DailyDirt: Life Abhors A Vacuum

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Biologists continue to find signs of life in some of the most remote places on Earth. A variety of organisms seem to be able to thrive under harsh conditions that are similar to extra-terrestrial places elsewhere in our solar system. So finding these extremophiles could point us towards good places to find alien life forms on other planets or moons or asteroids... Here are just a few more examples of some really tough microorganisms.

• Evidence of life in a subglacial lake in Antarctica has been found, and it could mean that bacteria are much more widespread than we previously thought. Researchers still need to verify this discovery and make sure they're not looking at bacterial contamination from other sources. [url]
• Frost flowers are salty ice crystals that form on calm ocean surfaces, and arctic sea meadows of these flowers may become more common with climate change near the north/south poles. About a million bacteria live in the few milliliters of frozen saltwater of a frost flower, and studying these cells could teach us more about how hardy some extremophile organisms can be. [url]
• Bacteria living below the ocean and at the ocean surface have it easy compared to bacteria that live 6 miles above sea level in the troposphere. Microorganisms could play a role in cloud formation, and there is a lot we don't know about how life survives in different parts of the atmosphere. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: bacteria, biology, extremophiles, frost flowers, life, microorganisms, troposphere