(From left) Scientists Ed Adams, Priscu and David Mogk examine a core of ice from the Antarctic's Lake Vostok in a cold room at MSU. (Linda Best photo)

"We are on the cutting edge of this research, but more than that, we developed the field of biology in ice systems."

One of his latest discoveries-made in conjunction with Ed Adams at MSU, former MSU postdoctoral student Chris Fritsen, lead author Peter Doran of the University of Illinois and others-was an unusual aquatic system where 20 yards of 3,000-year-old ice covered water seven times saltier than seawater. The scientists also found freeze-dried microbes throughout the ice that could be revived with liquid water.

"The ice covers of these lakes represent an oasis for life in an environment previously thought to be inhospitable," Priscu said when the discovery on Lake Vida was announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "These organisms may possess novel ice-active substances such as antifreezes and ice nucleation inhibitors that allow them to survive the freeze-thaw cycles and come back to life when exposed to liquid water."

"If life exists in outerspace, it's likely in the form of microbes trapped in planetary ice."

Scientists dig an observation hole in the permanent ice of a Dry Valley lake in Antarctica. Priscu calls these lakes ice museums because they harbor ancient DNA that is preserved by the cold, salty and arid conditions. (J. Priscu photo)

The finding that microbes could be revived attracted a large amount of attention from people who believe they can freeze themselves or their relatives until science discovers a way to bring them back to a healthier life, Priscu said. The discovery of microbes in Lake Vida may also help researchers who are studying Lake Vostok, a larger lake that lies more than 2.5 miles beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. It also has microbes entombed in lake ice.

Another popular research appeal is the similarity of the Antarctic environment to Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa. If life exists in outerspace, it's likely in the form of microbes trapped in planetary ice, Priscu and others believe.

Those and other discoveries have led to a multitude of opportunities for Priscu and the more than 100 people who have served on his field teams over the years. Among those crew members are undergraduate students from Priscus Biology 102 class, MSU graduate students, and high school teachers from Minnesota and Washington. His MSU collaborators, besides Adams, have included Mark Young in plant sciences and plant pathology, Recep Avci in physics, and Dave Mogk in earth sciences.

"John has taken both undergraduate and graduate students to the ice in Antarctica, which is an invaluable opportunity."

Priscu's projects includes one on how the spilled fuel from a helicopter crash might affect a lake he studies. Helicopters are the main mode of transportation for cargo and people on the isolated continent. (J. Priscu photo)

"John has taken both undergraduate and graduate students to the ice in Antarctica, which is an invaluable opportunity," noted Jeff Jacobsen, head of the LRES department until he was named interim dean and director of the College of Agriculture at MSU. "John also teaches an introductory biology course, so we have a top-tier scientist in the classroom turning young minds onto the mysteries of the world."

For a man who's travelled the world and explored the cold extremes of life on this planet, theres still one thing he would have liked to achieve.

"About 10 years ago, I wanted to go to Mars," Priscu said last winter. Former NASA administrator Dan Goldin said that humans would explore the planet by 2003, and Priscu was ready to sign on. Now Priscu thinks that by the time humans really do reach the red planet, he'll be too old to go.

"To find life there, even if we didn't come back, would be the neatest thing," he said.

• The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project studying the biogeochemistry of the ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Each LTER grant lasts six years and provides about $7 million from the National Science Foundation. Priscu is operating under his second six-year grant and plans to apply for a third.
• A microbial observatory to examine the role, function and other aspects of microbes in the Antarctic lakes. This will be funded by the NSF.
• A two-year study looking at the effects of a helicopter crash on one of the lakes Priscu is studying. No one was killed, but the crash resulted in a significant amount of fuel being spilled. The NSF asked Priscu to participate in the study.
• A five-year, $5.6-million project called "The Astrophysics of Life." If approved by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the project would refer to the study of Antarctic microbes in the search for habitable life in other solar systems in the Milky Way.
• A two-year project funded with $775,000 from the NSF to study life in Lake Vostok.

In addition to those projects, Priscu has just submitted his ideas for setting up an NSF Science and Technology Center at Columbia University. The center would develop the instruments and other lab technologies needed to sample Lake Vostok. The center would set up a remote-run observatory in subglacial lakes in the Antarctic.

For ecologists Bob Garrott (left) and Jay Rotella, it's the Weddell seals (bottom) that bring them to the world's southernmost continent. (Garrott/Rotella photo) Ecologists head south for seal studies Stark and beautiful with a lethal feel is how Antarctica seemed to another MSU scientist working there for the first time last winter. In McMurdo Sound, near the base of a smoking, volcanic Mt. Erebus, Jay Rotella gathered data on a species considerably larger than the microbes that intrigue John Priscu. Rotella, MSU biologist Bob Garrott and a team of students bagged, tagged and weighed Weddell seals as part of one of the longest studies in the continent's history. Data collection began in 1968 with Donald Siniff at the University of Minnesota. When Siniff retired, Rotella and Garrott took over the project. Antarctic explorers-even into the 1970s-killed the seals for food and fuel. Even now, black-gray slabs of blubber can be seen stacked outside famed explorer Robert Scotts hut on Cape Evans. Weddell seal populations today are stable, but because the animals can live 30 years or longer, biologists need decades of data in order to assess normal fluctuations in population and the variables that affect them. The seals also will serve as an indicator of whats happening ecologically in Antarcticas pristine marine environment. At home under the sea ice, the seals, which can top 1,500 pounds, breathe through air holes chiseled in the ice. Under the water they emit high-pitched, haunting cries similar to those of whales, Rotella said. Out of water, they bellow like calves. The females hoist themselves onto the surface to give birth each year to cute, tawny-colored, brown-eyed babies. The scientists take advantage of this temporary grounding-as well as the seals' lack of fear of humans-to tag, census and measure. Garrott said studying seals in the Antarctic is easier than the elk studies he leads in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone in the winter can be just as cold or colder than Antarctica in the summer, when most of the field studies are done. Antarctica has an entire support staff for scientists. In Yellowstone, the park staff has many other duties, and Garrott's team is more on its own. Annette Trinity-Stevens

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