Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that microbes found living in Canada’s High Arctic, in conditions similar to those on Mars, can survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds like those that have been detected on Mars.
Under the permafrost of Lost Hammer Spring in Canada’s High Arctic is an extremely salty, very cold, and almost oxygen-free environment that is most similar to certain regions on Mars. So, if you want to understand more about the types of life forms that could once have existed – or may still exist – on Mars, this is a fantastic place to look.
[...] In a recent paper in The ISME Journal, the researchers show for the first time, that microbial communities discovered living in Canada’s High Arctic, in conditions corresponding to those on Mars, can survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds of the type that have been detected on Mars (such as methane, sulfate, sulfide, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide).
[...] Lost Hammer Spring, in Nunavut in Canada’s High Arctic, is one of the saltiest and coldest terrestrial springs discovered to date. The water which travels up through 600 meters (2000 feet) of permafrost to the surface is extremely salty (~24% salinity), perennially at sub-zero temperatures (~−5 °C/23 °F), and contains almost no oxygen (<1ppm dissolved oxygen). The extremely high salt concentrations keep the Lost Hammer spring from freezing, allowing it to maintain a liquid water habitat even at sub-zero temperatures. These conditions are analogous to those found in certain regions of Mars, where widespread salt deposits and possible cold salt springs have been observed. While previous research has shown evidence of microbes in this kind of Mars-like environment – this is one of the very few studies to find microbes alive and active.
[...] The team isolated and sequenced DNA from the spring community, allowing them to reconstruct genomes from approximately 110 microorganisms, most of which have never been seen before. These genomes have allowed the team to determine how such creatures survive and thrive in this unique extreme environment, acted as blueprints for potential life forms in similar environments. Through mRNA sequencing, the team was able to identify active genes in the genomes and essentially identify some very unusual microbes actively metabolizing in the extreme spring environment.
“The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are surprising, because, unlike other microorganisms, they don’t depend on organic material or oxygen to live,” adds Whyte. “Instead, they survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars. They can also fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses from the atmosphere, all of which makes them highly adapted to both surviving and thriving in very extreme environments on Earth and beyond.”
Journal Reference:
Elisse Magnuson, et al., Active lithoautotrophic and methane-oxidizing microbial community in an anoxic, sub-zero, and hypersaline High Arctic spring, The ISME Journal, 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s41396-022-01233-8
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Thursday July 21 2022, @08:50AM (2 children)
I'm pretty sure the first life on Earth must have been something like that, too. Free oxygen wasn't there for the obvious reason that plants didn't yet exist, and given that it was the first life, there can't have been much organic material around either. On the other hand, for sure a lot of inorganic material was around.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 22 2022, @01:25AM
At the top of the main escalators on entry into the London Natural History Museum there is a massive block of iron oxide doped rock. The significance is that it marks the point, in the geological record, when life on earth moved from methanogens to photosynthesis, so that there was enough oxygen to make iron oxide (rust). Up until a couple hundred million years ago the continents were massive deserts, because plants hadn't evolved how to fix phosphorous from the ground. One of the mass extinctions occured because photosynthesis is so successful that it used up all the CO2 in the atmosphere leading to huge climactic instability.
The biochemical record of the earth is a fascinating subject, well worth exploring (context of global warming, but TBH it is interesting regardless). I thoroughly recommend you look it up.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday July 22 2022, @01:40AM
Oxygen was poisonous waste of those early life form. They multiplied and eventually killed their environment allowing oxygen based life forms to evolve and to take their place. Everything life is based on corpses of previous life. Leave with it and stop bitching about destroying the environment. You are protecting your environment at expense of life forms that should come after you. Protecting ones environment is regressive without clear agenda how we all progress. In the end it's all about energy available.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 21 2022, @10:30AM (2 children)
* Trigger global (Martian) warming by converting C02 into methane (H20 for hydrogens).
* Grow methanogen farm for methane production on Mars.
Green Mars starts here.
(Score: 2) by liar on Thursday July 21 2022, @06:32PM (1 child)
I loved those books... still reading and enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson.
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday July 22 2022, @01:16AM
Glad you got the reference. I'm definitely a Green (Martian)