Microbe breaks temperature record

[brian]

I like seeing how life's limits are ever extended - the boudaries from which life can exist are re-defined.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3144397.stm

Microbe breaks temperature record

An organism has been discovered that can thrive at a record-breaking 121 Celsius.

The single-celled microbe grows at higher temperatures than any other known lifeform, according to scientists in the United States.

Strain 121, as it is known, was extracted from water gushing from super-hot springs at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

These hydothermal vents, warmed by molten rock deep within the Earth's crust, teem with strange lifeforms, such as tubeworms and huge clams.

The microbe, about a hundred times smaller than a grain of sand, belongs to an ancient group of bacteria-like organisms known as archae.

Even autoclaving - the process used to sterilise medical instruments - cannot destroy it.

The fact that it can survive temperatures reached inside a pressure cooker has implications in the search for early life on Earth and other worlds.

Strain 121 may be similar to the primitive organisms that existed on Earth some four billion years ago, when the planet was little more than a fiery ball of rock and metal bombarded by meteoroids.

Other planets, like Mars, were also much hotter in their past, raising hopes that some kind of microbial life might have flourished there.

Kazem Kashefi, one of a pair of microbiologists from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who discovered strain 121, says nobody believed there would be an organism that could grow at that temperature.

"This organism not only survives at 121 C, it can also reproduce," he told BBC News Online.
The fact that the microbe can withstand the usual sterilisation procedure (autoclaving for 20 minutes at 121 C) is not thought to pose a health risk.

"The good thing is it's not a pathogen," says Kashefi. "There are no known pathogens among the archae group."

One concern, though, is whether some of these tough guys could survive a ride to another planet on a spacecraft.

Karl Stetter, a professor of microbiology at Regensburg University in Germany, says the autoclave results "should be possibly considered in interplanetary missions in order to avoid contamination".

He says strain 121 is very similar to an organism discovered by his group which held the previous temperature record for growth (113 C) and can also survive autoclaving.

The latest research is published in the journal Science.

[littlemissattitude]

I think this just goes to show that life will develop, given any kind of chance at all. Certainly, it enhances the chances that this isn't the only place life has arisen.

[scifimoth]

Amazing...but not surprising. The tiniest lifeforms on the planted are also the most facinating I think...
It is astonishing what some bacteria are capable of.

[brian]

I love the implications for the search for extra-terrestrial life.

By that I don't mean sentient life - simply life. Bacteria would be a great start.

What's even more fascinating is that it shows how resilient cell structures can be - I'd love to see something of the mechanism that prevents all of its protein strucutres from denaturing.

Not in detail, though. 8)

[scifimoth]

Didn't they allready find bacteria on Mars?

[brian]

No, not at all - absolutely no life has yet been detected outside of our own biosphere. That's why there's so much hype about possible bacteria on Mars - and possible sulphur based ecosystems on Europa.

[scifimoth]

I knew I read something about bacteria and Mars...I just wasn't sure if they knew it to be true or not.
Considering there are lots of organisms like that that can grow in hostile evironments I would not be surprised at all. Look at lichens and mosses....certain types of Fungi as well. Life will find a way....

[brian]

Absolutely - and treks to Antartica have found colonies of bacteria living under ice and rock crusts, at temperatures of around minus 50 degrees celsius. Therefore the reasoning is that there must be bacteria at least on Mars.

But, really, the entire issue of presuming that there cannot be life elsewhere in the universe - unless found - is really just an extremely limited way of viewing the issue. I guess cosmology simply got too burned over claims of Martian canals and Venusian rainforests.

[scifimoth]

Well, I firmly believe that in all that endlessness we can not be the only life. To think so would be just another way of claiming we are the pinnacle of evolution (the human race loves to do that...)

[brian]

Not simply the pinnacle of evolution - but the zenith if a Divine plan.

Essentially, believing that we are the only planet in the universe that harbours life is just another form of earth-centric self belief - that the universe revolves around ourselves. No doubt one day that idea will be eventually shattered.

Life appears to be as natural a consequence of physical existence as crystal formation - so long as the conditions are right, then it happens.

[scifimoth]

Funny how we assume that there is a plan in the first place...LOL
Life is aboput chemistry..pure and simple...you mix a little of this and that in such conditions and there you go.
Being an Anthropologist have had a lot of opportunity to examine the depth and breath of just how self centered we really can be...we are such funny critters.