Shrimp on ice

What lives under Antarctic Ice? Scientists thought maybe nothing, except those silly little microbes that live everywhere. But guess what happens when you do an actual experiment, sometimes you find a big surprise.

Like the false bologna sandwich hypothesis, the now-discredited "nothing big lives under the ice" hypothesis is toast.

As soon as scientists placed cameras under the 600 foot thick Antarctic ice sheet at the bottom of a hole drilled through the ice, a cute little 3 inch long orange shrimp settled down on the camera cable and stared at them (photo at top left). Wondering, no doubt, how creatures can live outside of the nice comforting dark water that's always the same comforting temperature of 272 degrees Kelvin.

That's right folks, harsh is in the eyes of the beholder. An Antarctic shrimp must find it's own habitat to be quite nice, and a tropical beach in the Bahamas would be like being cooked in boiling water. It's all what you're used to.

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