17 April 2009

Newly discovered extremophile "breathes iron"


Since this is a bacterium, the "breathing"part doesn't imply lung-type function - just the use of elemental iron as a source of energy. Found in a subglacial Antarctic lake, the creature still sounds awesome:
Chemical analysis of effluent from the inaccessible subglacial pool suggests that its inhabitants have eked out a living by breathing iron leached from bedrock with the help of a sulfur catalyst. Lacking any light to support photosynthesis, the microbes have presumably survived by feeding on the organic matter trapped with them when the massive Taylor Glacier sealed off their habitat an estimated 1.5 to 2 million years ago.

... samples [were] taken at Antarctica's Blood Falls, a frozen waterfall-like feature at the edge of the Taylor Glacier whose striking red appearance first drew early explorers' attention in 1911. Those "Heroic Age" adventurers speculated that red algae might have been responsible for the bright color, but scientists later confirmed that the coloration was due to rust...

Life below the Taylor Glacier may help address questions about "Snowball Earth," the period of geological time when large ice sheets covered Earth's surface. But it could also be a rich laboratory for studying life in other hostile environments, and perhaps even on Mars and its ice-covered moon, Europa.


Blood Falls photo found here.

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