
Biologists find cave life that may be 50k years old - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-biologists-weird-cave-life-years.html
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Phithagoras
National Geographic covered this story in greater detail here
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/crystal-caves-
min...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/crystal-caves-mine-
microbes-mexico-boston-aaas-aliens-science/)

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surlyadopter
I'm cautiously optimistic about these findings. As long as she doesn't name
them something like 'Penelope Deserves Tenure-01'* we should be good...

*[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1)

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hprotagonist
maybe. this was the group that made the splashy but totally wrong assertions
about arsenic-incorporating extremophiles a few years ago, so i'll pay
attention only after peer review.

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whyenot
Skepticism is a good thing, but I think you are painting with an pretty broad
brush. Penelope Boston was not an author on the arsenic extremeophile paper.
The only connection I can come up with is that the lead author of the arsenic
paper was affiliated with NASA's Astrobiology Institute and Boston is now
director of the institute.

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hprotagonist
yes. different author; same group, same research culture.

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mattkrause
Actually, not even the same group(s). They have a strange sort of structure
where the institute is made up of a rotating cast of academic and NASA teams:
[https://nai.nasa.gov/teams/](https://nai.nasa.gov/teams/) It looks like all
the groups around during the GFAJ era have been replaced.

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anotheryou
Is he wearing cool-packs?

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roywiggins
> Is he wearing cool-packs?

"They were also so hot that scientists had to don cheap versions of space
suits—to prevent contamination with outside life—and had ice packs all over
their bodies."

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twhb
Specifically, up to 136˚F and 99% humidity.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Crystals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Crystals)

~~~
iSnow
That'S 58°C

