by B. C. CHASE
[4] Propylthiouracil, or PTU, is a drug used to treat Graves disease and hyperthyroidism. It reduces the amount of thyroid hormone produced by the thyroid gland. It is known to cause serious liver injury, including failure and death.
[5] Agranulocytosis is a lowering of white blood cell count (to less than five percent of the normal level), resulting in severe suppression of the immune system and extreme risk of infection.
[6] Near the coast, the Antarctic ice caps were replenished by snow above and sea below, but in the interior, the lack of precipitation meant that movement of the glacial ice diminished to less than three inches a year in some areas. The ice there could be very old, over a million years, if it had been there that long. At Lake Vostok, the ice moved twelve feet a year from west to east, meaning that ice there would take 70,000 years to entirely cross it.
[7] The Saint Petersburg scientists' findings were corroborated by a study from Bowling Green State University which examined ice samples that had been bored above the lake by an international team in 1998. Though the ice was not extracted from fresh lake water as in the Russian study, nor was it from nearly as deep, it was from lake water that it was believed had glaciated above its surface. In the study, genetic traces of many types of microorganisms were discovered, including one which was known to inhabit the bowels of fish.
