Life under the ice

In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists found a shrimplike creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath an Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, they had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist. That's why a NASA team was surprised when it lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of the ice sheet in Antarctica, and a 3-inch shrimp-like creature went swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there,'' said NASA scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will present the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting tomorrow.