Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice



A hundred years ago, two teams of explorers set out to be the first people ever to reach the South Pole. The race between Roald Amundsen of Norway and Robert Falcon Scott of Britain became the stuff of triumph, tragedy, and legend. (See rare pictures of Scott's expedition.)


Today, another Antarctic drama is underway that has a similar daring and intensity—but very different stakes.


Three unprecedented, major expeditions are underway to drill deep through the ice covering the continent and, researchers hope, penetrate three subglacial lakes not even known to exist until recently.


The three players—Russia, Britain, and the United States—are all on the ice now and are in varying stages of their preparations. The first drilling was attempted last week by the British team at Lake Ellsworth, but mechanical problems soon cropped up in the unforgiving Antarctic cold, putting a temporary hold on their work.


The key scientific goal of the missions: to discover and identify living organisms in Antarctica's dark, pristine, and hidden recesses. (See "Antarctica May Contain 'Oasis of Life.'")


Scientists believe the lakes may well be home to the kind of "extreme" life that could eke out an existence on other planets or moons of our solar system, so finding them on Earth could help significantly in the search for life elsewhere.



An illustration shows lakes and rivers under Antarctica's ice.
Lakes and rivers are buried beneath Antarctica's thick ice (enlarge).

Illustration courtesy Zina Deretsky, NSF




While astrobiology—the search for life beyond Earth—is a prime mover in the push into subglacial lakes, so too is the need to better understand the ice sheet that covers the vast continent and holds much of the world's water. If the ice sheet begins to melt due to global warming, the consequences—such as global sea level rise—could be catastrophic.


"We are the new wave of Antarctic explorers, pioneers if you will," said Montana State University's John Priscu, chief scientist of the U.S. drilling effort this season and a longtime Antarctic scientist.


"After years of planning, projects are coming together all at once," he said.


"What we find this year and next will set the stage for Antarctic science for the next generation and more—just like with the explorers a century ago."


All Eyes on the Brits


All three research teams are at work now, but the drama is currently focused on Lake Ellsworth, buried 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) below the West Antarctic ice sheet.


A 12-person British team is using a sophisticated technique that involves drilling down using water melted from the ice, which is then heated to 190 degrees Fahrenheit (88 degrees Celsius).


The first drilling attempt began on December 12, but was stopped at almost 200 feet (61 meters) because of technical problems with the sensors on the drill nozzle.


Drilling resumed on Saturday but then was delayed when both boilers malfunctioned, requiring the team to wait for spare parts. The situation is frustrating but normal due to the harsh climate, British Antarctic team leader Martin Siegert, who helped discover Lake Ellsworth in 2004, said in an email from the site.


After completing their drilling, the team will have about 24 hours to collect their samples before the hole freezes back up in the often below-zero cold. If all goes well, they could have lake water and mud samples as early as this week.


"Our expectation is that microbes will be found in the lake water and upper sediment," Siegert said. "We would be highly surprised if this were not the case."


The British team lives in tents and makeshift shelters, and endures constant wind as well as frigid temperatures. (Take an Antarctic quiz.)


"Right now we are working round the clock in a cold, demanding and extreme location-it's testing our own personal endurance, but it's worth it," Siegert said.


U.S. First to Find Life?


The U.S. team is drilling into Lake Whillans, a much shallower body about 700 miles inland (1,120 kilometers) in the region that drains into the Ross Sea.


The lake, which is part of a broader water system under the ice, may well have the greatest chances of supporting microbial life, experts say. Hot-water drilling begins there in January.


Among the challenges: Lake Whillans lies under an ice stream, which is similar to a glacier but is underground and surrounded by ice on all sides. It moves slowly but constantly, and that complicates efforts to drill into the deepest—and most scientifically interesting—part of the lake.


Montana State's Priscu—currently back in the U.S. for medical reasons—said his team will bring a full lab to the Lake Whillans drilling site to study samples as they come up: something the Russians don't have the interest or capacity in doing and that the British will be trying in a more limited way. (Also see "Pictures: 'Extreme' Antarctic Science Revealed.")


So while the U.S. team may be the last of the three to penetrate their lake, they could be the first to announce the discovery of life in deep subglacial lakes.


"We should have a good idea of the abundance and type of life in the lake and sediments before we leave the site," said Priscu, who plans to return to Antarctica in early January if doctors allow.


"And we want to know as much as possible about how they make a living down there without energy from the sun and without nutrients most life-forms need."


All subglacial lakes are kept liquid by heat generated from the pressure of the heavy load of ice above them, and also from heat emanating from deeper in the Earth's crust.


In addition, the movement of glaciers and "ice streams" produces heat from friction, which at least temporarily results in a wet layer at the very bottom of the ice.


The Lake Whillans drilling is part of the larger Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project, first funded in 2009 by the U.S. National Science Foundation with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


That much larger effort will also study the ice streams that feed and leave the lake to learn more about another aspect of Antarctic dynamism: The recently discovered web of more than 360 lakes and untold streams and rivers—some nearing the size of the Amazon Basin—below the ice. (See "Chain of Cascading Lakes Discovered Under Antarctica.")


Helen Fricker, a member of the WISSARD team and a glaciologist at University of California, San Diego, said that scientists didn't begin to understand the vastness of Antarctica's subglacial water world until after the turn of the century.


That hidden, subterranean realm has "incredibly interesting and probably never classified biology," Fricker said.


"But it can also give us important answers about the climate history of the Earth, and clues about the future, too, as the climate changes."


Russia Returning to Successful Site


While both the U.S. and British teams have websites to keep people up to date on their work, the Russians do not, and have been generally quiet about their plans for this year.


The Russians have a team at Lake Vostok, the largest and deepest subglacial lake in Antarctica at more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) below the icy surface of the East Antarctic plateau.


The Vostok drilling began in the 1950s, well before anyone knew there was an enormous lake beneath the ice. The Russians finally and briefly pierced the lake early this year, before having to leave because of the cold. That breakthrough was portrayed at the time as a major national accomplishment.


According to Irina Alexhina, a Russian scientist with the Vostok team who was visiting the U.S. McMurdo Station last week, the Russian plan for this season focuses on extracting the ice core that rose in February when Vostok was breached. She said the team arrived this month and can stay through early February.


Preliminary results from the February breach report no signs of life on the drill bit that entered the water, but some evidence of life in small samples of the "accretion ice," which is frozen to the bottom of the lake, said Lake Vostok expert Sergey Bulat, of the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, in May.


Both results are considered tentative because of the size of the sample and how they were retrieved. In addition, sampling water from the very top of Lake Vostok is far less likely to find organisms than farther down or in the bottom sediment, scientists say.


"It's like taking a scoop of water from the top of Lake Ontario and making conclusions about the lake based on that," said Priscu, who has worked with the Russians at Vostok.


He said he hopes to one day be part of a fully international team that will bring the most advanced drilling and sample collecting technology to Vostok.


Extreme Antarctic Microbes Found


Some results have already revealed life under the ice. A November study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that subglacial Lake Vida—which is smaller and closer to the surface than other subglacial lakes—does indeed support a menagerie of strange and often unknown bacteria.


The microbes survive in water six times saltier than the oceans, with no oxygen, and with the highest level of nitrous oxide ever found in water on Earth, said study co-author Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center.


"What Antarctica is telling us is that organisms can eke out a living in the most extreme of environments," said McKay, an expert in the search for life beyond Earth.


McKay called Lake Vida the closest analog found so far to the two ice and water moons in the solar system deemed most likely to support extraterrestrial life—Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Enceladus.


But that "closest analog" designation may soon change. Life-forms found in Vostok, Ellsworth, or Whillans would all be living at a much greater depth than at Lake Vida—meaning that they'd have to contend with more pressure, more limited nutrients, and a source of energy entirely unrelated to the sun.


"Unique Moment in Antarctica"


The prospect of finding microscopic life in these extreme conditions may not seem to be such a big deal for understanding our planet—or the possibility of life on others. (See Antarctic pictures by National Geographic readers.)


But scientists point out that only bacteria and other microbes were present on Earth for 3 billion of the roughly 3.8 billion years that life has existed here. Our planet, however, had conditions that allowed those microbes to eventually evolve into more complex life and eventually into everything biological around us.


While other moons and planets in our solar system do not appear capable of supporting evolution, scientists say they may support—or have once supported—primitive microbial life.


And drilling into Antarctica's deep lakes could provide clues about where extraterrestrial microbes might live, and how they might be identified.


In addition, Priscu said there are scores of additional Antarctic targets to study to learn about extreme life, climate change, how glaciers move, and the dynamics of subterranean rivers and lakes.


"We actually know more about the surface of Mars than about these subglacial systems of Antarctica," he said. "That's why this work involves such important and most likely transformative science."


Mahlon "Chuck" Kennicutt, the just-retired president of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, an international coordinating group, called this year "a unique moment in Antarctica."


"There's a growing understanding of the continent as a living, dynamic place—not a locked-in ice desert—and that has created real scientific excitement."


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Newtown Shooting: Bushmaster Under Fire













When the private investment firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it would unload its interest in Bushmaster – the company that built the weapon used in last week's mass murder of 20 Connecticut first graders -- it marked the beginning of what experts say is likely to be a challenging period for the North Carolina-based weapons manufacturer.


"They are looking at a taint on their brand and looking at a marketplace that could change dramatically with respect to their weapon," said Chris Lehane, a crisis public relations expert who worked in the Clinton White House. "To me the fact that Cerberus is pulling out is a pretty significant defining moment."


For years, Bushmaster has been marketing itself to testosterone-fueled male customers, issuing "man cards" to customers who want to be "card carrying men." Now, Lehane and others said the company is facing the prospect of being branded the weapon of choice for mass killers. The Newtown, Connecticut shooting marked the fourth time a Bushmaster has been implicated in a mass shooting since 1999, including the Beltway sniper case that left 10 dead and three more wounded.


Cerberus announced Tuesday it wanted distance from Bushmaster, calling the murder of 20 first grade children at Sandy Hook Elementary School a "watershed event." The investment firm, which is chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle, noted in its statement that Bushmaster may not be an investment consistent with the interests of its clients. Its investors include the pension plans of firemen, teachers, and policemen.






Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo











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Lehane said the announcement could signal a shift in the way investors view companies that make military style weapons for a civilian market.


"It reminds me of the time when tobacco began to be associated with a negative light, or the divestiture movement surrounding companies in South Africa," he said. "Where financial markets believe they are going to pay a price."


In addition, a spokesman for Cerberus Group confirmed that the father of Stephen Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Group, lives in Newtown.


Gun control groups have also lined up to criticize the weapons manufacturer, arguing that the company was selling civilian customers a weapon clearly designed for war.


"This thing is just a killing machine," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "[I]t's a weapon that can easily shoot hundreds of … In fact it's very similar to the weapon that James Holmes used to shoot up the movie theater in Aurora."


The company has not responded to phone calls seeking comment, but gun enthusiasts say the weapon's menacing appearance can appeal to civilians looking for a means to secure their homes, and its ease of use can appeal to those looking for a weapon for target shooting.


"The [assault rifle] platform is the most popular in the country," said Frank Cornwall, a firearms instructor in Connecticut. "Civilians have always bought similar type arms to the military. And this is a very versatile platform. Quite a popular hunting and target shooting gun."


Phillip Stutts, a crisis management consultant who worked for President George W. Bush, said he has been surprised by the silence of the gun manufacturer.


"Bushmaster doesn't have to take responsibility for this tragedy, but they have a responsibility to respond to this tragedy," he said. "And they haven't. They have to get out in front of this. It needs to be corrected ASAP."






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Obama asks Cabinet members for proposals to curb gun violence



The effort will be led by Vice President Biden, according to two people outside the government who have spoken to senior administration officials since Friday, when a gunman killed his mother and rampaged through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children, six adults and himself.

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US schools yearn for security 'bubble' after shooting






WASHINGTON: Except in tragedy-hit Newtown, pupils returned to class around the United States on Monday, three days after an elementary school shooting massacre that triggered debate over school security.

Parents and teachers alike are intent now more than ever on making sure the "protective bubble" at schools is impenetrable to outside threats.

At Kensington Parkwood Elementary School just outside Washington, visitors must show credentials to enter the institution.

Just like any school day of the year, each student, each parent and each teacher -- even the principal -- must go through the main entrance's secured doors and check in with staff.

Unlike other institutions in the United States, where police and extra security guards have been deployed following the shooting that left 20 young children and six adults dead, the Kensington school is seeking a sense of normalcy.

"Today is a usual day," stressed school principal Barbara Liess. "Routine is one thing that's important for kids. That's how you build trust, that's how you build a sense of comfort."

Many parents have opted not to discuss the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, whose child victims saw their innocent lives cut short at just six or seven years old.

"My six-year-old understands that things happen in life; people come, people go, things live, things die, people live, people die, but it's just something I don't think they need to be exposed to," said Kensington parent Dori Matalia.

The school will follow guidance from education officials in Maryland's Montgomery County to avoid addressing the subject in class, unless individual students want to discuss the matter with a psychologist made available to them.

As with their peers across the nation, Kensington Parkwood students started the school day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance -- an expression of loyalty to the nation -- with their right hands on their hearts, then heard the principal on closed circuit television.

But this morning is not exactly like all the others. Liess chose to remind students that "doors need to keep closed all the time... need to stay locked" and that "nobody can enter the building without going through the office."

Like Liess, other school administrators sent notices over the weekend to assure parents they were "committed" to the safety of students and their families.

St. Peter School in Washington said it had "carefully thought-out safety policies and procedures" in place to respond to emergencies, designed to respond to a variety of emergencies.

"Though I pray we never have to use it for such a situation, our Code Red is a lock-down response intended to prepare the community for a crisis much like the one that occurred (Friday) in Connecticut," St. Peter officials wrote to parents.

Kensington Parkwood plans to go through a security drill toward the end of the week when the school will be in lockdown. The drills usually take place four times per year, along with others to protect against hurricane threats.

Children are told to hide in cubbies or under their desks, and to keep quiet to make the building seem empty.

"Of course, this is an example of how horrific things can happen. But in general, school is the safest place for kids to be," said Liess.

"It would be great if every kid would be surrounded by a protective bubble and nothing could ever happen to them, but it's not reality. But as much as possible, that's what we create here."

Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, wondered how far a society like that in the United States, which cherishes its freedoms, could go.

"The school was doing everything right, the school was actually locked down," he said. "Even so, it's not enough to deter an individual that intends to break in the school while shooting... unless you turn schools into prisons with metal detectors.'

Domenech said the many shooting tragedies that have scarred the nation boil down to a "societal issue" about gun control and awareness of mental illness and potential violence.

- AFP/ck



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Court rap secures sanction to prosecute tainted employees in Himachal Pradesh

SHIMLA: In response to court directions issued on December 6, the state government on Monday informed Himachal Pradesh high court that all cases awaiting prosecution sanction, barring four of them, had been cleared.

Principal secretary (home and vigilance) under oath submitted before the court that for the remaining four cases also the process would be completed within 15 days. The next review meeting is also to be held within two weeks, the official let the court know.

Issuing stern directions, Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rajiv Sharma cautioned that should the duty holders not complete the process regarding the request for sanction for prosecution within three months, they would be held liable and answerable to the charge of abiding delay in prosecution. In that event, needless to say that the officers would be personally responsible for all the consequences, apart from contempt proceedings, the judges said.

In the last hearing, the judges had directed the chief secretary to file a report whether there was any case pending before the government that was awaiting prosecution sanction for more than three months. Last week, a court had decreed stopping the salary of principal secretary, health, for contempt of court for not implementing an order that had been passed by the high court last year.

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GRAIL Mission Goes Out With a Bang

Jane J. Lee


On Friday, December 14, NASA sent their latest moon mission into a death spiral. Rocket burns nudged GRAIL probes Ebb and Flow into a new orbit designed to crash them into the side of a mountain near the moon's north pole today at around 2:28 p.m. Pacific standard time. NASA named the crash site after late astronaut Sally Ride, America's first woman in space.

Although the mountain is located on the nearside of the moon, there won't be any pictures because the area will be shadowed, according to a statement from NASA' Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Originally sent to map the moon's gravity field, Ebb and Flow join a long list of man-made objects that have succumbed to a deadly lunar attraction. Decades of exploration have left a trail of debris intentionally crashed, accidentally hurtled, or deliberately left on the moon's surface. Some notable examples include:

Ranger 4 - Part of NASA's first attempt to snap close-up pictures of the moon, the Ranger program did not start off well. Rangers 1 through 6 all failed, although Ranger 4, launched April 23, 1962, did make it as far as the moon. Sadly, onboard computer failures kept number 4 from sending back any pictures before it crashed. (See a map of all artifacts on the moon.)

Fallen astronaut statue - This 3.5-inch-tall aluminum figure commemorates the 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who had died prior to the Apollo 15 mission. That crew left it behind in 1971, and NASA wasn't aware of what the astronauts had done until a post-flight press conference.

Lunar yard sale - Objects jettisoned by Apollo crews over the years include a television camera, earplugs, two "urine collection assemblies," and tools that include tongs and a hammer. Astronauts left them because they needed to shed weight in order to make it back to Earth on their remaining fuel supply, said archivist Colin Fries of the NASA History Program Office.

Luna 10 - A Soviet satellite that crashed after successfully orbiting the moon, Luna 10 was the first man-made object to orbit a celestial body other than Earth. Its Russian controllers had programmed it to broadcast the Communist anthem "Internationale" live to the Communist Party Congress on April 4, 1966. Worried that the live broadcast could fail, they decided to broadcast a recording of the satellite's test run the night before—a fact they revealed 30 years later.

Radio Astronomy Explorer B - The U.S. launched this enormous instrument, also known as Explorer 49, into a lunar orbit in 1973. At 600 feet (183 meters) across, it's the largest man-made object to enter orbit around the moon. Researchers sent it into its lunar orbit so it could take measurements of the planets, the sun, and the galaxy free from terrestrial radio interference. NASA lost contact with the satellite in 1977, and it's presumed to have crashed into the moon.

(Learn about lunar exploration.)


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Newtown Boy Remembered as 'Old Soul'


Dec 17, 2012 6:02pm







abc daniel barden family ll 121217 wblog Sandy Hook Elementary Victim 7 Year Old Daniel Barden Was Old Soul

Family of Daniel Barden, who died in the Connecticut school shootings. From left, his brother James, 12, and his parents, Mark and Jackie. (Image Credit: ABC)


Though he was only in first grade, Daniel Barden was very much an “old soul,” his family said today.  He was one of the 20 children who died Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.


At the age of 4, he displayed an empathy for others remarkable for a child so young.  It didn’t go unnoticed — teachers chose Daniel to be paired with a special education student at his school.


PHOTOS: Connecticut Shooting Victims


His mother, Jackie Barden, said she was always struck by “how unusual he was.”


“Our neighbors always said, ‘He’s like an old soul,’” Barden said during an interview on “Katie.”


He carried that kindness with him as he got older.


“He would hold doors open for adults all the time,” said his father, Mark Barden.


He laughed, remembering the times he’d be “halfway” across a parking lot and see his son still holding a door for strangers.


“Our son had so much love to give to this world,” Barden said. “He was supposed to have a whole lifetime of bringing that light to the world.”


Complete Coverage: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


Daniel had two older siblings, James, age 12, and Natalie, age 10, who doted on their little brother.


“He was just so sweet and kind and thoughtful,” James said.


On Friday, 7-year-old Daniel, who was one of the 20 young victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School, woke up early.  He played foosball with his mother.


As usual, Daniel won, she said. The score was 10 to 8.


His father also taught him how to play “Jingle Bells” on the piano that morning.


“We did a lot in that half hour,” he said.


A celebration of Daniel’s life will be held Tuesday at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church. A funeral is scheduled for Wednesday.



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Obama speaks in Newtown, Conn. as new details emerge about shootings



He spent part of the afternoon watching his own young daughter Sasha in a dance rehearsal, and then arrived a few hours later here to meet privately with the parents who won’t see their children sing and dance again. “You are not alone in your grief,” he said. “Our world, too, has been torn apart.”

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Obama vows to take action to stop mass shootings






NEWTOWN, Connecticut: US President Barack Obama vowed Sunday to use all his power to make sure that shooting tragedies like the one that left 20 small children and six adults dead in Newtown are not repeated.

"We can't accept events like this as routine," Obama told a poignant multi-faith vigil in the Connecticut town. "We as a nation are left with some hard questions. These tragedies have to end, and to end them we must change."

An impassioned Obama offered the "love and prayers of a nation" to families of the victims, saying all Americans stood by their side in mourning the tragic loss.

"I can only hope it helps for you to know that you're not alone in your grief; that our world, too, has been torn apart; that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you," Obama said.

"We've pulled our children tight, and you must know that whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide. Whatever portion of sadness that we can share with you to ease this heavy load, we will gladly bear it.

"Newtown, you are not alone."

Earlier, officials formally identified Adam Lanza, 20, as the shooter who ran amok in the picture postcard town, confirming that he shot his mother several times in the head at the house they shared before going to his old school and embarking on a gruesome killing spree.

His child victims were just six and seven years old, a loss of innocence Obama blamed on an "unconscionable evil."

"In the face of indescribable violence, in the face of unconscionable evil, you've looked out for each other," Obama said.

Lanza used his mother's bushmaster .223 assault rifle to kill 26 people at the school, including 20 children aged either six or seven, before taking his own life with a handgun as police officers closed in and sirens wailed.

The president made an urgent call for Americans to do more to prevent a repeat of the countless shooting tragedies that have scarred the nation.

"Since I've been president, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by mass shootings... and in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country," he said.

"We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change."

"I'll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this," he said.

Obama acknowledged that "no single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society," but indicated that he would seek action.

"Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage?" he asked. "That the politics are too hard. Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?"

- AFP/ck



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Railways to adopt PPP mode for modernization: Bansal

SANGRUR: Union railway minister Pawan Bansal said on Sunday that public private partnership (PPP) mode would be adopted for modernizing and upgrading the railway infrastructure.

The minister, who was in Sangrur and Barnala districts of Punjab to lay the foundation stones for new railway projects, said that Rs 1.10 lakh crore would be generated through PPP mode for implementing the revamping plan.

"Railways is failing in mobilizing the required funds through internal sources. The annual plan for the ongoing fiscal has been cut short by over Rs 4,000 crore and the plan outlay has been reduced from earlier Rs 60,100 crore to Rs 55,900 crore," he said.

Bansal, who belongs to Tapa town of Barnala district, said, "The railways has chalked out ambitious plans for doubling the tracks, electrification, laying of new railway lines and manufacture of coaches in the next five years. All this will be done on PPP mode."

Bansal said that railways will need about 30,000 more coaches in the coming years and for this, all the states have been asked to provide land on which railways will set up coach factories.

"Both Punjab and Haryana have already shown keen interest in the plan," said Bansal.

He said that presently, there are 14,000 unmanned railway crossings in India and the railways is inching towards making these manned in a phased manner.

Bansal said that the Kolkata-Ludhiana and Delhi-Mumbai freight corridors will be completed during the next five years.

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