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Microbial Life Found In Trinidadian Hydrocarbon Lake
KentuckyFC writes "Pitch Lake is a poisonous, foul-smelling hell hole on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. It is filled with hot asphalt and bubbling with noxious hydrocarbon gases and carbon dioxide. Various scientists have suggested that it is the closest thing on Earth to the kind of hydrocarbon lakes they can see on Saturn's moon Titan. Now a group of researchers has discovered that the lake is teeming with microbial life which is thriving in the oxygen-free environment with very little water, eating hydrocarbons and respiring with metals. Gene sequence analysis indicates that these bugs are single-celled organisms such as archea and bacteria. The researchers say the discovery has exciting implications for the possibility of life on Titan. There is a growing sense that Titan has all the ingredients for life: thermodynamic disequilibrium, abundant carbon-containing molecules, and a fluid environment. There is also evidence that liquid water may not be as important for life as everybody has assumed, since some microorganisms can make their own water by chewing on various hydrocarbons. That may make Titan an even better place to look for life than previously thought."
they found life even there?? what's next, finding living organisms on C-SPAN?
weinersmith
More like a poisonous, foul smelling sea of organisms with some asphalt sprinkled on top.
This has a life density comparable to seawater.
To the best of my knowledge all life on earth (at least all life that has been investigated at the DNA/RNA level) seems to have considerable similarities, which implies a relationship, perhaps a common origin point.
I wonder. Will this life, which on the surface seems to be fairly different from most of what we know/understand as life will also have such similarities with life as we know it?
If it does, it seems to show a remarkable level of flexibility, beyond what many may have imagined. If not, that may even be more exciting as it may provide support for the idea that the creation of life may not be an exceedingly rare event.
"since some microorganisms can make their own water by chewing on various hydrocarbons"
It's a chicken-and-egg issue. Why should something evolve that can create something that it needs to exist in the first place? It doesn't seem to be very likely that something organism evolves out an environment without water, that later needs water. But, it may evolve from a wet environment to a state where it later no longer depends on pre-supplied water.
My mother-in-law is from Trinidad, this explains everything. I always thought there was something a little odd about the way she spent so much time filling up the petrol in the car. I thought that odd sulphurous smell was the cream she used for a skin condition.
And all along, she was just a hydrocarbon sucking pitch lake alien!
That is not dead, which can eternal lie, and there are strange bubbly stinky pits in the Caribbean where even death may die.
An Oryx doesn't drink water, but it pees.
A chicken does drink water, but it doesn't pee.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They just don't get around.
I've always wondered why the insistence of water for extra terrestial life... why do you have to base it from whats abundantly around you in your tiny micro speckle of the universe and project it on everything? And now they're finding other types of life forms on earth too? Colour me non-surprised.
Wait wait wait. Just wait a second. Are you saying that Hell is in Trinidad and Tobago? I know of worse places that that.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
That, Earthlings, is the replica of our home environment we've set up from where we will launch the conquest of your planet. And, for your information, here on Titan we call that a "five star hotel".
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
So obviously the requirements for sustaining life may not be exactly the same as those that are required to create it. What I mean is, millions of years ago on earth (or about 6000 years give or take) when that primordial soup formed a few amino acids/protein chain/whatever perhaps that required water? And in the millennial of evolution some of the organisms evolved to live without water. Does this make sense? I guess what I am really asking is how much do we know about the conditions that existed when life on earth was created?
meep
"eating hydrocarbons and respiring with metals" sounds like they are close to eating global warming and pooping gold. And if they don't than get to that selective breeding.
> That may make Titan an even better place to plant the life than previously thought.
FTFY.
I suppose our own microbes that live in such lakes are descendants of otherwise diverse ecosystem which existed in primordial times and Titan "weather" conditions are far less favourable to life.
The whole problem about comparing this place to Titan is that Titan is extremely cold. Titan's got the materials (except for Nitrogen maybe?), for sure, but, it doesn't have the heat. Life is more of an energy problem than a materials problem. You need energy to roil things, to drive all those chemical reactions and to keep stirring the pot so evolution can take place. I would be more than willing to bet that you would find single cell life on Venus more than on Titan just because Venus has plenty of heat.
This is my sig.
"They're Everywhere!"
"I'm outta ammo!"
That life did not evolve in this pond but adapted from elsewhere is even more remarkable. On Titan natives wouldn't exactly be hardy adapted 'extremeophiles' anymore, any life would have evolved there, and be even more suited to it's environment.
So that density of biomass could be greater, Titan could be a living soup planet. There's a small issue of temperature, if someone could please clarify, chemistry is going to work is a little different at -230 c compared to more than +100c, IANAC but chemical energy may not be available to life or happen at slower rates.?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
This is a quote from a tourist some time before the article:
"Unlike a sterile and lifeless parking lot, you soon get a sense here that this lake is somehow alive. Roy said that a forty foot by forty foot hole completely fills itself in within 3 days."
"The lake is constantly pulling things into itself, almost like a slow motion black hole. It's supposed to have "feelers" stretching outward for several miles, additional veins of pitch which stretch out from the main lake."
"this photo of him peeling back the hardened skin of the lake."
"The lake seemed to me more than anything to be like a large creature with no face, only arms and guts in which it slowly swallowed everything around it."
"If it swallows some things, then it also spits others out"
"Here is some leaf litter from part of the forest floor which the lake swallowed, chewed around for a few years and then spat out as indigestible. These leaves were in perfect condition, but as dry as it's possible to imagine."
So it seems to be a living entity, demonstrably fussy, finding it a hard time getting a decent meal and likely depressed.
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/TrinidadAndTobago/Trinidad/PitchLake/
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I bet that in a thousand years from now we will consider life as anything having a)enough presence of nonequilibrium thermodynamics states, and b)the ability to perform universal computation (either classical or quantum, or maybe another yet undiscovered more general thing). This could include, as foreseen by Asimov, lakes of superconducting metals in remote planets. Will vegetarianism in the future include moral attitudes for superconducting helium inside high field magnets? Will we see an invasion of Earth by superconducting metal intelligent beings on a hunt-those-superconducting-torturers/bastards?
Maybe in Pluto there is a colony of intelligent robots (which communicate through gravity waves, i.e. civilizations withouth a theory of quantum gravity wouldn't detect their communications) and they are waiting for our civilization to build enough autonomous electronic components, so that at a given point they will send a signal/virus, take control of all our electronic infracstructure and take on planet's control. The threats of civilization always come from possibilities that we weren't able to imagine.
It still should be possible for life to emerge in a more "emergence-compatible" place like Earth (or some even suggest some comets, under specific circumstances), and then be carried to other planets by meteorites impacts, etc.
Imagine a meteorite hitting Earth and ejecting a small amount of tar-growing Titan-compatible bacteria : with an enormous amount of luck, a few surviving spores could end up landing mostly intact on a Titan-like planet.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
(extremophile evolved from life developed in mild, favorable environment) != (extremophile evolved in extreme environment)
But it IS great news, and is at least 'proof of concept' as to the sustainability of life in extreme conditions, even if ultimately we discover that life needs a perfect little petri dish of conditions to get STARTED.
-Styopa
Our (very) distant ancestors evolved and thrived in an enviroment without significant amounts of oxygen; heck, it was most likely a poison to them. But then a group dumping it in large amounts showed up, and the rest is history...
Now, it even seems it's quite possible that, what was once a dangerous byproduct, enabled explosion of life later on.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Could you explain how the lake of fire and sulfur can be hell if it 'eats' hell? Revelation 20:14:
"14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. "
We have all known there has been life on Titan since Iron Man #55.
No, Hell is on Grand Cayman.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
It is actually a tourist attraction.
Countries such as Germany mandate that their roads, the famous Autobahn, must constitute a certain percentage of pitch from Trinidad. The Asphalt from the pitch lake is internationally acclaimed for its high percentage of asphalt resins and world renowned for its quality.It is also the world's largest and most consistent deposit of natural asphalt.
It is used in New York's Kennedy and La Guardia airports,to line the George Washington Bridge,and as previously stated in the German Autobahn system to name a few.
In the face of all this the cavalier and in some sense derogatory terminology used by the poster is both unfortunate and inaccurate. One suspects the author has never actually visited the Pitch Lake in Trinidad. It doesn't smell, it is not filled with noxious fumes. The area is quite pleasant and forested.
The pitch lake represents a little understood and fascinating eco-system, and it's great that it is finally being researched. It is incredible when one imagines how much of our past can be found in its depths,claimed from the earth tens of thousands of years ago, resting somewhere within it.
-Gel214th
Wait wait wait. Just wait a second. Are you saying that Hell is in Trinidad and Tobago? I know of worse places that that.
You must work at the same place I do? Is that you Bob?
If this is true: "respiring with metals", then it seems more like just a few evolutionary steps to the Hortaas in"Devil in the Dark" from the original series.
(But then my understanding of the term "respiration" has probably been impoverished by watching too much sci-fi tv.)
harness these guys for toxic superfund site clean ups, oil spills, etc
sprinkle a little of this dioxin-b-gone on the brownfields, and voila!: strip mall and mcmansion ready building lots
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The numerous grammatical errors in the article make me suspicious. You can read the original research paper here: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.2047.pdf It clarifies many points
every stain tells a story
"Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago" There are two islands. Trinidad. and Tobago. And the country is Trinidad and Tobago. But its not just one island.
Wanna know how you can recognize someone who thinks he is an expert, but isn’t?
If he considers water or oxygen essential for life, that’s someone like that.
Remember that life on earth also started out with neither. We’re basically built of, consuming and endlessly recycling the poop of earlier organisms... and luckily our own poop feeds them again. (This only does sound nasty to us humans.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
When I was a child we lived in Trinidad for a few years. The Pitch Lake isn't really as bad as the article makes it sound. It doesn't smell. You won't die from noxious fumes by going near it. You can even take tours and walk out into the lake if you want. There are some areas that are solid pitch and other areas that you will sink into and die if you try to walk on them. There are guides who know (hopefully!) where it is safe to walk. It's a pretty cool place to visit if you get the chance.
Larry? You read slashdot?!?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Have these people not heard of Thomas Gold? http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/99/1.28.99/Gold-book.html
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Our assumptions often block the more fantastic, but probable possibilities. There are more interesting probable events to think about than just "pure" evolution from dirt and water. Why could not humans be genetically engineered? It may sound improbable and fantastic at first, but if you go look into it, you will see there are actually pretty strong indications of this. What is blocking people to find this out, is actually their own conditionings and bias - which is severely detrimental to the scientific method actually. How can a true scientist dismiss -ANY- idea out of hand?
Everyone assumes we weren't planted here in the first place, except for maybe die-hard Bible-thumpers. Where is the "missing link"? We have all the evolution up to apes, then a period of "missing link" where we can't find fossils and bones of our ancestors, then all of a sudden homo sapiens arrives, coincidentally sharing 99% of genes with apes, but being distinctly different also. We haven't really evolved much since. The last hundred of thousands of years we are basically the same as then, not more or less intelligent although societies have had different empasis on different knowledge and practicalities. Humans as they are today arrived on the scene 200,000 years ago. Neanderthals died out 25,000 years ago. Why didn't the neanderthals evolve and where did humans come from? 198,000 years is a long time of lost history, but it makes no sense there are no traces of us as we are today before that.. All of a sudden humans arrived on the scene, and posed a radical threat to all competing species.
I'm afraid bias and prejudice is the reason science is today unable to investigate this properly. Bias will be an assumption that blocks your vision for what is possible, even when most probable..
Who where the "Gods" and "Giants" in the ancient times, who could fly aircrafts (mentioned in Vedas "vimanas", flying -aircraft-, complete with pilot manuals!, bible - Esekiel 1:4-25, 3:12-15, Maya, Hopi-indian religion, Egyptian, Greek mythology, pretty much every farking religio/tradition out there?), and also bomb cities with missiles of great powers (mentioned in Vedas, Bible (Sodom & Gomorra)? Where did people get these fanciful ideas, before we had aircrafts and nukes? There are mentions of both heart and brain! transplants being done successfully in various traditions. Where did these simple people get all these advanced ideas from? Of course this was mixed with their own superstition and culture, but if you read the bible verses, or Vedas, it is pretty clear what is actually meant. We can understand today, because we are able to build similar vehicles and missiles ourselves.
From Esekiel 1:4-25 (The Bible, New International Version). How can this be nothing other than a description of a manned aircraft landing with a pilot inside:
"4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, 5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze. 8 Under their wings on their four sides they had the hands of a man. All four of them had faces and wings, 9 and their wings touched one another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.
10 Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a man, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. 11 Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out upward; each had two wings, one touching the wing of another creature on either side, and two wings covering its body. 12 Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went. 13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning co
"You could become a Horta-culturalist!" - A.L..
"Was found to inhabit a naturally occurring asphalt lake!"
Cool. We have [three naturally occurring] asphalt lakes, other than our highways and roads!
"Metal Respiration."
Very cool. It's a metal breathing based life form Jim!
The Horta's ancestors! It must be! [:)]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_Dark
"You could beome a Horta-culturalist." - Alan L.
YUM ASPHALT! [:)] Titanic discovery!
Microbial Life in a Liquid Asphalt Desert
http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.2047
PDF of paper.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.2047v1
Go out and shovel the asphalt driveway!
I can't, it got up and crawled away! [:)]
I don't know why we ever hired a Horta to be our driveway anyway? Concrete would have been friendlier.
Yeah, but the Horta purrs.
Oh yeah, right.
Theorizing on interplanetary life is cool and all, but there is a vastly more important point of research here that has major implications to us a species - what role, if any, these bugs play in creating the oil deposits that fuel our civilization.
As noted in the OP these are the same sort of bugs that are found deep in oil wells. These subterranean bugs have lead many a researcher to believe that perhaps fossil fuels aren't so fossil-ish afterall. Instead of being formed by decaying plant matter and the occasional dinosaur from eons past, a competing hypothesis purport sthat oil sludge is a byproduct of teaming underground microbe populations.
The ability to observe and investigate these bugs in a natural habitat at the surface of the planet in a place like Pitch Lake may shed light on the likelihood of an oil-shortage catastrophe that the fossil-fuel model predicts.
what's the temperature, Kelvin?
I was hoping to see photos of the organisms found. Sadly, from my quick skim of the pdf report, it appears they just did an RNA survey from various places in the lake and reported on the various amounts and types of genome sequences at various temperatures (This is how they determined the organisms were bacteria and archea). So unfortunately, no photos of the organisms.