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Earth's Own Mars, the Atacama Desert Yields Amazing Extremophile Microbes

Posted by timothy on from the but-how-do-they-taste? dept.

A University of Colorado-Boulder team has uncovered extremophile microbes in the rocky, high-altitude Atacama desert on the Chile-Argentina border "which seem to have a different way of converting energy than their cousins elsewhere in the world." According to the researchers, "[T]hese are very different than anything else that has been cultured. Genetically, they’re at least 5 percent different than anything else in the DNA database of 2.5 million sequences." It's an exciting frontier for biologists in part because of the recurring interest in the possibility that life has existed (or does exist) on Mars; the dry, volcanic Atacama is often compared to the Martian surface.

3 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. BS comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the dry, volcanic Atacama is often compared to the Martian surface.

    Except that it has an ozone layer protecting it, and the surface isn't covered by free radicals ready to destroy anything organic.

    There is nowhere on Earth that is comparable to the surface of Mars. There is no life on the surface of Mars. There might be life under the surface, but that is a completely different comparison.

    1. Re:BS comparison by joocemann · · Score: 5, Informative

      I used to do extremophile research. I can chip in a little knowledge about microbial research to neutralize some of this sensationalism

      Ribosomal RNA sequences are often the basis for speciation in biology. And while the human and ape species may be less than 1 percent difference, they are described to be different species. The full genomic DNA seqs may have more difference.
      With microbes, the rRNA threshold for a different species is 13%. There are species of E.coli that have 50% less genomic DNA (meaning beyond 50% different since they already are missing half), that are called E.coli because the rRNA is not varied enough (less than 13% different).

      My point is that in the world of microbes, and furthermore extremophiles, a 5% difference is not much. That may be a sensational news point. I persnally genetically identified several organisms from the Boiling Springs Lake Microbial Observatory (65-95 deg C, pH 1.7) that were 11-12.7% different than previously described species....

  2. Link to actual article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why press releases like this fail to link the actual article is beyond me - surely that helps the research to be more widely read.

    http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2012JG001961.shtml
    (abstract is free, fulltext behind paywall)