

Russian scientists report new DNA under subglacial Lake Vostok - bra-ket
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57573314/russian-scientists-report-new-dna-under-subglacial-lake-vostok/

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josh2600
This is so exciting. I've been waiting on the results of the opening of Vostok
for YEARS! It's one of the few "untampered" natural subterranean lakes left on
Earth and arguably the oldest. If there's DNA in there, it has existed in an
anaerobic environment for a very long time, and, as the scientist said it's
unlike anything on Earth because these conditions are essentially unique on
Earth.

Really exciting times :). Can't wait for some more confirmation and the
eventual photos!!!

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twiceaday
Is it possible for life in Vostok to be genealogically isolated from life
elsewhere on Earth, so that life evolved from nothing multiple times?

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jlgreco
I believe the estimates for how long Lake Vostok water has been isolated cap
out at around 25 million years. Although that is an incredibly long time, it
isn't anywhere close to long ago enough to ensure a sterile condition when it
was first isolated (It would need to be several billion years to proceed life
as we know it already blanketing the planet).

As I understand it, the prevailing notion is that abiogenesis happened only a
single time, or at least only a single time that stuck. The life that already
exists does a pretty good job of ensuring that any primitive re-developed life
never has a chance to actually get started. You would need to completely
sterilize the environment to have a shot at witnessing abiogenesis again.
_Maaaybe_ all life in the lake died, rendering it sterile, and then new life
formed, but that seems super unlikely to me. Why would the existing life die
if there was enough nutrients/energy to allow new life to form? _(Also, 25
million years is probably far too short of a timeframe to see abiogenisis
bootstrap DNA based life)_

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jbert
Agree with that, but would also like to throw in a scenario where there wasn't
a sterile environment, but conditions were harsh enough for all present life
to die, leaving you with a 'sterile' thin soup containing the building blocks
of DNA based life.

That might shave a bunch of time off of the time needed.

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huhtenberg
Oki-doki, so I looked at some Russian sources and it looks weird. The RIA, the
Russian Reuters, says [0] that

1\. This is based on the analysis of a "technological" water that accidentally
got into a drilling column (whatever it is) dating back to May 2012, and _not_
on the specifically collected samples from a recent drilling that will be
arriving to St. Petersburg in May of this year (apparently it takes 6+ months
to ship them).

2\. "You have to understand that only a bacteria DNA was found, not the
bacteria itself." This is what the representative of the science agency said.
Literally.

So.

I wouldn't be getting too excited. This reads like a PR or a vanity piece
rather than a proper science report, meaning that is probably aimed at
securing additional funding or something along these lines.

(edit) Also, doesn't the process of comparing DNA to the database samples
smell a little like CSI bullshit to anyone? This is not my domain, but I would
imagine that there's hardly a comprehensive database of a DNA of all existing
life forms on Earth. I assume there's a way to see that a DNA is "alien", but
why bring up some imaginary database if you are making a serious scientific
announcement.

[0] <http://ria.ru/science/20130307/926380740.html>

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BioGeek
> I would imagine that there's hardly a comprehensive database of a DNA of all
> existing life forms on Earth.

An annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences is available
from the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ), the European Molecular Biology
Laboratory (EMBL), and GenBank at NCBI. They are basically all three the same
database and they exchange updates on a daily basis. However, small timelags
in propagating data between the database centers causes minor differences.

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bdc
> "If it were found on Mars, people would call it Martian DNA. But this is DNA
> from Earth"

Yes... yes indeed.

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nviarnes
I want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and assume his english isn't
great. He probably means something along the lines of: 'this DNA is so weird
it could be Martian.'

~~~
ceejayoz
It's not, though. I'd imagine Martian organisms would have a much lower shared
proportion of DNA than the 86% mentioned in the article, assuming they even
used DNA in the first place.

~~~
bluekeybox
Highly likely that Martian "DNA" would be different in several fundamental
aspects (for starters, the triplet codons would have entirely different
"dictionary" meanings in terms of amino acids, or perhaps there would be no
triplets but quartets instead or even something completely different) that it
wouldn't even make sense to talk in terms of percentages -- it would be like
saying a rock is 50% similar to a blue whale.

~~~
evilduck
Both could contain high percentages of calcium. ;)

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arh68
> "The researchers said that seven species of bacteria were found in the
> frozen water in 2012. The DNA match to any known organisms never went past
> 86 percent, so it is considered to be an unknown form of life. Anything
> under 90 percent is considered enough to designate a new species."

Is that 90% figure standard convention? Where did it come from? I'm not too
familiar with this field, so is that basic textbook stuff? It seems arbitrary.

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hakaaaaak
Were these bacteria living because of a heat source that was keeping the lake
liquid, similar to life around deep sea vents?

Could there be life under our feet, fueled by the heat of the molten core with
bacteria flourishing in fresh groundwater, or do these types of thermophiles
require salt that wouldn't exist there?

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richardjordan
I've been waiting for the results of this search for a while now. I'm hoping
to see reportage soon from a more credible source than one which refers to
some country called "Great Brittan"! Do they have interns writing this stuff
or something?

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mleonhard
Is anyone else concerned that they have contaminated the lake with modern
bacteria?

~~~
richardjordan
Yeah. Little bit.

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microDude
Not being an expert in the molecular/cellular/biological department. Is there
any risk that this new DNA strand could harm current life? (I am thinking
infections or some weird mutations, similar to every scifi movie I have ever
seen)

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akiselev
There is always a risk. However, these bacteria evolved in an extremely
hostile environment. The probability that they developed mechanisms to
infiltrate a multicellular organism and fight off its immune system is
practically infinitesimal, although non-zero.

There is likely zero evolutionary drive in such an environment to evolve above
basic anaerobic life sustaining adaptations and it could even be the case that
any evolution that isn't geared towards maximizing survivability in such an
environment are actually detrimental. Chances are that any functional
mutations will either optimize current processes (and thus help survivability)
or create new processes or chemical pathways. The latter would usually expend
more energy and could very well cause the mutated species to die off
prematurely because their "improvement" is too much to handle in this low
energy environment.

Of course, this doesn't preclude the bacteria being so strange that our immune
system wouldn't know what to do about it but after 25 million years of
sequestration with no "predators", it is unlikely that they developed such a
uniqueness.

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anigbrowl
Jurassic Water Park: Jeff Goldblum fights off rampaging algae.

