Last year, the team drilled through almost 4km (2.34 miles) of ice to reach the lake and retrieve samples.

Vostok is thought to have been cut off from the surface for millions of years.

This has raised the possibility that such isolated bodies of water might host microbial life forms new to science.

"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," said Sergei Bulat, of the genetics laborator...
Continue reading ...

The research by a team of Chinese and American scientists also pushes the emergence of pottery back to the last ice age, which might provide new explanations for the creation of pottery, said Gideon Shelach, chair of the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at The Hebrew University in Israel.

“The focus of research has to change,” Shelach, who is not involved in the research project in China, said by telephone.

[,,,]
Wu Xiaohong, professor of archaeology and museology at Peking Unive...
Continue reading ...

An ambitious mission to drill through 3km (1.8 miles) of Antarctic ice to a lake that has been sealed off for thousands of years has been cut short.

The team at Lake Ellsworth decided to call off the mission in the early hours of Christmas Day UK time.

They were unable to join the main borehole with a parallel hole that was to be used to recover drilling water.

The team is now "weatherising" the equipment and it is unclear when they will be able to resume the project.

[,,,]
Once back on UK soil, t...
Continue reading ...

Researchers found a diverse community of bugs living in the lake's dark environment, at temperatures of -13C.< Furthermore, they say the lake's life forms have been sealed off from the outside world for some 2,800 years.< Details of the work have been outlined in the journal PNAS.< Lake Vida, the largest of several unique lakes found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, contains no oxygen, is acidic, mostly frozen and possesses the highest nitrous oxide levels of any natural water body on Earth.< ...
Continue reading ...

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians used reef knots to fasten their belts. In the first century, Greek physicians employed both reef knots and clove hitches to tie surgical nooses. Today, these ancient knots are coming in handy on Mars.

[,,,]
According to knot aficionado David Fred, NASA engineers appear to have primarily employed the "spot tie" on the Curiosity rover — a combination of a clove hitch and a reef knot that works both to bind cables and affix cable bundles to tie-down poin...
Continue reading ...

Earth’s modern continents are the fragments of a single, 300-million-year-old supercontinent called Pangaea. This vast landmass once rested on the equator, near where Africa is today. During the age of dinosaurs, tectonic forces slowly tore Pangaea apart. Now geologists predict those same forces will reassemble the pieces into a new supercontinent, named Amasia, about 100 million years in the future.

[,,,]
A team of Yale geologists say they have cracked the problem, providing the best look ye...
Continue reading ...

I find the hollow earth idea fascinating,,,implausible but,,,intriguing to read the mind-bends tho,,,

The idea that the Earth is hollow is an outlandish one, on a par, many would argue, with a belief that the Earth is flat. There isn't much in the way of evidence, except for some unverifiable stories and a few highly contested photos that purport to show the hole at the North Pole. (There is supposedly a matching hole at the South Pole.) But the notion of a hollow Earth has persisted over the ...
Continue reading ...

Whether it's seeing Jesus in a piece of toast (as one woman reported in 2004) or venerating Christ's foreskin (yes, really), people seem to have a need to get close to objects associated with the founder of Christianity. Here are some of the relics that have earned a place in churches and cathedrals around the world.

Religious Mysteries: 8 Alleged Relics of Jesus
Continue reading ...

If it was simply a weather balloon that appeared over an Antarctic research station, then why hasn't anyone confirmed it?

[,,,]
But Ben Radford, writing in Live Science, suggests that's not unusual when video is sped up. "That's what happens in time-lapse photography: objects that are not stationary for long periods of time only appear in a few frames. ... There's nothing mysterious about it."

[,,,]
"I have examined the evidence and have concluded that this is a craft and that it is most li...
Continue reading ...

It had been thought that Waldseemueller had only made four copies, but researchers at a Munich university have now discovered a fifth version.

This new map was found in the pages of an unrelated 19th century book.

Sven Kuttner, head of old books at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, said: “It seems to be a second edition and this is a unique map. Until now, we have no signs for a further map like this.”

Rare copy of Waldseemueller's early America map found in Germany
Continue reading ...

Nibiru, in Babylonian Astronomy translates to “Planet of Crossing” or “Point of Transition”, especially of rivers, i.e. river crossings or ferry-boats, a term of the highest point of the ecliptic, i.e. the point of summer solstice, and its associated constellation. The establishment of the Nibiru point is described in tablet 5 of the Enuma Elish. Its cuneiform sign was often a cross, or various winged disc. The Sumerian culture was located in the fertile lands between the Euphrates an...
Continue reading ...

Continue reading ...

Washington Post National By Marc Kaufman, Published: January 31

After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, dark lake that hasn’t been touched by light for more than 20 million years.

Scientists are enormously excited about what life-forms might be found there but are equally worried about contaminating the lake with drilling fluids and bacteria, and the potentially explosive “de-gassing” of a body ...

Continue reading ...