Since the topic of
water came up, here is a link to a (tangentially) related paper. The author discusses the
known and the possibilities of microbial life in extremely cold locations, such
as deep within glacial ice, and proposes that such microbes can leverage various
properties in order to persist in those surroundings. The discussion also
relates to origin-of-life and exobiology on locations such as
Europa.
Quantitative Biology, abstract
q-bio.PE/0507004From: Buford Price [view email]
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 20:44:39 GMT (303kb)
Life in solid iceAuthors: P. Buford
PriceComments: 21 pages, no figures, presented at Workshop on
Life in Ancient Ice, June 30, 2001 Subj-class: Populations and
Evolution; Cell Behavior
Some microbes appear to be able to metabolize in glacial ice or
permafrost. The rate depends on temperature, nutrient level, and bioelement
availability, among other factors. I have developed a plausible argument that
they do this while confined in veins filled with acidic or saline solution
that provides nutrients and elements necessary for growth. Here I develop this
scenario further and discuss some of its implications for ice-covered
planetary bodies and for the the origin of life. An accompanying paper in the
conference proceedings (Bay et al.) discusses plans to test this hypothesis
using epifluorescence microscopy of pristine, unmelted ice samples and an
optical biospectrologging tool to assay living and dead microbes in boreholes
in glacial ice.
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