[HN Gopher] Researchers rethink life in a cold climate after Ant...
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Researchers rethink life in a cold climate after Antarctic find
Author : sandebert
Score : 61 points
Date : 2021-02-15 09:26 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| personjerry wrote:
| How do they know they're alive and not just corpses/shells that
| floated there from elsewhere or strange mineral accumulations?
| nsajko wrote:
| > corpses/shells that floated there from elsewhere
|
| The whole boulder would have had to float in that case.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Couldn't the closed ecosystem be extremely fragile to outsiders?
| Or would other organisms be so unadapted that the risk is almost
| non-existent?
|
| Conversely, would bringing some of these back endanger the local
| ecosystem? (maybe not _endanger_ , but it could be an invasive
| species in more favourable conditions).
| COGlory wrote:
| The risk is essentially negligible. The environments are too
| extremely different for either one to directly invade the
| other.
| coldcode wrote:
| To quote the oft-quoted quote "Life finds a way". As we
| eventually explore more planets, I am sure we will expand what we
| consider life.
| twiceinawhile wrote:
| Wasn't it just a few years ago they found microbes underwater
| where there wasn't any sunlight? The thinking back then was
| that all life was directly or indirectly dependent on sunlight.
| I believe they even found life in some kind of acid. The
| extremes where we thought life was impossible, we eventually
| found life.
| ricree wrote:
| >Wasn't it just a few years ago they found microbes
| underwater where there wasn't any sunlight?
|
| It sounds like you're talking about the life around
| hydrothermal vents[0], which ultimately depends on
| chemosynthesis[1]rather than photosynthesis. This has been
| known since the late 70s, and actually fuels significant
| macroscopic life[2], not just microorganisms.
|
| There's also deepwater life surviving off of things like
| marine snow[3], which is nutrient carrying detrius from the
| surface, or whale falls. But both of those ultimately depend
| on photosynthesis that happens near the surface.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent#Biology_of
| _h...
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis
|
| [2]See giant tube worm, for example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riftia_pachyptila
|
| [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_snow
| _Microft wrote:
| If you are interested in this, you might want to start
| looking here [0]. The general term for lifeforms in such
| extreme environments is "extremophiles". The different
| classes of extremes have own names though, for example
| "Acidophiles" for life in acidic environments. There is a
| list of them in the article.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The different classes of extremes have own names though,
| for example "Acidophiles" for life in acidic environments.
|
| This bothered me, since "acidophile" is transparently a
| hybrid compound with one Latin and one Greek root. So I
| looked up what the Greek root for acid would be.
|
| Turns out it's _oxy-_ , and oxygen was erroneously named
| for its essential (and completely fictional) role in the
| formation of acids. Acidophiles should properly be termed
| oxyphiles... except that everyone would get the wrong idea.
|
| This fails to explain how _acidophilus_ bacteria got their
| name, though.
| mewmew wrote:
| > It was a real shock to find them there, a really good shock,
| but we can't do DNA tests
|
| I'm just curious, why would it not be possible to do DNA tests?
| Is it too difficult to get to?
| _Microft wrote:
| Yes, this is taken from the paper:
|
| "Given the inherent complexity of obtaining physical samples
| (except for mobile fauna caught in baited traps) future studies
| could use environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques on water and
| sediment samples to identify taxa",
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.6420...
| (Open Access)
| macintux wrote:
| I think you're right: too difficult to reach.
|
| > ...after sinking a borehole through nearly a kilometre of the
| Filchner-Ronne ice shelf on the south-eastern Weddell Sea to
| obtain a sediment core from the seabed.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| But you've already done the difficult part - you've drilled
| the hole, and brought samples back. Now you just need to
| bring back _different_ samples. (And, I suppose, find a way
| to grab the right things...)
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