Halophile Microbes In Mediterranean Salt Pockets

Gebraucht von Neuwagen writes "This finding adds extremely salty water to the extreme environments where extremophiles can live. The Discovery Basin contains a brine that has the highest concentration of magnesium chloride found thus far in a marine environment; such concentrations are considered anathema to life. The researcher was quoted saying: "This in turn adds to arguments that life could exist outside the Earth""

Comments

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[maroonhat]

Extremophile: n. organism that thrives in an enviroment such that no normal organism (mesophile) could survive. See "Perl Programmers", "Salt Mines"

Old

[Handbrewer]

The news that extremophiles can survive outher space is veery old. The little bugger called Tardigrada is pretty hard to kill :).

still

[myukew]

This is no proof that there probably is life on other planets. We can see here that life can evolve to adapt to such extreme environments but this doesn't mean life can begin in such places.
The first biological, self replicating molecules were probably quite fragile and would certainly "die" in extreme environments

Re:still

[myukew]

Sure, the situation differed from what we call now "normal" but fortunatly the conditions were just right for, say, aminoacids to build up with all that methane and stuff swimming around in the oceans. But it's quite unlikely that the first RNA molecule (I believe that's what scientist think formed first) would have lasted long in a lake of acid (like some bacteria like it nowadays). Or near a "black smoker" in 400C hot water. Nor do I think the chemical reactions would have happened at 30K (at which these creatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrada survive).

The range of conditions in which life can exist may be quite wide, but it seems life needs very special conditions to begin - otherwise we would have probably found life on other planets.

Game-Playing Microbes !?!?!?!

[justanyone]

Hey, Wait a minute! HALO-philes?

These microbes love Halo? Cool! I knew it was a popular game, but the game's crossing the interspecies-player boundary is wicked awesome!

What about Halo II ?

-- Kevin
P.S., Yah, I know halo == halide == saltlike. Run with the joke, dude.

blah, skimpy article.

[ForestGrump]

I want to know where their energy comes from. not from light probably. Redox on the salts?

Grump who barely passed chem/bio.