Scientists Doubt Bacteria Claim

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: March 13, 2013 (Issue # 1750)

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Russian scientists based at Antarctica’s subglacial Lake Vostok, claimed to have found an unknown group of bacteria in samples of ice taken from the lake last week.

However, the head of the laboratory where the genetic analysis was done, Vladimir Korolyov, has cast doubt on the veracity of the findings, saying that most of the bacteria found were contaminants.

Russian media reported last week that the samples, taken from the lake in 2012, contained DNA from a unique microbe which was not classified in databases of microorganisms.

But on Monday, Korolyov, who is head of the laboratory at St. Petersburg’s Nuclear Physics Institute where the finding was analyzed, told Interfax that most of the bacteria in the samples were now thought to be contaminants from the drilling process or from the lab itself.

“We found certain specimens, although not many. All of them were contaminants,” said Korolyov, Interfax reported.

Korolyov said that pure samples would be gathered from Lake Vostok next year.

In February 2012, Russian scientists were the first to reach the waters of Lake Vostok, which has been preserved under 3,768 meters of Antarctic ice for millions of years.

Drilling of the borehole to the lake began in 1990 and lasted 20 years. The Russian Academy of Sciences compared the event on a scale with landing on Mars.

Scientists anticipate that the waters of the lake, which has been isolated from the Earth’s atmosphere for several million years, may contain creatures hitherto unknown to science and having no relatives elsewhere on earth.