Russia Finds 'New Bacteria' in Antarctic Lake

[Graybeard]

http://news.discovery.com/earth/russia-finds-new-bacteria-antarctic-lake-130307.htm

Russian scientists believe they have found a wholly new type of bacteria in the subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica, the RIA Novosti news agency reported on March 7.

The samples obtained from the underground lake in May 2012 contained a bacteria which bore no resemblance to existing types, said Sergei Bulat of the genetics laboratory at the Saint Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics.

"After putting aside all possible elements of contamination, DNA was found that did not coincide with any of the well-known types in the global database," he said.

Bulat said that the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms. "In terms of work with DNA this is basically zero. A level of 90 percent usually means that the organism is unknown." He said it was not even possible to find the genetic descendants of the bacteria.

"If this had been found on Mars everyone would have undoubtedly said there is life on Mars. But this is bacteria from Earth." Bulat said that new samples of water would be taken from Lake Vostok during a new expedition in May. "If we manage to find the same group of organisms in this water we can say for sure that we have found new life on Earth that exists in no database," Bulat said.

Bulat said that the interest surrounded one particular form of bacteria whose DNA was less than 86 percent similar to previously existing forms. to put this in perspective, we share 50% of our DNA with a banana.

[Nick]

Oh God, we are all going to die.

[One Above All]

Maybe life started in two places, rather than one?

[nogodsforme]

Oh God, we are all going to die.

Well, yeah, we are. But because Eve ate this peice of fruit that had only 50% shared DNA with humans. Not because of this one tiny bacteria that never made into Noah's holy petri dish. Or something.

[ParkingPlaces]

Bad news. False alarm. They are now saying that the samples were contaminated.

http://phys.org/news/2013-03-russia-life-antarctic-lake.html

Sounds fishy to me. Seems like they would have to be contaminated with something that qualified as strange to get the weird DNA percentage thing to happen. I'm guessing we'll have a new conspiracy theory by the end of the weekend. In the meantime, don't drink water bottled in Antarctica.

[12 Monkeys]

This is the bacteria that will start the Zombie Apocalypse