An exceptional discovery has allowed a group of researchers to find microbial life under 800 meters of the earth’s crust.
A exceptional discovery carried out by a group of researchers has brought to light a unique and very important fact. The discovery, published in magazine Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, allows us to understand the extreme conditions and the role that these microorganisms have in global processes.
They explain, for example, the carbon cycle. There research was funded by the NSF EPSCoR program, in collaboration with the Desert Research Institute and the University of New Hampshire. The scholars they focused in particular on a bacterium which is present in one aquifer beneath Death Valley.
It is a very particular place in the United States. And the Valle della National Park Death which occupies a large part of the desert Southern California and a part of Nevada. It extends well three millions of acres and houses a wild nature and rich in history.
An exceptional discovery
There methodology used by scholars is innovative and has allowed the discovery of this bacterium which is also the most numerous and active in this completely oxygen-free environment. It is a step forward in research that allows us to understand the dynamics that exist between community of microbes.
L’interaction that exists between them is capable of creating new worlds with them specific rules different from those already known. The scientists they focused, in particular, on Candidatus Desulforudis Audaxviatorthe bacterium that is capable of consume sulfate and is also the most active in critical conditions.
And they used one technique also adapted from biomedical science. Through this, that is, the “flow cytometry”, they were able to isolate themselves living microbes from water samples. The scientists they then marked these microbes with a particular compound that lights up under the laserflow acidometry.
And through the chemical reaction they were able to measure thecellular activity microbial. The activities between individual microbes are notable and of varying levels. There technique has also found application for the study of microbes present in thesea water.
An innovative technique to be used on other planets too
And they were able to discover that one a small part of these microorganisms is responsible of the consumption of most of theoxygen present in the ocean. This is one technique very interesting that researchers could also use in the future to study others anaerobic reactions in new environments.
Like, for example, i sediments along the coast of Maine. Furthermore, in a project financed by NASAthe same technique will be used to study the underground of the ocean and could, in the future, also be used on other planets.
