Results tagged “microbes” from 60 Second Science

See that cute guy up there? He's our old friend Herpes — I know a few of you out there might have had a run-in with this lil' bugger in the recent past (one in four of you, actually). Now you can celebrate your outbreaks by cuddling up with your very own plush version of herpes simplex type 2, thanks to the dreamweavers at Giant Microbes!

In fact, they've got all the venereal diseases, plus other adorable plagues like the flu, the common cold, ebola, and yes, the black plague! All these lovely pathogens come at an affordable $7.95 — perfect stocking stuffers for the doctor, terminally ill person, or bacterially afflicted relative in your family.

Continue reading '60 S.S. Giftology: Plush microbes' >

When we first posted about the multinational effort between Russia, France, and the U.S. to drill near the hidden Lake Vostok in Antarctica, I have to admit I was worried. Not about the Frogs, mind you -- those cowards wouldn't do anything without our say-so. But you can't trust Russians around uncharted territory.

Sadly, I was right about those borscht-eating bastards: Russia plans to drill into the depths of Lake Vostok, ignoring researchers' principal concerns about potentially contaminating the pristine lake. Buried 4 km below Antarctic ice, Lake Vostok could harbor life forms that exist in a similar manner to possible extraterrestrial life in harsh environments like Europa. Introducing outside microbes could irreparably damage scientific efforts, but that seems to matter little to the vodka-swilling, Dostoevsky-reading intruders.

Continue reading 'Under-ice Antarctic Lake Update: The Reds have double-crossed us!' >

Antarctica's Lake Vostok lies below 4 kilometers of ice, is 15 million years old, and may reveal new organisms that survive in total darkness and cold without sustenance from the sun. It also sounds like the perfect place for the base of an evil genius — I'm planning on looking into real estate promptly.

For five years,a joint team of Russian, American and French scientists have sought to core the ice around the lake, which provides a paleo-climatic record of at least 400,000 years, and maybe as much as a million years. Finally, scientists are now thawing ice segments cut from an 11,866-foot ice core drilled back in 1998. Scientists have been worried about contaminating the lake with microbes from the surface world, but they got around that problem by taking the core from 656 feet above the surface of the lake, two miles below the surface of Antarctica. The ice has since been stored at -35 degrees Celsius at the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, where I'm applying for a job tomorrow.

Continue reading 'Scientists probe ice from 15-million-year-old Antarctic lake, praise its "refreshing taste"' >

Well, I guess I owe Carl Sagan $50 after all. Recent research involving artificial meteorites sent to and returned from space shows that microbial elements survived the journey, lending credence to the idea that the origins of all life on earth could have originated from an alien source.

Did you hear that sound? That whooshing noise is the collective intake of breath from millions of stoners who "invented" this same idea while hitting a wad of Hawaiian Gold in a four-foot banana bong. Now those same jerks will think they're right about everything.

Continue reading 'Alien life could survive trip to earth; E.T., Superman breathe sighs of relief' >