WEIRD LIFE
  • Home
  • Notes from the Alt-Verse
  • Strange in Nature
  • Sleep of Reason
    • Real Science Behind
  • The Odd Shelf
    • The Science Behind
  • Curiosity Shop
  • Contact

THE REAL SCIENCE BEHIND:

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

A Novel

Scientists Discover Secret Habitats in Antarctica

9/8/2017

0 Comments

 
PicturePhoto by Joel Bensing
Though we’ve been swimming steadily down, there is light in the cave—and it’s coming from the wrong direction. It comes not from above, but from below. When I look down to gauge the size of the chamber, I see a slight phosphorescent glow. I point my divelight downward, hoping to see the source of the light, but when the light touches the bottom of the chamber, it bounces off in all directions, reflected again and again around the room.

Surprised, I run my divelight around the sides of the chamber. There is anchor ice along all the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The delicate discs of ice are stuck to the walls at odd angles turning the chamber into a prismatic hall of mirrors.

 ~an excerpt from Sleep of Reason

REAL SCIENCE:
Deep within Antarctica’s ice caves, a group of scientists may have discovered a secret ecosystem of plants and animals being supported by the warmth of an active volcano. Forensic analyses of soil samples from the caves revealed intriguing traces of DNA. While most of the DNA was similar to mosses, algae and invertebrates found elsewhere in Antarctica, not all sequences could be fully identified.

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-antarctic-caves-harbour-secret-life.html

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Margaret Riley is a wordsmith, slow-kayaker, slow-skiier, photographer of strange realities, and a deep believer in the magic of story time.

    Archives

    February 2021
    April 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    June 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Notes from the Alt-Verse
  • Strange in Nature
  • Sleep of Reason
    • Real Science Behind
  • The Odd Shelf
    • The Science Behind
  • Curiosity Shop
  • Contact