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News Science

Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Ice 96

Posted by samzenpus from the ancient-daiquiri dept.
ToxikFetus writes "During expedition to Antarctica to research past climate patterns, Japanese scientists unearth million-year-old block of ice, breaking the previous mark by 200,000 years."
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Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Ice More

Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Ice

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  • i wonder... (Score:3, Funny)

    by baub ( 948313 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:17PM (#14551058) Homepage
    is it still cold?

  • Sadly, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Odin_Tiger ( 585113 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:17PM (#14551060) Journal
    the sample was destroyed when the scientists decided to celebrate with drinks on the rocks.
    • You joke, but at the Dome C drilling site upon completion, everyone had whiskey on the rocks - on 1,000,000 year old ice - apparently it practically exploded in the glass due to the pressure of the gas trapped within.

  • bible is teh truth (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    you silly secular atheist. earth is only 6000 year old.
  • There are many obvious errors in the methods they used of measuring the age of that ice. Even the pictures in that article are clearly Photoshopped.

    I'm a teenager, and my high school biology class here in Topeka School District has already performed a detailed analysis of these biased claims. Since the ice cannot be more than about 6,000 years old, and the article even advocates the "fact" of climate change and microbial evolution, you can easily see how they're trying to destroy religion in America.

    • Wait until you get into college. They will teach you how to use photoshop properly for scientific experiments. On a Mac, no less! :P
    • Ahh...you fortunate souls in Topeka, at least your leaders are honest about violating the seperation between Church and State. Here in Utah, the current Bill (SB 96) distinctly avoids any use of words relating to Religion, Creation, or Intelligent Design. It also fails to identify by name any of the "other theories" that the teachers are supposed to indicate that exist.

      Next thing you know Orin Hatch will be pushing a bill to put the words "In Someone We Trust" on our money and swear up and down this solve
    • If you look closely at the top-right of the picture you can see a noodley appendage.

      • If you look closely at the top-right of the picture you can see a noodley appendage.

        Flying Spaghetti Monsterism holds that a decline in piracy leads to global warming. But hasn't there been a sharp increase in piracy through napster, winmx, kazaa, and now emule and bittorrent over the last six years?

    • Wow, I hate to be naive, but are you being sarcastic?
      This country is going down hill fast, but it's because these brain dead conservatives are starting to gain voice in DC and on TV and are trying to make everyone one else feel wrong and stop forward progress. They're like the Amish, or something. "We know we're backward, but we want to be right, ha ha ha!"
  • So, the important questions is this: What was water made of 1,000,000 years ago?

    (Yes, it's a joke. Yes, I'm aware that this is significant because the trace amounts of other minerals and elements that they'll find in it will be major signifiers of the atmospheric composition back then.)
  • Japanese scientists dig up million-year-old ice and find a giant moth. Godzilla saves the day.
  • What I want to know is if there is frozen whale meat in that block of ice.

  • Ice versus.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 955301 ( 209856 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:29PM (#14551177) Journal
    I wonder, would this have been news if it was a rock core sample? Or perhaps some really deep dirt? Understanding of course that ice potentially contains more to study because it's a fluid at temperatures that live is able to exist in, but it seems a little strange to suggest that people outside this field of science should get excited. It's a piece of solid material which at some point in the past was a liquid:

    Japanese Scientists Dig up Million-year-old Rock

    News Science
    ToxikFetus writes "During expedition to Africa to research past climate patterns, Japanese scientists unearth million-year-old block of rock, breaking the previous mark by 200,000 years."

    • It's a piece of solid material which at some point in the past was a liquid

      It was probably a vapor at some point, too.

    • Re:Ice versus.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spurtle15 ( 899792 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:43PM (#14551303)
      Yes, but it is easier for bubbles to form in ice that contains trapped ancient air samples. It's the old air they're excited about.
    • I wonder, would this have been news if it was a rock core sample? [...] it seems a little strange to suggest that people outside this field of science should get excited.
      Well, old rock made the BBC [bbc.co.uk].

      You can find more news articles about old rocks if you Google for a minute.


    • I wonder, would this have been news if it was a rock core sample?

      A million years is actually very young for rock. For comparison, the ordinary everyday rock from Devils Tower in Wyoming varies from between 100-200 million years old. The grand canyon ranges in age from 200 million to 2 billion years old. So I think it's safe to say that someone digging up rock that's merely a million years old wouldn't make the news.

    • Re:Ice versus.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stevesliva ( 648202 )
      The reason ice cores are important is that they contain records of climate change, and climate change is big news these days.
    • I wonder, would this have been news if it was a rock core sample?

      Sorta. Really old rocks are news, but a million years isn't much for rocks. The principle holds, yes, but the time scale is entirely different. We have a few zircons from Australia which are almost 4.3 billion years old [usgs.gov], so the number would have to be three and a half orders of magnitude bigger.

  • In related news. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:33PM (#14551208) Homepage
    I think this is cool, but the more exciting thing that Japanese geologists are doing is planning to drill into the earth's core. link [channelnewsasia.com]
    • The article lead-in is wrong, since they have no plans to get anywhere near the core. They are planning on drilling down to the mantle (which is correctly reported later in the article). As this figure [usc.edu] shows, this is akin to breaking through the skin of an apple to see what mushy goodness lies within.

  • ...all contact with the Japanese antarctic research station has been lost.

    Researchers from McMurdo have been dispatched to investigate.

    • Heheh one of my favorite movies :) http://imdb.com/title/tt0084787/ [imdb.com]

      MacReady: "I know I'm human. And if you were all these things, then you'd just attack me right now, so some of you are still human. This thing doesn't want to show itself, it wants to hide inside an imitation. It'll fight if it has to, but it's vulnerable out in the open. If it takes us over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it's won."

      Reminds me of my fellow posters here on /.

  • Seriously (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quokkapox ( 847798 ) <quokkapox@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:34PM (#14551221)
    You have all these measurements that come together consistently, the rate of ice formation, the depth of the ice, these cores are probably consistent with other cores from other areas across a wide range of metrics, you could analyze a million different factors and they all happen to come out in favor of an ancient Earth, not a young earth [wikipedia.org].

    Why won't the fanatics give it up? We need to get with the program and learn as much as we can about this planet before we kill ourselves off permanently.

    • Why won't the fanatics give it up?

      Because then people would stop paying attention to them and they'd have to grow up.

      Glad to help.

      TWW

    • Re:Seriously (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Gulthek ( 12570 )
      Duh. Earth has only existed for 5,000 years. But it was Created billions of years old.

      • Re:Seriously (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by quokkapox ( 847798 )
        Duh. Earth has only existed for 5,000 years. But it was Created billions of years old.

        A useless assumption that if true, affirms the existence of a deceptive creator. Sorry, deception is incompatible with infinite good and love.

        • Re:Seriously (Score:1, Flamebait)

          by StikyPad ( 445176 )
          Just to play devil's advocate, that's not necessarily true if a) that deception is in our best interest, b) the process involved in planet creation involves time dilation, c) we're simply incapable of understanding why things appear to be millions of years old, or d) our definitions of infinite good and love are flawed.

          Arguing against something which cannot be disproved is just as silly as arguing for it.
          • Wow, sounds like a time for occams razor. either they are dead wrong and there is no god, or they are wrong - they misinterpreted genesis.

            They can't accept either of these options - 'cause either of them destroys them. They have thrown out every leg to stand on except the bible. If they now admit that their interpretation of the bible is wrong, even on only one chapter, then everything is suspect and they lose all of their power over the congregations.

            BTW, b) is meaningless, time dialtion means that the ea

            • You're being naive if you think that disproving one aspect of religion will "destroy" religion on the whole. Religion is not static, nor is it bound to logic. Interpretations have changed over time to suit (or affect) the current geopolitical climate, and the present, despite the grandeurs of glory we may have to the contrary, is no different. Every society believes that the age they live in is immune from the simple-mindedness of its ancestors, that they are more enlightened.

              Regardless, if Occam's Razor
              • Religion in general? Of course you right about that. I was not refering to this at all. I was refering to a specific set of Protestant Christian fundamentalists - including 'born agains'

                Roman Catholics have gotten over their old interpretation of Genisis. They now officially state that the theory of evolution more or less describes the method that god used to create the earth etc. They are in no danger from modern science with respect to evolution because they have a pope, who can and does proclaim officia

                • That's the thing.. you're categorizing people as either uninformed, or informed. You're not allowing for the idea that people are "willfully uninformed." That they will be faithful in the face of evidence which contradicts events. Each person is different. Some may only use religion to explain things that are inadequately explained otherwise, and some may use it to reject science altogether.

                  At any rate, the key part of religion for the group you describe is their "personal relationship with God," not, p
        • Why deceptive? If _I_ could figure it out, then I don't really think that the Creator intended it as a super-secret idea.

          Anyhoo, who says that the Creator possesses infinite good and love? How do you know that I don't believe in a religion that says the universe was created by Ultimate Evil, but His Evil Plans went wrong and goodness crept into the hearts of men and thus an eternal struggle was born that can never be resolved...

          "I am evil HoMER! I am evil Ho-mer! I am evil HoMER!"
    • theres still people who believe we didnt land on the moon, and that the illuminati control the world. In essence there will always be a small minorty of people who will believe anything, no matter how stupid or what the evidence.
      • Wait a minute: you mean there a people who believe BOTH that the moon landings were faked AND that the Illuminati rule the world? Amazing. How can people be so right AND so wrong, at the same time?
      • They know it's rubbish as much as we do but are trying to demonstrate their power to persuade foolish people, which makes them feel important.
      • It's arts graduates trying to keep those pesky scientists under control by ensuring the majority of the population lacks confidence in their work.
      • They are genuinely uneducated stupid people who have gotten into positions of authority and are easily swayed by equally uneducated Bible thumpers
      • It is the fate of every empire to succumb to religious madness
      • The only wa
    • Why won't the fanatics give it up?

      Uh, because they're fanatics?
  • The real question here is: will they find some neanderthal's "frozen" assets [slashdot.org]?

  • You know it's a slow news day when..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ShyGuy91284 ( 701108 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:40PM (#14551275)
    A block of ice manages to make headlines on slashdot.......

  • Hyperbole (Score:3, Funny)

    by ShakaUVM ( 157947 ) on Tuesday January 24, 2006 @04:48PM (#14551362) Homepage Journal
    Oh, those guys. They're probably just using marketing hyberbole to see the ultimate luxury item -- DRINK THE BEST SCOTCH WITH THE BEST ROCKS: MILLION YEAR OLD ICE (supplied limited).

    Goes with the Chinese "Thousand Year Old Eggs"

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg [wikipedia.org]

    • Who in their right mind would drink the best scotch over ice? They probably use it to keep their whale meat sashimi nice and fresh.
  • The million-year-old ice digs up YOU!

    ...fear the ice, I tell ya!
  • I just discovered a volume of spacetime in my bathroom that's approx. 13.7 billion years old. I win!
  • I don't know how to calculate the odds on this, but they found a hair embedded in the sample.

    Turns out after DNA analysis the hair belonged to the great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandson of Ted Williams. Go figure.

  • I would expect that this ice would contain particles that might help estimate what the earth was made of a million years ago. Who knows how many comets have hit the earth effectively changing the content or even the ability to house life...
  • Isn't most or all of earth's "ice" about 4 billion years old?

    He-he.
  • I TOLD Matsumoto-san to clean out the back of the leefligelaytah!
  • they would have found the scotch I left behind. Alcohol and time travel a winnning combination..... Bwhahahaha It was I who killed the dinosaurs and removed the disclamer from the bible!

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