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Putin boosts presidential campaign with a tot of Antarctic ice prehistoric water

Saturday, February 11th 2012 - 07:39 UTC
Full article 5 comments
The Russian leader given the one million years ‘medicine’ (Photo:AFP/Getty Images) The Russian leader given the one million years ‘medicine’ (Photo:AFP/Getty Images)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was given a water sample Friday taken from a pristine lake hidden under Antarctic ice for over a million years, after Russian scientists drilled down to its surface.

The Russian strongman, who enjoys venturing into the wilderness and has accompanied an expedition to track polar bears in the Arctic, was the first recipient of a symbolic water sample.

“The head of the natural resources ministry has given Vladimir Putin the first sample of prehistoric water the Russian polar expedition extracted from the sub-glacial lake in Antarctica,” the Russian government said.

“The age of the water could be over 1 million years,” it said.

Natural Resources and Ecology Minister Yury Trutnev handed Putin a small glass container containing a yellowish liquid with the inscription “Lake Vostok, aged more than 1 million years,” the state RIA Novosti news agency reported.

With characteristic dry humour, Putin asked Trutnev whether he had tried drinking the water. “No,” Trutnev answered.

“That would have been curious. Dinosaurs drank it and Trutnev” Putin said in comments released by the government.

A Russian expedition on Sunday sunk a borehole down to the surface of the pristine sub-glacial fresh water lake, hidden under almost 4 kilometres of ice and raised a column of water for scientists to study.

Putin, who is planning to reclaim his old Kremlin job in March elections, called for the scientists behind the discovery to be decorated. “This is a major event. We need to think how to honour these people,” he said.

The water given to Putin probably did not come from the main body of the lake, but was frozen lake ice raised from the borehole just before it reached the lake's surface, an expert behind the project told RIA Novosti.

“This water was apparently received when they lifted the ice core from the last section of the borehole. And that really is water from Lake Vostok,” said Valery Martyshchenko of the hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring agency.

The costly project is a rare triumph for national science and has excited scientists around the world with its potential for discoveries of new forms of life and revelations about millions of years of the Earth's history.
 

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  • ChrisR

    “The costly project is a rare triumph for national science and has excited scientists around the world with its potential for discoveries of new forms of life and revelations about millions of years of the Earth's history.”

    They should have saved their money. Only the stupid ones were excited. Nearly all the major league players at this around the world had decided NOT to breach the water due to the possible contamination that would occur.

    But hey, what else can Putin do to impress his people? Everything else he has tried does not seem to have had the results he thought it would.

    The people themselves shouting that the elections were rigged AND that's supposed to be news in Russia?

    Feb 11th, 2012 - 02:55 pm 0
  • JuanStanic

    I thought all water was like 4 billion years old(or something like that).

    Feb 12th, 2012 - 08:12 pm 0
  • Rufus

    Is this a terribly bright thing to do? Wasn't there a story about deadly and antibiotic-resistant bacteria in Antarctic water a couple of days ago?

    Feb 12th, 2012 - 11:20 pm 0
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