Monday, March 15, 2010

Defying Expectations and Piquing The Interest Of Seafood Lovers Everywhere - NASA Finds Shrimp Deep Under Antarctic Ice

So much for that whole scientific certainty thing, and a testament to the point of both how much we still don't know about the world. Life, even in the harshest of environments adapts, evolves, overcomes, and finds a way.

The Detorit News: NASA finds shrimp dinner on ice beneath Antarctica
In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That's why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there," said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. "It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate."
Of course it was just one shrimp-relative, so we're hardly looking at under ice sea farming any time soon.

Yet another example of the need to constantly test your presumptions and expectations when dealing with the life and earth sciences. There's always something new and awesome out there and so much we just don't know.

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