{"id":10330,"date":"2010-03-26T12:52:51","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T18:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/?p=10330"},"modified":"2010-03-26T12:52:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T18:52:51","slug":"antarcticas-taylor-glacier-blood-falls-microbial-life-in-an-impossible-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/2010\/03\/antarcticas-taylor-glacier-blood-falls-microbial-life-in-an-impossible-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Antarctica&#8217;s Taylor Glacier Blood Falls, Microbial Life in an Impossible Place"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/atlasobscura.com\/place\/blood-falls\" class=\"external\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/taylorglacierbloodfalls.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"taylorglacierbloodfalls\" width=\"505\" height=\"324\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10331\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/taylorglacierbloodfalls.png 505w, https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/taylorglacierbloodfalls-300x192.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px\" \/><\/a> <\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Roughly two thousand years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. <a href=\"http:\/\/atlasobscura.com\/place\/blood-falls\" class=\"external external_icon\">Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a world with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of &#8220;primordial ooze.&#8221;<\/a> The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet another example of how life on earth can exist in near impossible conditions.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/slantsmcgee\/statuses\/10967530612\" class=\"external external_icon\">@slantsmcgee<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roughly two thousand years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,9],"tags":[228,103,2071,2070,1087,2072],"class_list":["post-10330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-just-freaking-neat","category-science","tag-antarctica","tag-awesome","tag-blood-waterfall","tag-impossible-things","tag-live-for-science-die-for-science","tag-taylor-glacier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10334,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10330\/revisions\/10334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}