the universe and other body's in space that fluctuate earth's system. __________________ You cannot change your past...but you can change your future to become your past.

08-25-07, 19:07	#16 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,133	it simply is not true that if the ice caps melt the planet will flood, no more than melting ice will over-fill a glass of ice water the earth's oceans are already displaced by the ice and as everyone should know water expands as it freezes meaning that as ice returns to water it actually requires less volume than did the ice __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

09-17-07, 13:14	#19 (permalink)
i.p.freely chronic puppy diddler Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 705	right on interesting read __________________ "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Dr. H.S.T.

08-25-07, 19:59	#17 (permalink)
mycpooper Mycophiliac Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 59	well thanks hippie....forgot about the "expanding" part of ice. Have any idea how we get all this extra water on earth? from space or just from production of oxygen and hydro over the yrs maybe? __________________ You cannot change your past...but you can change your future to become your past.

08-25-07, 20:08	#18 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,133	no sir, i have no idea how earth ended up with so much water on the surface. not that damn old. __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce

09-23-07, 22:00	#22 (permalink)
stonie VIP Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 90	interesting stuff there, sat here and read the whole thing, and as far as i'm concerned, if this bacteria is from mars with has the make-up of human blood, what happens when they test it on human to freeze then in suspended animation? __________________ as my eyes wander aimlessly into the dark, i wonder, y are you still there?

09-23-07, 22:13	#23 (permalink)
Hippie3 Admin Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 36,133	nothing happens is my guess. his speculation is too far-fetched , imo. seems pretty unlikely to me that martian microbes could even briefly live inside an earthly lifeform such as a human. they haven't face temperatures nor pressures that high in billions of years... __________________ GROW SUPPLIES: www.Mycrotopia.com ------------Simply The Best------------ Namaste Temet Nosce Last edited by Hippie3 : 07-15-08 at 21:23.

09-23-07, 22:16	#24 (permalink)
eastwood Mycotopiate Join Date: Jul 1972 Posts: 1,811	Damn ..I dont know what to think of this ... theses scientists mean well and research an experments must be done.. I hope it will not be pandora's box they are researching one of these times ... Hell pandoras box probabley has already been opened anyway..very interesting but scary stuff .....

07-15-08, 21:00	#25 (permalink)
karmakraze karmakraze Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 63	Cool Was there any description as to what it looked like? Maybe 1970's retro sea monkey or protazoe.

07-15-08, 22:21	#26 (permalink)
roc Old Man Join Date: Mar 1970 Posts: 2,791	Talk about resurrecting an old thread... damn it took us a while to get to mars! __________________ ubuntu! Member of Native Geekaho Tribe. "Think for yourself and question authority"

07-17-08, 18:45	#30 (permalink)
steeq Star Gazer Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 586	Life hasn't been found yet, just soil that could possibly support life is my understanding. __________________ Life is nothing more than a series of moments strung together, but we can only live in the present one.

07-17-08, 20:19	#32 (permalink)
roc Old Man Join Date: Mar 1970 Posts: 2,791	I have always believed that there was and is life on other planets/galaxies - I have had that "vision" many times in my life. Time tells all... __________________ ubuntu! Member of Native Geekaho Tribe. "Think for yourself and question authority"