Lukin said that Russian spedrug spammerts had created equipment capable of penetrating the lake without infecting it with modern microbes.
The use of the term "modern" fascinates me. This is the case of space missions to comets, as well. It seems there is an element of the scientific community that believes that certain things, like Lake Vostok, and comets, have not changed over time like the rest of the Universe. I would think that these things would change, and therefore be just as "modern" as everything else. Just because something is isolated from our perception does not mean it has not changed just as much over time as the things not isolated from our perception.