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With new species popping up in tropical seas and rainforests across the globe, it is suprising that a team of Russian researchers have set their sights a little further south in the search for unknown life forms: Antarctica's Lake Vostok to be exact.

Hidden from the world for 14 million years under 2.5 miles of ice, the lake potentially holds unique, previously undiscovered life forms, which the researchers from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) hope to document when they complete their drilling later this month. The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat's -a group dedicated to the preservation of  the continent- has postponed any research endevors sinnce 1998, citing the potential negative effects of drilling into the pristine body of water.

Some even doubt whether the Russian researchers will able to reach the water line before the end of the Arctic summer. According to Yves Frenot of the French Polar Institute, "In respect to the Antarctic Treaty, they should wait 60 days after having submitted their CEE, which would bring them almost to the end of the Antarctic season." Only time will tell.