Life is known to exist in some of the most inhospitable places from the polar ice to hydrothermal vents. Well, now scientists have uncovered life more than 2,000 meters beneath the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Thefindings have been presented at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from where our science correspondent Rebecca Morale reports.
Life has found a way. The microbes were discovered in 2012 when a gigantic drill penetrated a record-breaking 2.5 kilometers beneath the sea floor off the coast of Japan. Now experiments have revealed that the single-celled organisms are, even for microbes, incredibly small. They survive on an unusual diet of methanecompounds, the first time this has been seen in the deep.
With each expedition, the deeper we drill, we still keep finding cells. I’m not surprised that life can do it, cuz at this point I’ve been continually impressed at what life is able to accomplish. But it is fascinating to study, for sure.
The findings also give hope in the hunt for life on other planets. If life can survive in the most extremeconditions on earth, perhaps it’s found a way to cope with the harsh environments elsewhere in the cosmos. Our science correspondent Rebecca Morale.
A long-lost Walt Disney Christmas film from 1927 has been found in a library archive in Norway. The movie featuring Oswald the lucky rabbit has been restored and we’ll get its first public screening later this week. So where does Oswald fit into the Disney family tree? Julie Peacock has been finding out.
Before Mickey Mouse, there was Oswald the lucky rabbit. He was created by Walt Disney in 1927, a year before the world’s most famous mouse. One called "Empty Socks" was considered lost. Until now, the only knownfootage was a 25-second segment owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But the National Library ofNorway discovered a long-forgotten 5.5-minute film amongst their archives in 2008. Since then, they’ve been working to restore it and just thought to be the only near complete version in existence. Only one minute is missing.
In "Empty Socks", Oswald dresses up as Santa Clause and celebrates Christmas with a group of orphans. Shortly after the film was made, Walt Disney lost the right to the character in a dispute with Universal Studios.