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Extremophile Aquatic Organisms

Mighty_Emperor

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Extremophiles

Bizarre Yellowstone Virus May Be Key To Our Past

Heat-Loving Virus Clue To First Life On Earth?

POSTED: 1:23 pm MDT May 12, 2004

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Scientists at Montana State University in Bozeman say they have discovered a heat-loving, acid-dwelling virus that could help provide a link to ancient life on Earth.

The virus found in Yellowstone National Park could help to understand a common ancestor that scientists believe was present before life split into forms such as bacteria, heat-loving organisms and the building blocks that led to plants and animals, researchers said.

"It's a clue that helps you say, `Yeah, there probably was a common ancestor at some point or sets of ancestors,"' said George Rice, one of the MSU scientists who participated in the study. "It's food for thought."

The scientists' discovery was published in the May 3 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rice began hunting for heat-loving "thermophilic" viruses in Yellowstone five years ago. In 2001, he and others found several apparently unique viruses associated with an organism living near Midway Geyser Basin where temperatures ranged from 158 to 197 degrees Fahrenheit.

"It was basically something living in boiling acid," Rice said.

Although several new viruses were discovered, one in particular caught their eye.

After characterizing the structure and genome of the virus, they found that its protein shell was similar to a bacterial virus and an animal virus. The similarity suggests to the scientists that the three viruses may share a common ancestor that predates the branching off of life forms more than 3 billion years ago.

"This is something that was predicted but hadn't been shown before," Rice said.

For a long time, scientists classified all life forms as plant or animal. That classification system expanded as more life forms were discovered. Eventually, biologists divided life into five kingdoms _ plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and protists.

A more recent approach divides life into three domains: bacteria, eukarya _ which includes plants, fungi, animals and others _ and archaea, which means ancient.

Archaea, similar to bacteria, is likely the least understood of the domains, according to the paper's authors. Archaea may have been among the first forms of life on Earth. Able to thrive in the hot, gaseous and volcanic terrain of early Earth, they could also survive in the very inhospitable geothermal features of the Yellowstone of today.

Now that scientists know the Yellowstone virus's ancient structure seems to span all three domains of life, scientists plan additional studies on its genes to figure out what they tell the virus to do.

"Anywhere there's life, we expect viruses," Young said. "They are the major source of biological material on this planet."

Researchers said the virus and others found at Yellowstone will give researchers a hand in the search for life on other planets, including Mars.

"These bugs are living and doing business in a harsh environment," Rice said. "This may be clues about what to look for."

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/3297237/detail.html
 
"Miracle" Microbes Thrive at Earth's Extremes

John Roach
for National Geographic News
September 17, 2004

For the past 30 years scientists have scoured the most inhospitable environments on Earth searching for life. Just about everywhere researchers look, they find it thriving in microscopic form.

These organisms, known as extremophiles, snuggle up to scalding hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean. They cling to ice in Antarctica. They burrow in the high deserts of Chile and wallow in salty lake beds of East Africa.

Scientists continue to search for—and find—extremophiles everywhere from volcanic cauldrons in Russia to alkaline waters in China's Inner Mongolia. In the process, researchers are also beginning to tease out the organisms' secrets to life.

Thermophiles, microorganisms that thrive in high temperatures, produce some of the vibrant color of Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park.

"We know that we are only scratching the surface of what is out there. At the same time, many people are trying to decipher how these organisms function," said Kenneth Stedman, a biologist with the Center for Life in Extreme Environments at Portland State University in Oregon.

Earth's most extreme environments are thought to resemble those on distant planets. Discovering organisms that thrive in such conditions broadens our understanding of the limits to life on Earth. Organisms also provide clues on where to search for extraterrestrial life.

Learning how extremophiles thrive has led to a variety of innovations. Scientists have developed novel compounds for the development of new drugs and enzymes that make better laundry detergents, cleaner paper production, and hydrogen for fuel cells.

"Experimentally, we are coming of age," said Frank Robb, a molecular biologist at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore.

Robb is the chair of Extremophiles 2004: Fifth International Conference on Extremophiles, a five-day gathering in Cambridge, Maryland, that begins Sunday. He expects about 320 scientists from around the world to attend the meeting to discuss the latest advances in the field.

Conference

So what constitutes an extremophile? Other than the fact that all extremophiles are microbial, there is no common bond that defines an extremophile, according to Stedman, the Portland State University biologist and a conference co-chair. Rather, the differences that distinguish extremophiles from the more mundane mesophiles (organisms that live in "normal" climates and environmental conditions) are subtle.

By deciphering the genomes of extremophiles, scientists are now making their greatest advances in this field. For example, researchers have identified the subtle differences that allow the cell walls of certain microbes to hold up at temperatures above 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius).

"Genomics has made a very significant contribution to the modus operandi of all extremophile fields," Robb said.

Genomics are the primary focus for the upcoming extremophile conference. Participants will also focus on a class of microbes known as the archaea, which literally means "ancient." Archaea differ enough genetically from bacteria to warrant their own branch on the evolutionary tree of life.

Many archaea are extremophiles. Scientists believe archaea resemble the earliest forms of life on Earth.

Archaea split off from bacteria some four billion years ago. Ancestors that split from archaea evolved into eukaryotes—life-forms, including humans, whose cells have nuclei.

Archaea are more similar to eukaryotes than bacteria, but much simpler and easier to analyze than eukaryotes. Their study, as a result, has made important contributions to understanding how eukaryote DNA is repaired and copied, Robb said.

Such insights may lead to better treatments for diseases like cancer, since progression of the disease relies on DNA replication and cell division on a continual basis.

Archaea are also providing scientists insight to the process of how proteins are built inside cells. "Some outstanding discoveries have been made," including pyrrolysine, the 22nd amino acid known to science, Robb said.

Amino acids are the key building blocks of proteins. Scientists once thought only 21 amino acids existed. But in 2002 a group of researchers discovered a new amino acid, pyrrolysine, while studying extremophiles that produce methane or natural gas as a by-product of energy generation. The find indicated that the genetic code is more flexible than originally thought.

Hyperthermophiles

One of the more eagerly anticipated talks at the upcoming conference will be given by Karl Stetter. A microbiologist at the University of Regensburg in Germany, Stetter is recognized as one of the world's greatest extremophile hunters.

"I will concentrate on hyperthermophiles, which are the most extreme of all extremophiles and which represent my field of interest for 25 years," he said.

According to Stetter, hyperthermophiles are unusually shaped archaea. Some look like snakes. Others resemble yeastlike spheres and cobwebs. All require extreme heat for their survival.

Stetter will also talk about nanoarchaea, which he describes as "a novel kingdom of dwarfy archaea," and the first genome sequenced from the group. "The Nanoarchaea appear to be very ancient symbionts," he said, referring to life forms that live symbiotically with others, "most likely existing since the earliest days of life."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0917_040917_extremophiles.html
 
More extremophiles found:

Microbes Found in Saltiest Place

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

Jan. 12, 2005 — Microbes have been found living happily in one of Earth's saltiest places, raising questions about how the microbes manage the feat and giving clues to where life might hide on other worlds.

The single-celled microorganism community was discovered in an oxygen-deprived brine lake at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, south of Greece. The three-square-mile brine pond is in what's called the Discovery basin. It gets its super-salty magnesium chloride (MgCl2) from a layer of salt deposited more than five million years ago, when the sea temporarily dried up.

"The Discovery brine is relatively young (3,000 years) and MgCl2 is the first salt that will dissolve in the water," said researcher Paul van der Wielen of the University of Groningen in Netherlands. "This has resulted in a brine with extraordinary concentrations of MgCl2."

Van der Weilen leads the team that found the extraordinary microbes and published the findings in the current issue of Science.

According to earlier work on the Discovery brine, the magnesium concentration is about 100 times that of seawater, the calcium concentrations about 18 times seawater, while the sodium and calcium concentrations are, oddly enough, around ten times less than sea water.

Just as any saltwater is denser and can form a layer beneath fresh water, the Discovery brine forms a very dense layer under the regular sea water in the Discovery Basin. There are other salty basins in the Mediterranean and elsewhere in the world, but none found with microbes living in such high levels of MgCL2.

"I have seen film of brines in one of the oceans where a fish got trapped in the brine and it was unable to escape," said van der Wielen.

The brine poses no such problem for several kinds of bacteria and at least one other kind of microbe belonging to the group known as Archaea.

"It's a very unusual brine," said brine ecologist Carol Litchfield of George Mason University in Virginia.

For one thing, there isn't much calcium or sodium in the brine, which are the usual chemical partners of chlorine in making salt (sodium chloride, NaCl; calcium chloride, CaCl), she said. Sodium, in particular, is important in the creation of ATP — the fuel that runs living cells.

"This raises a whole lot of questions," said Litchfield.

How do these microbes make ATP? How do they keep their interiors from being flooded with MgCl2?

It also points to the possibility of extraterrestrial life in brines on Mars, where salts might allow water to remain liquid at very low temperatures.

"It does open up a possibility in the search," said Litchfield.

Source
 
January 26, 2005

Last modified January 26, 2005 - 12:48 am


Surprise: Hot-spring creatures use hydrogen

By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff

The tiny, unseen life forms that live in Yellowstone National Park's most extreme environments still guard some secrets.

But the search to reveal one of those secrets - the fuel for primitive life forms in Yellowstone's colorful hot springs - turned up a surprise.

According to new research, the major energy source for certain primitive organisms living in the park's thermal areas is not sulfur, as your nose may have suggested to you, but hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.

New possibilities

The finding announced Tuesday by researchers at the University of Colorado could mark a shift in what's known about Yellowstone's mysterious hot-spring dwellers. It could also bolster the argument for life in other extreme environments, such as Mars.

"In my mind it's more of a possibility now than before," said John Spear, lead author of the report. "If there is life elsewhere, it could be that hydrogen is the fuel."

The Colorado researchers spent five years trying to understand what gives microbes the energy to survive in Yellowstone's churning caldrons and bubbling pools.

Their findings, published this week in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discount the common notion that sulfur is the driving force for heat-loving microbes. Sulfur plays a role, Spear said, but is often secondary to hydrogen.

"I think this might change how we look at the whole system," Spear said.

The research focused on hot springs with temperatures warmer than 158 degrees Fahrenheit. Above that temperature, photosynthesis - the process plants use to convert light energy into chemical energy - doesn't happen.

Genetic analysis of Yellowstone microbes showed that they preferred hydrogen as a fuel source.

Researchers went to the park to see how much hydrogen was available for the organisms to absorb and convert into energy.

Hot springs discovery

"We probed around at different hot springs and sure enough we found it. A lot of it," Spear said.

Much of the hydrogen probably comes when water comes into contact with iron-bearing rock, which there is plenty of in Yellowstone. When a hydrogen molecule floats by, enzymes on the surface of a microbe can grab the molecule and begin turning it into usable energy.

That use of hydrogen by microscopic living things at Yellowstone probably dates back eons, a primitive relationship that has allowed the tiny organisms to thrive.

But it has been difficult for people to understand.

Yellowstone's vast system of hot springs - and the microbes that call them home - has increasingly become a focus of research in recent years. Even so, scientists say they've identified less than 1 percent of the organisms that inhabit thermal features.

The Colorado research was the first time that scientists were able to look at an entire ecosystem in a microbial community.

Samples about the size of a pencil eraser were taken out of hot springs and frozen in liquid nitrogen. They provided a real-life look at the microbes instead of trying to grow organisms in a petri dish.

"We found it's spectacularly complex out there. Far more complex than any of us thought," said Norman Pace, a professor at the University of Colorado.

The research could provide benefits outside Yellowstone's boundaries.

Spear said understanding the relationship between microbes and hydrogen could shed light on other extreme environments where life forms thrive on hydrogen. The bacteria that cause ulcers live on hydrogen in the stomach, he said. Salmonella also use it.

"It makes me wonder how many different kind of microbes out there are metabolizing hydrogen," Spear said.

The findings in Yellowstone could open the possibility of life on other planets such as Mars. Recent Rover missions on Mars have revealed evidence of water. Microbes that use hydrogen may be out there, too.

"If it works this way on Earth, it's likely to happen elsewhere," Spear said. "When you look up at the stars, there is a lot of hydrogen in the universe."

The tiny, unseen life forms that live in Yellowstone National Park's most extreme environments still guard some secrets.

But the search to reveal one of those secrets - the fuel for primitive life forms in Yellowstone's colorful hot springs - turned up a surprise.

According to new research, the major energy source for certain primitive organisms living in the park's thermal areas is not sulfur, as your nose may have suggested to you, but hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.

New possibilities

The finding announced Tuesday by researchers at the University of Colorado could mark a shift in what's known about Yellowstone's mysterious hot-spring dwellers. It could also bolster the argument for life in other extreme environments, such as Mars.

"In my mind it's more of a possibility now than before," said John Spear, lead author of the report. "If there is life elsewhere, it could be that hydrogen is the fuel."

The Colorado researchers spent five years trying to understand what gives microbes the energy to survive in Yellowstone's churning caldrons and bubbling pools.

Their findings, published this week in the online version of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discount the common notion that sulfur is the driving force for heat-loving microbes. Sulfur plays a role, Spear said, but is often secondary to hydrogen.

"I think this might change how we look at the whole system," Spear said.

The research focused on hot springs with temperatures warmer than 158 degrees Fahrenheit. Above that temperature, photosynthesis - the process plants use to convert light energy into chemical energy - doesn't happen.

Genetic analysis of Yellowstone microbes showed that they preferred hydrogen as a fuel source.

Researchers went to the park to see how much hydrogen was available for the organisms to absorb and convert into energy.

Hot springs discovery

"We probed around at different hot springs and sure enough we found it. A lot of it," Spear said.

Much of the hydrogen probably comes when water comes into contact with iron-bearing rock, which there is plenty of in Yellowstone. When a hydrogen molecule floats by, enzymes on the surface of a microbe can grab the molecule and begin turning it into usable energy.

That use of hydrogen by microscopic living things at Yellowstone probably dates back eons, a primitive relationship that has allowed the tiny organisms to thrive.

But it has been difficult for people to understand.

Yellowstone's vast system of hot springs - and the microbes that call them home - has increasingly become a focus of research in recent years. Even so, scientists say they've identified less than 1 percent of the organisms that inhabit thermal features.

The Colorado research was the first time that scientists were able to look at an entire ecosystem in a microbial community.

Samples about the size of a pencil eraser were taken out of hot springs and frozen in liquid nitrogen. They provided a real-life look at the microbes instead of trying to grow organisms in a petri dish.

"We found it's spectacularly complex out there. Far more complex than any of us thought," said Norman Pace, a professor at the University of Colorado.

The research could provide benefits outside Yellowstone's boundaries.

Spear said understanding the relationship between microbes and hydrogen could shed light on other extreme environments where life forms thrive on hydrogen. The bacteria that cause ulcers live on hydrogen in the stomach, he said. Salmonella also use it.

"It makes me wonder how many different kind of microbes out there are metabolizing hydrogen," Spear said.

The findings in Yellowstone could open the possibility of life on other planets such as Mars. Recent Rover missions on Mars have revealed evidence of water. Microbes that use hydrogen may be out there, too.

"If it works this way on Earth, it's likely to happen elsewhere," Spear said. "When you look up at the stars, there is a lot of hydrogen in the universe."


-------------------
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

Source
 
More reports:

New ecosystem at Atlantic hydrothermal vent

Friday, March 4, 2005 Posted: 1442 GMT (2242 HKT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A strange world of see-through shrimp, crabs and other life forms teems around a newly explored field of thermal vents near the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists report.

Towering white mineral chimneys mark the field, named the Lost City, a sharp contrast to the better-known black smoker vents that have been studied in recent years.

The discovery shows "how little we know about the ocean," lead researcher Deborah S. Kelley of the University of Washington said.

"I have been working on black smokers for about 20 years, and you sort of think you have a good idea what's going on," she said in a telephone interview. "But the ocean is a big place and there are still important opportunities for discovery."

The Lost City was discovered by accident in 2000 as Kelley and others studied undersea areas near the mid-ocean ridge.

They returned to the area in 2003 to analyze what they had found and were startled to learn how different the new vent environment and its residents were from the ones studied before.

Their findings are reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Black smokers are chimney-like structures that form when very hot water -- reaching 700 degrees Fahrenheit (371.11 Celsius) -- breaks through the ocean floor and comes into contact with frigid ocean water. The minerals that crystallize during the process give the chimneys their black color.

At Lost City, on the other hand, the temperature of the escaping fluids is 150 degrees (65.56 Celsius) to 170 degrees (76.67 Celsius). The environment is extremely alkaline, compared to the high acid levels at black smokers.

A variety of unusual creatures have been discovered around black smoker vents, including tubeworms that can grow as long as eight feet.

At first the scientists thought there were few animals in Lost City. Then they vacuumed the surface of the white vents and found large numbers of tiny shrimp and crabs, mostly transparent or translucent and less than a half-inch in size, that had been hiding in nooks and crannies, Kelley said.

The total mass of life around the Lost City vents is less than at the black smokers but there is just as much variety, she added.

Microbes found in the chimneys at Lost City -- named for the research vessel Atlantis -- appear to live off large amounts of methane and hydrogen. There is little or no carbon dioxide, the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents.

There is also little hydrogen sulfide and only very low traces of metals, on which many of the microbes at the black smokers depend.

The report offers the first detailed portrayal of a new type of ecosystem that may be widespread, said Antje Boetius of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany.

Boetius, who was not part of the research team, said in a commentary on the paper that the amount of living organisms found inside the chimneys at the city was astonishing.

While the black smokers, first discovered in 1979, form at volcanic areas along the oceanic ridges, the Lost City formation was found about nine miles (5.4 kilometers) to the side of the ridge. The formation is at latitude 30 degrees north, roughly the same as that of Jacksonville, Florida.

Also participating in the study were researchers from Duke University; ETH-Zentrum in Zurich, Switzerland; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

----------------------
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.

Source
Link is dead. The MIA webpage (quoted in full above) can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2005031....cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/04/lostcity.ap/


Friday, March 4, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.

Scientists from UW report on undersea "Lost City"

By Sandi Doughton

Seattle Times staff reporter


When scientists on a research cruise in the Atlantic Ocean first stumbled across an underwater landscape of giant white towers and feathery spires, they only had time for a quick look around.

"We got just the teeniest glimpse," said University of Washington oceanographer Deborah Kelley, who led that voyage in 2000. Excited by the discovery of what looked like a new type of hydrothermal vent field, she organized a monthlong return trip three years later to the "Lost City," named for the mythical world of Atlantis.

In today's issue of the journal Science, Kelley and her colleagues report the results from that expedition, including the surprising find that the geysers are populated by more than 65 types of tiny creatures, including transparent worms, water fleas and mats of bacteria that waft in the currents like kelp. The animals and microbes thrive in scalding hot fluids nearly as caustic as Drano. Many seem to subsist on a "diet" of natural gas and hydrogen.

"It really changes our ideas about where life can live on this planet," Kelley said. "And it really drives home that there's still a huge amount yet to be discovered in the oceans."

The scientists believe the undersea vents could mimic conditions on the primordial earth when life first formed, and may provide some of the best insights into that process.

The hope is to find living fossils that "tell us something about what the earliest organisms were like," said UW microbiologist John Baross, who is trying to grow some of the microbes collected on the voyage in his Seattle laboratory.

Though no one has ever seen anything like the Lost City before, there are almost certainly many sites like it, Kelley said.

"There are probably much larger areas of the sea floor that host hydrothermal vent systems and all of these new types of organisms — and to date we know almost nothing about them," she said.

Scientists have been studying hot springs on the sea floor since the late 1970s, when they first discovered an astounding array of giant tube worms, clams and swarms of shrimp living in and around volcanic vents called "black smokers." Some of the best-known "smokers" lie in the Pacific off the Washington coast.

But the Lost City is a very different type of environment, Kelley and her team found.

All of the hydrothermal fields discovered previously are along rifts on the ocean floor where molten rock flows to the surface. That lava heats the fluids in black smokers to a searing 700 degrees and creates a brew rich in metals, acids and carbon dioxide, which nourishes the microorganisms that form the basis of a unique food chain.

In contrast, the Lost City is perched on a plateau on the Atlantis massif — an underwater mountain the size of Mount Rainier, located in the mid-Atlantic miles from the nearest volcanic rift.

The heat that drives the system comes from a chemical reaction between sea water and ancient oceanic bedrock. Temperatures are a milder 100 to 200 degrees. When the hot water bubbles up and hits the icy sea, dissolved carbonate minerals precipitate out, forming white and gray towers that rise like giant limestone stalagmites.

Unlike at black smokers, the chemistry at Lost City is dominated by methane, or natural gas, and hydrogen. The dominant type of microorganisms belong to a group called Archaea, bacterialike bugs, some of which are known to metabolize methane, Baross said.

The monolithic chimneys at the Lost City are also taller than most black smokers. One 18-story behemoth the scientists nicknamed Poseidon would tower above the Interstate 5 bridge over Portage Bay, Kelley said.

Another researcher whimsically described the site as "a conglomeration of colossal beehives from outer space." Director James Cameron was so taken with the eerie scene he featured it in his IMAX film, "Aliens of the Deep."

"If it was on land, it would probably be a national park," said David Butterfield, a geochemist from the University of Washington who participated in the 2003 voyage along with researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several other universities.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, the scientists used the deep-sea submersible Alvin for their explorations. They made 19 dives, each lasting about eight hours, Kelley said. That includes the 25 minutes it took each morning just to submerge to the site, about half a mile below the surface.

Once they arrived, the scientists maneuvered around the spires with only the sub's headlights to show the way.

"You're essentially flying around in this deep blackness, moving up and down these very tall structures," Butterfield said. "If the currents aren't too bad and you can actually get the submarine to sit still long enough, you hover there and put out a hose to collect water samples."

The team also used Alvin's robotic arms to break off sections of the columns and scoop up some living organisms, including one large crab.

During the first visit to the site five years ago, it looked devoid of animal life, Kelley said.

But during the return trip, when the scientists ran a vacuum attachment over the columns, they discovered a wide range of snails, worms and tiny crustaceans in the nooks and crannies.

While living creatures are not as plentiful as at the black smokers, the diversity of species is comparable.

After devoting their daylight hours to the Alvin dives, at night the research team launched a remotely operated vessel that cruised through the depths, mapping the site with radar.

Robotic vessels will be the centerpiece of a third expedition this summer. The probes will film the hydrothermal field and its inhabitants and collect samples. Data will be transmitted instantaneously to Kelley in Seattle, and to aquariums, museums and classrooms across the country.

-------------------------
Information

"Lost City" expedition: www.lostcity.washington.edu

View a video: www.uwnews.org

-----------------------
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Source: seattletimes.com/nation-world//2002196507_lostcity04m.html?mbaseid=2002196507
Link is dead. No archived version found.
 
Public release date: 20-Apr-2005
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Contact: Norman Pace
[email protected]
303-735-1864

Jeffrey Walker
[email protected].
303-735-1808

Jim Scott
303-492-3114

University of Colorado at Boulder

Extreme life discovery in Yellowstone bodes well for astrobiologists, says Colorado U. study

pH value in rock pores where organisms live acidic enough to dissolve nails, say researchers

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say a bizarre group of microbes found living inside rocks in an inhospitable geothermal environment at Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park could provide tantalizing new clues about ancient life on Earth and help steer the hunt for evidence of life on Mars.

The CU-Boulder research team reported the microbes were discovered in the pores of rocks in a highly acidic environment with high concentrations of metals and silicates at roughly 95 degrees F in Yellowstone's Norris Geyser Basin. The new study shows the microbe communities are subject to fossilization and have the potential to become preserved in the geologic record.

Scientists believe similar kinds of geothermal environments may once have existed on Mars, where astrobiologists have intensified the search for past and present life forms in recent years.

A paper by CU-Boulder doctoral student Jeffrey Walker, postdoctoral fellow John Spear and Professor Norman Pace of CU-Boulder's molecular, cellular and developmental biology department and the Center for Astrobiology appears in the April 21 issue of Nature.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

"This is the first description of these microbial communities, which may be a good diagnostic indicator of past life on Mars because of their potential for fossil preservation," said Walker. "The prevalence of this type of microbial life in Yellowstone means that Martian rocks associated with former hydrothermal systems may be the best hope for finding evidence of past life there."

Located about 20 miles northwest of Yellowstone Lake, Norris Geyser Basin is considered to be the hottest and most active geyser basin in Yellowstone and perhaps the world. It also is extremely acidic, according to the researchers.

"The pores in the rocks where these creatures live has a pH value of one, which dissolves nails," said Pace. "This is another example that life can be robust in an environment most humans view as inhospitable."

The process used to identify the organisms developed by Pace is much more sensitive than standard lab-culturing techniques that typically yield a small, biased fraction of organisms from any environment, said Walker. In this method, the researchers detected and identified organisms by reading gene sequences.

"Each kind of organism has a unique sequence, which is used to map its position in the tree of life," said Walker. "It's a family tree of sorts that describes the genetic relationship between all known organisms."

Walker discovered the new microbe community in 2003 after breaking apart a chunk of sandstone-like rock in the Norris Geyser Basin. "I immediately noticed a distinctive green band just beneath the surface," he said. "It was one of those 'eureka' moments."

An analysis determined the green band was caused by a new species of photosynthetic microbes in the Cyanidium group, a kind of alga that is among the most acid-tolerant photosynthetic organisms known, said Walker. Cyanidium organisms made up about 26 percent of the microbes identified in the Norris Geyser Basin study by the CU-Boulder team, Walker said.

Surprisingly, the most abundant microbes identified by the team were a new species of Mycobacterium, a group of microbes best known for causing human illnesses like tuberculosis and leprosy, Walker said. Extremely rare and never before identified in such extreme hydrothermal environments, Mycobacterium made up 37 percent of the total number of microbes identified by the CU-Boulder team.

Pace described the new life form in the Norris Geyser Basin as "pretty weird." "It may well be a new type of lichen-like symbiosis," said Pace, who won a MacArthur Fellowship, or "genius grant," in 2001. "It resembles a lichen, but instead of being comprised of a symbiosis between a fungus and an alga, it seems to be an association of the Mycobacterium with an alga."

While photosynthesis appears to be a key energy source for most of the creatures, at least some of Yellowstone microbes are believed to get energy from the dissolved metals and hydrogen found in the pore water of the rock, Walker said. A study by the CU-Boulder team published in January 2005 by the National Academy of Sciences indicated Yellowstone microbe populations living in hot springs at temperatures more than 158 degrees F use hydrogen as their primary fuel source.

The research effort in the Norris Geyser Basin shows that rock formation processes occurring in the hydrothermal environment under study make very real fossil imprints of the organisms embedded in the rock at various stages, showing how the distinctive fossils develop over time, according to the research team.

"Remnants of these communities could serve as 'biosignatures' and provide important clues about ancient life associated with geothermal environments on Earth or elsewhere in the Solar System," the authors wrote in Nature.

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Volcanic Eel City

Scientists Find Eels Near Undersea Volcano By JEFF BARNARD,

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Scientists exploring an emerging undersea volcano near the islands of American Samoa in the South Pacific were so amazed to find eels living in the newly formed lava that they nicknamed the population "Eel City."

Hundreds and perhaps thousands of purplish-gray eels about a foot long were swimming around and hiding in the nooks and crevices at the summit of the new volcano at a depth of about 2,000 feet, Craig Young, director of the University of Oregon's Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, said Wednesday from his office in Charleston. "We were astounded," said Young. "Many of us had worked on hydrothermal vents in other parts of the ocean and had never seen or heard of anything like this before."

The discovery, as yet not reported in a scientific journal, was made on a joint expedition with a 3-person submersible to observe the Vailulu'u Volcano, discovered in 1999 about 20 miles east of the island of Ta'u. A sonar scan showed a shallowing of the caldera at the summit. On the first dive on March 30, geologist Hubert Staudigel saw another volcano growing out of the first, like Wizard Island in the middle of Crater Lake. Formed sometime in the last four years, it was dubbed Nafanua after the Samoan goddess of war. Staudigel is a geologist at the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Growing at a rate of about eight inches a day, Nafanua had reached a height of nearly 1,000 feet and could go much higher, Staudigel said in a statement. When the pilot of the submersible Pisces V settled in the murky waters of the caldera at Nafanua's summit, scores of eels swam out of the caves and crevices. Young got his only look at them in a video that Staudigel brought to the surface. Young got to join the last of the expedition's three dives on April 1, which went to the outside of Vailulu'u, where they found more vents and some white microbial mats, but he never saw Eel City.

The life around hydrothermal vents normally draws energy from the hydrogen sulfide emitted, Young said. At other vents, scientists have found mats of microbes, tubeworms, and mussels. But not eels, which would normally be expected to eat small invertebrates, such as shrimp. Though the team gathered samples of the microbial mats, they could not capture an eel, Young said. That will have to wait for a return trip in July. As a result, they could not identify the eels, though they looked like something from the family Synaphobranchidae.

"Although you do see a lot of little eels in the deep sea in general — one here, one there — I have never seen an aggregation of eels anywhere in the deep sea," Young said. "We have no idea what they are eating. We want to figure out why we have only one kind of animal living around hydrothermal vents with nothing else but microbial mats as a source of food," said Young.

"I suppose it's possible they migrate up the water column and feed in the water column and migrate back down to the cracks and crevices to hang out. But it seems odd that a deep-sea fish that would normally be experiencing 2- to 5-degree centigrade (35.6 degrees to 41 degrees Fahrenheit) water would be seeking out water that is warmer." As for the new volcano, Staudigel said it would be kept under close observation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050526/ap_on_sc/undersea_volcano_eels
 
it doesn't make clear if they're a new species or just in an unexpected habitat. If the latter, what's their usual?
 
Life Below The Limit

These close-up images, taken by an electron microscope, reveal tiny one-cell organisms called halophiles and methanogens. Studies show these microbes can survive at below-freezing temperatures and are within the temperature range on present-day Mars.Credit: Maryland Astrobiology Consortium, NASA and STScI.
by Staff Writers
Baltimore MD (SPX) Oct 23, 2006
A class of especially hardy microbes that live in some of the harshest Earthly environments could flourish on cold Mars and other chilly planets, according to a research team of astronomers and microbiologists. In a two-year laboratory study, the researchers discovered that some cold-adapted microorganisms not only survived but reproduced at 30 degrees Fahrenheit, just below the freezing point of water.
The microbes also developed a defense mechanism that protected them from cold temperatures.

The researchers are members of a unique collaboration of astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute and microbiologists from the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute's Center of Marine Biotechnology in Baltimore, Md. Their results appear on the International Journal of Astrobiology website.

"The low temperature limit for life is particularly important since, in both the solar system and the Milky Way Galaxy, cold environments are much more common than hot environments," said Neill Reid, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and leader of the research team.

"Our results show that the lowest temperatures at which these organisms can thrive fall within the temperature range experienced on present-day Mars, and could permit survival and growth, particularly beneath Mars's surface. This could expand the realm of the habitable zone, the area in which life could exist, to colder Mars-like planets."

Most stars in our galaxy are cooler than our Sun. The zone around these stars that is suitable for Earth-like temperatures would be smaller and narrower than the so-called habitable zone around our Sun. Therefore, the majority of planets would likely be colder than Earth.

In their study, the scientists tested the coldest temperature limits for two types of one-cell organisms: halophiles and methanogens. They are among a group of microbes collectively called extremophiles, so-named because they live in hot springs, acidic fields, salty lakes, and polar ice caps under conditions that would kill humans, animals, and plants.

Halophiles flourish in salty water, such as the Great Salt Lake, and have DNA repair systems to protect them from extremely high radiation doses. Methanogens are capable of growth on simple compounds like hydrogen and carbon dioxide for energy and can turn their waste into methane.

The halophiles and methanogens used in the experiments are from Antarctic lakes. In the laboratory, the halophiles displayed significant growth to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 degree Celsius). The methanogens were active to 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 degrees Celsius).

"We have extended the lower temperature limits for these species by several degrees," said Shiladitya DasSarma, a professor and a leader of the team at the Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. "We had a limited amount of time to grow the organisms in culture, on the order of months. If we could extend the growth time, I think we could lower the temperatures at which they can survive even more. The brine culture in which they grow in the laboratory can remain in liquid form to minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 28 degrees Celsius), so the potential is there for significantly lower growth temperatures."

The scientists also were surprised to find that the halophiles and methanogens protected themselves from frigid temperatures. Some arctic bacteria show similar behavior.

"These organisms are highly adaptable, and at low temperatures they formed cellular aggregates," DasSarma explained. "This was a striking result, which suggests that cells may 'stick together' when temperatures become too cold for growth, providing ways of survival as a population. This is the first detection of this phenomenon in Antarctic species of extremophiles at cold temperatures."

The scientists selected these extremophiles for the laboratory study because they are potentially relevant to life on cold, dry Mars. Halophiles could thrive in salty water underneath Mars's surface, which can remain liquid at temperatures well below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Methanogens could survive on a planet without oxygen, such as Mars. In fact, some scientists have proposed that methanogens produced the methane detected in Mars's atmosphere.

"This finding demonstrates that rigorous scientific studies on known extremophiles on Earth can provide clues to how life may survive elsewhere in the universe," DasSarma said.

The researchers next plan to map the complete genetic blueprint for each extremophile. By inventorying all of the genes, scientists will be able to determine the functions of each gene, such as pinpointing the genes that protect an organism from the cold.

Many extremophiles are evolutionary relics called Archaea, which may have been among the first homesteaders on Earth 3.5 billion years ago. These robust extremophiles may be able to survive in many places in the universe, including some of the roughly 200 worlds around stars outside our solar system that astronomers have found over the past decade. These planets are in a wide range of environments, from so-called 'hot Jupiters,' which orbit close to their stars and where temperatures exceed 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius), to gas giants in Jupiter-like orbits, where temperatures are around minus 238 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 150 degrees Celsius).

The discovery of planets with huge temperature disparities has scientists wondering what environments could be hospitable to life. A key factor in an organism's survival is determining the upper and lower temperature limits at which it can live.

Although Martian weather conditions are extreme, the planet does share some similarities with the most extreme cold regions of Earth, such as Antarctica. Long regarded as essentially barren of life, recent investigations of Antarctic environments have revealed considerable microbial activity.

"The Archaea and bacteria that have adapted to these extreme conditions are some of the best candidates for terrestrial analogues of potential extraterrestrial life; understanding their adaptive strategy, and its limitations, will provide deeper insight into fundamental constraints on the range of hospitable environments," DasSarma said.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Life_ ... t_999.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Fish dance on sulphur cauldrons
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, San Francisco



These fish thrive in conditions that would kill most other fish


More details

Scientists have witnessed the extreme lifestyle of tonguefish that like to skip across pools of molten sulphur.

The animals - a type of flatfish - were filmed on three expeditions to undersea volcanoes in the western Pacific.

Huge numbers were seen to congregate around the sulphur ponds which well up from beneath the seafloor.

Researchers from the University of Victoria, Canada, are trying to work out how the creatures survive in such a hostile environment.

"There are a lot of toxic heavy metals coming out of these active volcanoes," explained Dr John Dower, a fisheries oceanographer.

As a visual spectacle, it's like something from another planet

Dr Alex Rogers, ZSL
"The water is very warm, and it can be very acidic, the pH can be as low as two like sulphuric acid," he told BBC News.

"And yet here we've got a group that has not previously been seen in this type of environment and they're doing very well - they're actually thriving."

The fish have been studied with remotely operated submersibles, including the Jason II vehicle this year.

Noaa's arc

The area of interest is the Mariana Arc, a 1,200km chain of volcanic seamounts and islands between Guam and Japan.


It hosts a number of hydrothermal vents - rock systems that draw water through cracks in the seafloor, heat it to temperatures which can be well above 100C, load it with dissolved metals and other chemicals, and then eject the hot fluid back into the ocean.

This type of habitat will support a range of specialised animals such as crabs, shrimp, mussels, and worms - but very few fish. And the flatfish seen on the Mariana Arc seamounts are a first.

"The density of these things is remarkable; we've determined that the abundances are actually about two orders of magnitude (100x) higher than what one typically finds on the continental shelf," said Dr Dower.

"So, these may be the highest flatfish densities seen anywhere, and it raises the puzzling question: what's supporting all that biomass?"

The team thinks the flatfish may be living on resources in the sediments, possibly worms or even bacteria. On one voyage to the vents, the tonguefish were seen to rip apart a dead fish that had fallen out of the water column above - so they may not be too choosy about where their meals come from.

Sulphur skippers


The Jason vehicle returns after a dive covered in sulphur deposits
What is certainly astonishing is their behaviour around the sulphur pools. The molten material that wells up from beneath the seafloor is denser than the surrounding water and simply lies in ponds in the depressions through which it emerges.

The measured temperature is more than 180C (355F).

"These flatfish live right up against the edge of the pools, and in a couple of cases we saw them out on the surface of a pool," said Dr Dower.

"We have video of a fish sitting on the molten sulphur and then moving off after a couple of minutes, apparently unharmed. They seem to be able to tolerate an environment that no other flatfish, and very few fish in general, are found in."

The deep-sea submersibles captured some of the fish and they are now being analysed.

They have been assigned to the taxonomic genus of Symphurus but they are a species new to science. The team intends to describe their behaviour and ecology in detail in a forthcoming journal paper.

MARIANA ARC TONGUEFISH

The largest specimens are less than 11cm (five inches)
They probably feed on worms and vent bacteria
Species is new to science; currently under description
Analysis of their tiny head bones will reveal growth rates
Isotopic (types of atom) tests will determine food sources
Independent scientists who have seen the video of the tonguefish confess to being amazed.

Dr Alex Rogers is a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), and recently co-authored a report on the state of seamounts for the United Nations.

"This is stunning," he told BBC News. "The temperatures which these fish are experiencing means they must have remarkable stress defence mechanisms to be able to survive in that environment.

"So physiologically it's remarkable; but as a visual spectacle, it's like something from another planet."

Dr Dower has been talking about the fish here at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

You can see video of the flatfish by clicking on the Noaa web link.

[email protected].

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6212716.stm
 
"Fish dance on sulphur cauldrons" is obviously the second line of a haiku:

In the molten deeps
Fish dance on sulphur cauldrons -
What are you doing?
 
Strange creatures lurking on floor of Atlantic may hold clues to origin of life
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 73609.html
LORNA SIGGINS and MICHELLE McDONAGH

Fri, Aug 05, 2011

CLUES AS to how life began on the planet may be gleaned from the volcanic vent system which Irish and British scientists have discovered in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Several unusual species, including a blind shrimp with an infrared “third eye”, were identified on the deep-sea mineral-rich volcanic field some 1,500km off the Irish coast.

This shrimp has been located on other vent systems, but biologists will analyse data to see if hitherto unidentified animals can be confirmed, expedition leader Dr Andy Wheeler of University College Cork, said yesterday.

The new biogeographical area, well outside Irish waters, has been named “Moytirra”, or “plain of the pillars”, after a battlefield in Irish mythology. It is the first such hydrothermal system to be identified between the Azores and Iceland, lying on the mid-Atlantic ridge where Europe separates from the Americas.

The largest of its volcanic chimneys, towering over 10m at the foot of a cliff, has been named “Balor” after the legendary Irish giant, according to Patrick Collins from NUI Galway’s Ryan Institute, who led Ireland’s marine biological team on board.

Mr Collins will be working with Jon Copley of the University of Southampton to catalogue and characterise creatures among a “riot of life”, as Mr Copley describes it, in an “unlikely haven on the ocean floor”. The first indication of this system on the mid-Atlantic ridge was detected by British scientists with the national oceanography centre at University of Southampton three years ago.

Hydrothermal vents are fissures or cracks in the earth’s surface, funnelling enormous volumes of boiling sea water enriched with minerals from volcanic sources through chimneys or “black smokers”. The complex communities they support thrive on chemosynthesis, totally independent of sunlight.

The first such vents were discovered in the eastern Pacific about 30 years ago, and some 500 new faunal species have been recorded in six biogeographical provinces charted to date.

Scientists from Southampton teamed up with researchers at UCC, NUIG, and the Geological Survey of Ireland to find out more, and left Galway last month on the State research ship, Celtic Explorer, with the support of the Marine Institute and the National Geographic Society.

Dr Wheeler said that the team found the edge of the vent field some 3,000m below, using the ship’s remotely operated vehicle, within only two hours of arriving at the location.

Such was the heat of the chimneys’ water, at 350 degrees, that scientists had to use titanium syringes to extract samples.

“These animals are living in a harsh, toxic, acidic environment full of heavy metals – a place that would usually kills other organisms so the enzymes generated in their bodies may have potential for medical research. The discovery could also be very important for Ireland’s hydrothermal mining industry,” Dr Wheeler said.

Dr Bramley Murton of the British oceanography centre, who led the mineralisation study on the expedition, said the unique environment was one where “geology and biology have come together to form something as close to extraterrestrial life as we get on this planet”. National Geographic filmed the work for inclusion in its Alien Deep series, due to be broadcast in 2012.

Speaking on the Celtic Explorer yesterday, Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney paid tribute to all involved. Among the team on board was geological survey geologist Maria Judge who last year piloted the remote controlled subsea vehicle on board the James Cook vessel which discovered the world’s deepest known hydrothermal vents on the Caribbean’s Cayman trough.

As part of this new project, secondary school students were invited to design their own deep sea creature. The winner may have one of the new species at the vents named after him or her.
 
Deep-sea creatures at volcanic vent
By Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter, BBC News

Remarkable images of life from one of the most inhospitable spots in the ocean have been captured by scientists.
Researchers have been surveying volcanic underwater vents - sometimes called black smokers - in the South West Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean.
The UK team found an array of creatures living in the super-heated waters, including yeti crabs, scaly-foot snails and sea cucumbers.
They believe some of the species may be new to science.

Hydrothermal vents were first discovered in 1977. These fissures in the ocean floor spew out fiercely hot, mineral-rich water, yet somehow, diverse ecosystems are able to thrive in these hostile conditions.

The team, from the University of Southampton, was particularly interested in the vents on the South West Indian Ridge because this range is linked to the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the Central Indian Ridge, where vent life has been well documented.

This area is also unusual because it is an "ultra-slow spreading" ridge, which means it is less volcanically active than other ridges, with fewer vents that are further apart.

Prof Jon Copley, chief scientist of the Indian Ocean vents project, said: "This place is a real crossroads in terms of the vent species around the world."

Using a remote-operated, underwater robot called Kiel 6000, from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM Geomar), in Germany, the team was able to train their cameras on the vents.
In the hottest habitat around the black smokers, they found snails and shrimp, as well as mussels, sea cucumbers and crabs. They then compared these with the animals found at vents on the neighbouring ridges.

Prof Copley said: "I was expecting there to be some similarities to what we know from the Atlantic, and some similarities to what we know from the Indian Ocean vents, and that was true, but we also found types of animals here which are not known from either of those neighbouring areas, and that was a big surprise.
"One was a type of yeti crab. There are two currently described species of yeti crab known from the Pacific, and it isn't like those, but it is the same type of animal, with long, hairy arms.
"Also some sea cucumbers - not known from the Atlantic or Central Indian vents, but known form the Pacific."
He added: "We've got links to lots of different parts of the world here, which is very exciting."

The team was also surprised at the diversity of life they found during this expedition, which was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc).
Prof Copley said: "In a lot of other vent fields I've been to, in this hot zone where you get the animals there is often just one type of animal living there: in the deep Mid Atlantic Ridge, it's the shrimp. But here, we have seen three to four all in the same zone."

The findings should help researchers to learn more about how life moves from vent to vent: vents are short lived, and without the ability to hop from one system to the next, life there would go extinct.
"That is why vents are a great place to understand how species disperse and evolve in the deep oceans, because they are like little islands," Prof Copley added.

Despite these findings, the researchers are worried about the future of this underwater terrain.
China has been granted an exploratory licence by the International Seabed Authority to explore the potential of mining the vents in this area for their rich minerals.

Prof Copley said: "This vent field is the size of a few football pitches, and it seems possible that it is the only known range of some of these species.
"It would be very premature to start disrupting it before we really know the true extent of what lives in it."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16267625
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Those beasties scare me. :shock:

Yep, anything that can happily live in boiling hot toxic water has to be feared.
 
Copied from the Lake Natron thread:
The Petrifying Waters Of Lake Natron
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-petrifying-waters-of-lake-natron.54295/


Unless you are an alkaline tilapia (Alcolapia alcalica) – an extremophile fish adapted to the harsh conditions – it is not the best place to live. Temperatures in the lake can reach 60 °C, and its alkalinity is between pH 9 and pH 10.5. ...

More info about these extremophile fish can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcolapia

Alcolapia is a genus within which there are 4 recognized species.
 
The location widely considered to be the acid test (pun intended ... ) for the limits of extremophile viability is the Dallol geothermal springs in Ethiopia. A 2016 study concluded there was evidence of extremophile life there. A newly-published study claims the 2016 conclusions were wrong (or at least unjustified).
Scientists Say They've Found a Place on Earth Where No Life Can Thrive

Where there's water, there's life, the thinking loosely goes. New evidence suggests starkly otherwise – or at least identifies some harsh new parameters on where life and water may (or may not) be able to co-exist.

To find these limits, scientists travelled to one of the most extreme and inhospitable environments on Earth: the Dallol geothermal springs in Ethiopia's Danakil Depression.

This hellish, salty waterworld is generally considered the hottest inhabited place on the planet, but it's unique for all sorts of reasons that go beyond mere stifling heat.

The Dallol landscape is punctuated by cratered lakes of hyperacidic, hypersaline water coloured in a vibrant palette of greens, yellows, oranges, and browns.

It looks pretty from a distance in a kind of otherworldly way, but don't get too close; the heated pools make for a toxic, gas-saturated brine, courtesy of a smouldering volcano hidden underneath the exotic surface.

Because of Dallol's extreme environment, the area has long fascinated scientists. One publicised research expedition in 2016 set out to find what – if anything – might dwell in such unwelcoming, alien surrounds.

"It is an amazing but hostile place… the chlorine vapour burned our airways," expedition leader Felipe Gómez from Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia said at the time.

"Any microorganisms living here will be extremophilic microbes of a major interest to astrobiologists."

The results of that survey got published only a few months ago, with the team reporting what they said was the first evidence of life existing among the hot, acidic springs: "ultra-small microorganisms" measuring only nanometres in size.

Now, a new study led by a separate team of scientists disputes the seeming discovery of this archaea – or at least the relevance of the finding.

"We refute the recent claim of life in the polyextreme Dallol hydrothermal ponds," microbiologist Jodie Belilla from the Université Paris-Sud in France tweeted in June, when a pre-print of her team's counter-argument became first available.

"Is there life in the hyperacidic + hypersaline Dallol pools?," the researchers asked.

"We say no, based on combined molecular and microscopy techniques, though we find many airborne and human-associated contaminants." ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-say-they-ve-found-a-place-on-earth-where-no-life-can-thrive
 
There is a restaurant in Bangkok called Wattana Panich. They have a broth which they have kept simmering continuously for 45 years. I do wonder if that might have become an ecosystem of it's own.
 
Extremophile microbes discovered in an extremely inhospitable Arctic spring provide clues for speculating about similar extremophilic organisms elsewhere in our solar system.
Life Has Been Found in a Low-Oxygen, Super-Salty, Sub-Zero Arctic Spring

Fed by waters that pass through 600 meters (1,970 ft) of permafrost, the sub-zero, salty, virtually oxygen-free Lost Hammer Spring in the Canadian Arctic is one of the harshest places on Earth. Even here, however, life finds a way.

Scientists have found microbes thriving in the briny water that seeps up from deep below the permafrost – and it could offer a hint of the extraterrestrial microbial life that might be found (if there is any) on Europa, Enceladus or Mars. ...

Ocean worlds like Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus may not seem to have much in common with a desert world like Mars, but there are some characteristics we can hazard a pretty decent guess at.

Evidence suggests that extremely cold, salty oceans might lurk beneath the ice shells of Europa and Enceladus. Mars, too, might have liquid salty lakes locked beneath its surface. These environments are probably hypersaline. Since salts lower the freezing point of water, they're likely sub-zero, too. And it's more than possible that they're extremely low in oxygen.

Not long ago, scientists found evidence that there might be hypersaline lakes beneath the southern polar ice cap of Mars. Although this discovery is still a topic of hot debate, if there are lakes there, Lost Hammer Spring is pretty close to what we think they might be like. ...

From deep below the permafrost, water with less than one part per million of dissolved oxygen, around 24 percent salinity and at temperatures around minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) seeps up to the surface. ...

But microbes have been found living in some pretty crazy places. Given its similarity to the maybe-lakes on Mars, microbiologist Elisse Magnuson of McGill University in Canada and her colleagues wanted to see if Lost Hammer Spring might be one of them. ...

"The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are surprising, because, unlike other microorganisms, they don't depend on organic material or oxygen to live," said microbiologist Lyle Whyte of McGill University.

"Instead, they survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars.

"They can also fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses from the atmosphere, all of which makes them highly adapted to both surviving and thriving in very extreme environments on Earth and beyond." ...

The team's research has been published in The ISME Journal.
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/life-has-been-found-in-a-low-oxygen-super-salty-sub-zero-arctic-spring
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published study.

Magnuson, E., Altshuler, I., Fernández-Martínez, M.Á. et al.
Active lithoautotrophic and methane-oxidizing microbial community in an anoxic, sub-zero, and hypersaline High Arctic spring.
ISME J 16, 1798–1808 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-022-01233-8

Abstract
Lost Hammer Spring, located in the High Arctic of Nunavut, Canada, is one of the coldest and saltiest terrestrial springs discovered to date. It perennially discharges anoxic (<1 ppm dissolved oxygen), sub-zero (~−5 °C), and hypersaline (~24% salinity) brines from the subsurface through up to 600 m of permafrost. The sediment is sulfate-rich (1 M) and continually emits gases composed primarily of methane (~50%), making Lost Hammer the coldest known terrestrial methane seep and an analog to extraterrestrial habits on Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. A multi-omics approach utilizing metagenome, metatranscriptome, and single-amplified genome sequencing revealed a rare surface terrestrial habitat supporting a predominantly lithoautotrophic active microbial community driven in part by sulfide-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria scavenging trace oxygen. Genomes from active anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea (ANME-1) showed evidence of putative metabolic flexibility and hypersaline and cold adaptations. Evidence of anaerobic heterotrophic and fermentative lifestyles were found in candidate phyla DPANN archaea and CG03 bacteria genomes. Our results demonstrate Mars-relevant metabolisms including sulfide oxidation, sulfate reduction, anaerobic oxidation of methane, and oxidation of trace gases (H2, CO2) detected under anoxic, hypersaline, and sub-zero ambient conditions, providing evidence that similar extant microbial life could potentially survive in similar habitats on Mars.

SOURCE: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41396-022-01233-8
 
Newly published research describes newly discovered deep sea brine pools (anoxic discrete pools in the seabed) in the Red Sea. Extremophile microbes live in these pools, and "ordinary" seabed predators exploit them as death traps for prey.
'Unlucky' creatures that enter rare Red Sea brine pools are immediately stunned to death

Microbes in these dense, salty depressions thrive under extreme conditions. ...

Rare deep-sea brine pools discovered in the Red Sea may hold clues to environmental upheavals in the region that span millennia, and could even shed light on the origins of life on Earth, a new study finds.

Deep-sea brine pools are extraordinarily salty or "hypersaline" lakes that form on the seafloor. They are among the most extreme environments on Earth, yet despite their exotic chemistry and complete lack of oxygen, these rare pools teem with life and may offer insights on how life on Earth began — and how life could evolve and thrive on water-rich worlds other than our own.

"Our current understanding is that life originated on Earth in the deep sea, almost certainly in anoxic — without oxygen — conditions," study lead author Sam Purkis ... told Live Science. "Deep-sea brine pools are a great analog for the early Earth and, despite being devoid of oxygen and hypersaline, are teeming with a rich community of so-called 'extremophile' microbes. Studying this community hence allows a glimpse into the sort of conditions where life first appeared on our planet, and might guide the search for life on other 'water worlds' in our solar system and beyond." ...

Scientists know of just a few dozen deep-sea brine pools in the entire world, which range in size from a few thousand square feet to about a square mile (2.6 square kilometers). Only three bodies of water are known to host deep-sea brine pools: the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

The Red Sea possesses the highest known number of deep-sea brine pools. These are thought to arise from dissolving pockets of minerals deposited during the Miocene epoch (about 23 million to 5.3 million years ago) when the sea level in the region was lower than it is today. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/new-brine-pools-found-in-red-sea

PUBLISHED RESEARCH REPORT: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43...2172&CJEVENT=214988c3089a11ed800e00da0a82b832
 
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