If you found water that was more than two billion years old, would your first instinct be to drink it? One scientist did exactly that after finding the oldest water ever discovered on the planet. A team from the University of Toronto, led by Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar, came across an incredible find while studying a Canadian mine in 2016. Tests showed that the water source they unearthed was between 1.5 billion and 2.64 billion years old. Given that it was completely isolated, it marked the oldest ever found on Earth. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Remarkably, the tests also uncovered that there was once life present in the water. Speaking to BBC News, professor Sherwood Lollar said: “When people think about this water they assume it must be some tiny amount of water trapped within the rock. “But in fact it’s very much bubbling right up out at you. These things are flowing at rates of litres per minute – the volume of the water is much larger than anyone anticipated.” Discussing the presence of life in the water, Sherwood Lollar added: “By looking at the sulphate in the water, we were able to see a fingerprint that’s indicative of the presence of life. And we were able to indicate that the signal we are seeing in the fluids has to have been produced by microbiology - and most importantly has to have been produced over a very long time scale. “The microbes that produced this signature couldn’t have done it overnight. This has to be an indication that organisms have been present in these fluids on a geological timescale.” The professor also revealed that she tried the water for herself – but how did it taste? “If you’re a geologist who works with rocks, you’ve probably licked a lot of rocks,” Sherwood Lollar told CNN. She revealed that the water was "very salty and bitter" and "much saltier than seawater." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Ford nears UAW deal, Meta revenue jumps on ad rebound, new House Speaker elected, and other news to start your day.

TL;DR: The Kindle (2022) is on sale for £59.99 this Prime Day. This deal is

The best back-to-school products can help make your return to the classroom a little easier come fall.

Baidu Inc. has set aside 1 billion yuan ($140 million) to fund Chinese startups that explore generative AI,

SAVE 49%: ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing extra content on Netflix. A one-year

For the first time, ChatGPT desktop and mobile traffic has declined. Is it just growing

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS Amazon is challenging its inclusion in a group of companies subject to tough

Stocks rose, fell, rose and fell, ultimately finishing lower this past week. Tech feels the pain.

Most Democrats and Republicans agree that the federal government should better regulate the biggest technology companies, particularly social media platforms

Alabama Barker removed her profile picture and set her Instagram account to 'private' over the weekend

Amazon said on Monday that it's investing $4 billion into the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in exchange for partial ownership and Anthropic's greater use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the e-commerce giant's cloud computing platform.