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The Pompeii worm, the most heat-tolerant animal on Earth, lives in the deep ocean at super-heated hydrothermal vents. Covering this deep-sea worm's back is a fleece of bacteria. These microbes contain all the genes necessary for life in extreme environments. Credit: University of Delaware
Clues To Thriving In Extreme Environments
So many things in our culture are tagged with the label "extreme" it has become somewhat trite. We may have extreme sports, extreme hobbies and even extreme cake making, but the environment of the Nautilia profundicola bacterium really earns the title!
This microbe lives 2,500 meters below the surface of the ocean near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. In this extremely harsh region of the ocean floor, the bacteria live in a fleece-like lining on the backs of Pompeii worms, a type of tubeworm that lives at hydrothermal vents, and in bacterial mats on the surfaces of the vents' chimney structures.
The microbes are being studied because the regions around deep sea hydrothermal vents are thought to mimic the conditions of the early Earth. Developing a better understanding of how life adapts to these harsh conditions may help us to unlock the secrets of how life evolved on our planet.
Microorganisms that thrive at hydrothermal vents must adapt to fluctuations in temperature and oxygen levels, ranging from the hot, sulfide- and heavy metal-laden plume at the vents' outlets to very cold seawater in the surrounding region.
Tubeworms have no mouth, eyes or stomach. Their survival depends on a symbiotic relationship with the billions of bacteria that live inside them. These bacteria convert the chemicals that shoot out of the hydrothermal vents into food for the worm. Credit: University of Delaware
Photosynthesis doesn't occur in this dark environment, where hot, toxic fluids oozing from below the seafloor combine with cold seawater at very high pressures. As a result, the foundational organisms in the region's ecosystem use utilize hydrogen sulfide in the manner terrestrial plants use sunlight to produce energy. This process is referred to as chemosynthesis.
A recent analysis of the bacteria's genome that was reported in the journal PLoS Genetics involved scientists at the University of Delaware, the University of California, the Universities of Louisville, Ky., and Waikato, New Zealand, and the J. Craig Venter Institute.
Researchers found that Nautilia profundicola has the ability to manufacture the protein, reverse gyrase, when it encounters the scalding liquids which are released by the vents. This protein has a protective effect upon the organism's DNA. This adaptation suggests that it might play a role in the bacterium's ability to survive rapid and frequent temperature fluctuations in its environment. This in turn allows an entire mini ecosystem that depends upon the bacteria to thrive.
Source:
The National Science Foundation, www.nsf.org
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This illustration shows the relative sizes of the sun and Earth.
Credit: NASA
Cheaper Solar Cells On The Horizon?
The National Science Foundation reported that an interdisciplinary research collaboration is working to design, synthesize and eventually manufacture a more efficient and less costly photovoltaic cell.
Photovoltaic cells have the ability to convert sunlight into electricity and are the basic building block necessary to produce solar power. The research seeks to create a cell that will allow a great range of applications.
Unlike the vast majority of today's solar cells, which are expensive because they are made from silicon-based, or inorganic, semiconductors, the solar cell the group is working on will be less costly as they will be made from organic, or carbon-based, semiconductors made from polymers. In essence, the cells will be plastic and may be eventually made in rolls or sheets not unlike the paper used for printing a typical magazine.
Such lightweight and mechanically flexible cells would be adaptable to many more applications than are possible with current solar technology. Imagine wrapping an entire building with energy-producing membranes or making vehicles which have them bonded to their outer surfaces. Technological breakthroughs of the kind being worked on by these pioneers have the capacity to completely transform the energy landscape!
Source:
The National Science Foundation, www.nsf.org
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Starting in 2001, we have been teaching about how emotional states contract and relax the DNA molecule. For those of you that have taken our trainings, you may remember that I suggested this means that the DNA molecule could be used as an on/off switch which could lead to a nano machine and even a computer that might be affected by emotional states.
Well, it looks like other molecules are already being tested as these sorts of nano switches for a new generation of computers! It'll be interesting to follow this research! - Evelyn.
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A Pennsylvania State university engineer has found a way to use a molecule which can change shape as a foundation for what he believes will usher in a new generation of computers that operate faster and store more information than electronically-based systems and are smaller than optically-based systems.
In their simplest form, computers are simply machines that can say yes or no multiple times to transfer information. This yes/no or on/off action is the foundation of the binary code system of zeroes and ones. In fact, the earliest computers were not much more than room-sized banks of mechanical switches.
The motion of a molecule can serve the same purpose as the on/off switch on a light or the yes/no of a computer system. By using groups of these molecules on gold-coated nanodiscs, researchers have taken the first step to producing low energy and ultra small computer systems. This technology could for instance allow immense storage capacity in very small spaces such as storing 1,000 movies on a typical USB drive.
Source:
Pennsylvania State University
The National Science Foundation, www.nsf.org
Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com
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