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Unlike what Hollywood would lead us to believe organisms cut off from the rest of the world don't become dangerous. In fact the opposite is more likely, organis
by hartror 14y ago
Unlike what Hollywood would lead us to believe organisms cut off from the rest of the world don't become dangerous. In fact the opposite is more likely, organisms cut off from the rest of the ecosystem are more likely to be specialised and be at risk themselves from outside organisms.
- Smudge 14y agoBut which are the "outside" organisms -- us or them? ;-)
- sliverstorm 14y agoIt's like you are trying to be deep, but didn't actually read your parent.
- ghshephard 14y agoThe parent wrote: "Unlike what Hollywood would lead us to believe organisms cut off from the rest of the world don't become dangerous. In fact the opposite is more likely, organisms cut off from the rest of the ecosystem are more likely to be specialised and be at risk themselves from outside organisms." So, the question the Smudge was genuinely asking (and I think it's a clever one) is are the "organisms cut off from the rest of the ecosystem" the microbes in the glacial lake, or are the humans the "organisms cut off from the rest of the ecosystem" for 100,000 years?
- sliverstorm 14y agoThe only way to consider the rest of the world, with its 8.7 million species, to be the organism that was cut off from a few types of bacteria in a remote lake is to quibble over pointless semantics.
- gus_massa 14y agoProbably they are very specialized to live in those conditions (I guess: low salinity, very low temperature, low light, high pressure, low nutrients). So the usual bacteria won't survive too long there. I think that the biggest problem of the scientific is to ensure that the bacteria they got come from the lake and are not dew to contamination.