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Slo-mo Microbes Extend the Frontiers of Life
ananyo writes "A newly-discovered microbial community living tens of meters beneath the Pacific Ocean floor uses so little oxygen that researchers believe they may be living at the absolute minimum energy requirement needed to subsist. For years, scientists thought that the ascetic conditions of the deep sub-seabed — high pressure, minimal oxygen and a low supply of nutrients and energy — made such environments uninhabitable to any form of life. The discovery extends the lower bound for life (abstract). The surface of Mars, for instance, may be inhospitable, but there may be conditions below the surface that are reminiscent of the deep subsurface on Earth. As microbiologist Bo Jørgensen comments in the Nature piece, while the discovery does not mean there is life on Mars, 'it's now really challenging to show where there is no life.'"
... they work at the DMV.
Mars is a really challenging environment, between the radiation, near-vacuum atmosphere, where there is water its -150, where its warm there is no water, with a boiling point of something like -40. Is it more or less challenging than tens of meters below the Pacific sea floor? I would guess more, although this is not insurmountable. Maybe if we merged these organisms with ice worms or snow algae (which is red, interestingly), we could have a viable hybrid. Of course maybe nature beat us to it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_geyser
Intelligent life, no less. There are large underground cities on Mars with humans and other bipedal species.
Get a job and quit using just the absolute minimum energy to subsist. Damn teenagers.
I hear the pensions the union negotiated for them are pretty good, too.
It is merely pining for the fjords.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
'it's now really challenging to show where there is no life.
In the atmosphere. You're welcome.
Even though a meter is about 39.4 inches, and is therefore about 10% longer than a yard, the 20% inaccuracy from converting from 12 to 10 is significant.
AC, Michigan, US.
Excuse me? We have zero significant figures (the mantissa is unspecified) -- so even the whole 20%, let alone the ~10% net difference, is not a significant inaccuracy.
AC, Indiana, US.
Man, is there even anyone on Slashdot stupid enough to fall for this shit?
Yeah, I can see the morons on Facebook and Youtube being technically incompetent and gullible enough to fall for it, but here? Half of us aren't even running an OS this "software" runs on - hell, I'm pretty sure at least one regular user here is running an OS he wrote in his free time.
Talk about "zero return on investment".
Honestly, at this point I would not be terribly surprised if they discovered life extends all the way to the core.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
This is all still based on earth bound life as a model for other life in the universe. Fact is we simply don't know.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
For years, scientists thought that the ascetic conditions of the deep sub-seabed — high pressure, minimal oxygen and a low supply of nutrients and energy — made such environments uninhabitable to any form of life.
Wouldn't the Titanic's rusticicles prove that life could live and thrive under such conditions?