Vostok

Lake Vostok (cross-section) prior to completion of drilling. Credit: National Science Foundation Okay, this may not have anything to do with animal physiology...but then again maybe it does... Russian scientists have just retrieved a core sample of frozen ice from the subsurface Lake Vostok in Antarctica that has been isolated from the outside world for at least 100,000 if not millions of years. The lake was protected by 4,000 meters of ice. The scientists drilled a hole that reached the surface of the lake and allowed the pressure from the lake to raise the water into the hole, where it…