Life In Ancient Ice

Life in Ancient Ice presents an unparalleled overview of current research into microbial life in ancient glacial ice and permafrost. Particulates of fungi, bacteria, pollen grains, protists, and viruses are carried by wind around the globe. When they fall to Earth in polar regions they may be trapped in ice for hundreds of millennia. Some of the many implications sound like science fiction--for example, might melting glaciers release ancient pathogens that yield modern-day pandemics? But rigorous, coordinated research is nascent. This book points the way forward. Based on a National Science Foundation-sponsored symposium organized by the editors in 2001, it comprises twenty chapters by internationally renowned scientists, including Russian experts whose decades of work has been rarely available in English. The book begins by setting forth many protocols that have been used to study microorganisms trapped in ice, discussing their potential sources and presenting evidence for microbial metabolic activity at temperatures below freezing. This is followed by nine chapters describing the fungi, bacteria, and viruses that have been found in permafrost and glacial ice. Later chapters include a look at Antarctica's subglacial Lake Vostok, at a robot that can be lowered into ice to detect microbes, and at the use of icy environments on Earth as model systems for studying similar environments on planets and moons. The editors conclude by reviewing key discoveries and outlining important areas for future research. Originally published in 2005. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The fascinating story of how a harsh terrain that resembled modern Antarctica has been transformed gradually into the forests, grasslands, and wetlands we know today.

At the end of the Ice Age, small groups of hunter-gatherers crossed from Siberia to Alaska and began the last chapter in the human settlement of the earth. Many left little or no trace. But one group, the Early Paleo-Indians, exploded onto the archaeological record about 11,500 radiocarbon years ago and expanded rapidly throughout North America, sending splinter groups into Central and perhaps South America as well. Journey to the Ice Age explores the challenges faced by the Early Paleo-Indians of northeastern North America. A revealing, autobiographical account, this is at once a captivating record of Storck's discoveries and an introduction to the practice, challenges, and spirit of archaeology.

Cold adaptation includes a complex range of structural and functional adaptations at the level of all cellular constituents, and these adaptations render cold-adapted organisms particularly useful for biotechnological applications. This book presents the most recent knowledge of (i) boundary conditions for microbial life in the cold, (ii) microbial diversity in various cold ecosystems, (iii) molecular cold adaptation mechanisms and (iv) the resulting biotechnological perspectives.

Rising high above the South American Continent, the Andes seem untouched by earthly struggles. But their pristine, ice-capped peaks are haunted by a dark secret: a deadly mountaintop ritual. These frozen bodies all children date to the time of the Inca, the great civilization that ruled the Andes 500 years ago.

A mesmerizing overview of the world as it was when glaciers covered the earth and long-extinct creatures like the woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats battled to survive. Go back 20,000 years ago to a time of much colder global temperatures when glaciers and extensive sheets of ice covered much of our planet. As these sheets traveled, they caused enormous changes in the Earth's landscape and climate, leading to the evolution of creatures such as giant armadillos, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths as well as club-wielding Neanderthals and later the cleverer modern humans. Nico Medina re-creates this harsh ancient world in a vivid and easy-to-read narrative.

"Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After The Life takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history."--Cover.

Ice is melting around the world and glaciers are disappearing. Water, which has been solid for thousands and even millions of years, is being released into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. Embedded in this new fluid water, and now being released, are ancient microbes whose effects on today's organisms and ecosystems is unknown and unpredictable. These long sleeping microbes are becoming physiologically active and may accelerate global climate change. This book explores the emergence of these microbes. The implications for terrestrial life and the life that might exist elsewhere in the universe are explored. Key Selling Points: Explores the role of long frozen ancient microbes will have when released due to global warming Describes how ice preserves microbes and microbial genomes for thousands or millions of years Reviews work done on permafrost microbiology Identifies potential health hazards and environmental risks Examines implications for the search for extraterrestrial life.

After Noah's Flood the earth and its climate were undergoing drastic changes. The stage has been set for the Great Ice Age. Noah's descendants had to learn how to survive in a strange often hostile land. In part one of Life in the Great Ice Age, we'll spend summer with Jabeth and his family as they survive a saber-toothed tiger attack, battler cave bear, and go on a woolly mammoth hunt.Part two explains the scientific reasons for the Ice Age: what caused it, and how long it lasted. It answers the question, "Will there be another Ice Age?" Archaeological and fossil finds are also discussed in detail in this exciting book that explains the Great Ice Age from a Biblical perspective.

Finalist for the 2020 PEN / E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Acclaimed on its hardcover publication, a global journey that reminds us "of how magical the planet we're about to lose really is" (Bill McKibben) With a new epilogue by the author After nearly a decade overseas as a war reporter, the acclaimed journalist Dahr Jamail returned to America to renew his passion for mountaineering, only to find that the slopes he had once climbed have been irrevocably changed by climate disruption. In response, Jamail embarks on a journey to the geographical front lines of this crisis—from Alaska to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, via the Amazon rainforest—in order to discover the consequences to nature and to humans of the loss of ice. In The End of Ice, we follow Jamail as he scales Denali, the highest peak in North America, dives in the warm crystal waters of the Pacific only to find ghostly coral reefs, and explores the tundra of St. Paul Island where he meets the last subsistence seal hunters of the Bering Sea and witnesses its melting glaciers. Accompanied by climate scientists and people whose families have fished, farmed, and lived in the areas he visits for centuries, Jamail begins to accept the fact that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation. Ironically, this allows him to renew his passion for the planet's wild places, cherishing Earth in a way he has never been able to before. Like no other book, The End of Ice offers a firsthand chronicle—including photographs throughout of Jamail on his journey across the world—of the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing this vulnerable, fragile planet while we still can.