Ecosystem that thrives without
sunlight
"Centipedes,
spiders, beetles and crustaceans are just
some of the creatures that thrive in the
pitch blackness. The base of the food chain
in the cave is bacteria, which float in mats
on the surface of the cave's water"
.-- Earthsky, 11/17/96
Bizarre Life Forms Thrive
Beneath Earth's Surface
"...deep
within the planet may be the best place to
find new life forms on our planet -- and
glean clues to possible life on others
..."
-- Frontiers: The Electronic Newsletter of
the National Science Foundation, 8/97
NSF studies life on the edge
"...explore
the relationships between organisms and the
environments in which they exist. A strong
emphasis will be placed on environments that
are near the extremes of conditions on Earth.
The program will also fund research about our
solar system and beyond, to help identify
possible new sites for life beyond Earth.
"
-- Environmental News Network Daily News,
5/20/97
Phenomena, Comment and Notes
"Life
not only thrives in the heat and violence of
Earth's submarine volcanoes, it may have
started there. And at least one other body in
the Solar System just might have eruptions on
its ocean floor ..."
-- Smithsonian Magazine, 5/97
Japan Marine Science and
Technology Center
Deep-sea
research, agency
Life in Extreme Environments
"The
National Science Foundation's initiative,
Life in Extreme Environments, is designed to
bring investigators together from a wide
range of fields, from microbiology through
volcanology to planetology and it could
include chemistry and many other fields in
between. "
Japan High-Tech Satellite Network Co., Ltd.,
NEC Corporation, 6/26/97
Microbes That "Live on the
Edge" Focus of Scientific Conference
"Microorganisms
can be found living in some of the earth's
most hostile places, and scientists will
gather in Bozeman next month to talk about
how they do it."
--Montana State University Communications
Services, 4/29/98
Life in Extreme Environments
(NSF)
"The
LExEn research program will explore the
relationships between organisms and the
environments within which they exist, with a
strong emphasis upon those life-supporting
environments that exist near the extremes of
planetary conditions."
-- National Science Foundation, program
announcement, 5/18/98
Extremophiles(Scientific
American)
"These
microbes thrive under conditions that would
kill other creatures. The molecules that
enable extremophiles to prosper are becoming
useful to industry."
-- Scientific American, 4/97
Sea floor observatory set up at
volcano
"Tubeworms
living in 360 degree Celsius water,
snow-blower vents, hydrothermal vents
harboring what may be the oldest life form on
Earth; these are a few of the things a team
of oceanographers were looking for -- and
found -- in their quest to establish a sea
floor observatory at the Axial Volcano."
-- Environmental News Network, 9/21/98
Key chemical in life
creation - ammonia - created at hydrothermal
vents
"New
high-pressure research by scientists at the
Carnegie Institution's Geophysical
Laboratory, announced in this week's Nature
magazine, reveals that unexpected chemical
reactions occur in deep hydrothermal vents of
the sea reactions that may have played a key
role in the origin of life."
-- Carnegie Institute, 9/23/98
Researchers explore deep sea oil
seeps
"Giant
tubeworms, mussels, sea fans, brittlestars
and other deep-sea creatures live in colonies
wherever oil and methane gas seep or bubble
from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. "
-- Environmental News Network, 6/24/98
Rock-eating microbes found
nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor
"Scientists
at Oregon State University have discovered
evidence of rock-eating microbes living
nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor in
conditions which suggest similar life could
exist on Mars or other planets"
-- exosci.com, 8/14/98
Critical reaction thought to
support underground microbes now considered
unlikely
"This
is an important step forward in our
continuing efforts to understand the
processes that sustain life deep beneath the
earth's surface," says Mike Purdy,
director of NSF's LeXeN program.
"Negative findings like this are as
important as positive ones in their
importance to our understanding of the
processes that determine the limits to
life."
-- exosci.com, 8/14/98
Earth microbes on the moon
"The
50-100 organisms survived launch, space
vacuum, 3 years of radiation exposure,
deep-freeze at an average temperature of only
20 degrees above absolute zero, and no
nutrient, water or energy source."
-- Space Science News, 9/1/98
"I always thought
the most significant thing that we ever found
on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria
who came back and lived and nobody ever said
[anything] about it."
-- Apollo
12 Commander Pete Conrad, 1991
Researchers Assess
Biological Potential Of Mars, Early Earth And
Europa
"...
modeled geochemical reactions from rock
weathering. They also estimated Martian
volcanic activity over time and the
associated activity of hydrothermal
vents."
-- Eukalert, 8/25/98
Eukaryotes in extreme
environments
Website
-- Department of Zoology, The Natural History
Museum, London, 2/5/98
Life Origins from Undersea
Volcano
"An
undersea volcano has been discovered in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean which mimics the
conditions in which life on earth may have
started, scientists said today."
-- ABCnews.com, 9/9/98
Aquarium test helps scientists
look for life in extreme environments
"NASA's search for life elsewhere in the
solar system is bringing space scientists to
the giant kelp forest exhibit at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium to test a new scientific probe
that might one day look for life in oceans
that may exist on Jupiter's icy moon
Europa."
-- JPL, 8/20/98
