Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin received a drink fit for dinosaurs on Friday when he was presented with a sample of ancient water from a subglacial Antarctic lake pierced by Russian scientists.
The event was screened on national television. The footage appeared aimed at showing Russia’s scientific prowess and helping Putin’s bid to reclaim the presidency in March’s election.
Putin hailed the discovery of Lake Vostok, which has lain untouched under the ice for at least 14 million years, as a “great event” and said the research team members would receive national awards.
After more than two decades of drilling, the Russian researchers reached the lake last Sunday at a depth of 3.759km in a location about 1,300km east of the South Pole.
Reaching the surface of Lake Vostok, the largest of nearly 400 sub-glacial lakes in Antarctica, was a major discovery avidly anticipated by scientists around the world.
“Well, did you drink the water?” Putin asked Russia’s Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev after being presented with a vial of water, which the government said was from the Vostok borehole.
Trutnev, looking flustered, assured Putin that he had not tried a drop of the water.
“Well it would have been interesting, you know: Dinosaurs drank it and Trutnev, a member of the Russian government, too,” Putin said with a smile.
Trutnev stifled a chortle and said he did not want to be a dinosaur.
Sealed deep under the ice, Lake Vostok is one of the world’s last unexplored frontiers. Scientists believe that microbial life might exist in the dark depths of the lake, despite its high pressure and constant cold — conditions similar to those believed to be found under the ice crust on Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
US and British teams are drilling to reach their own subglacial Antarctic lakes, but they are smaller and younger than Vostok.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the