Does This Strange Animal Have Alien DNA? Tardigrades are awesome and their just one example of an extremophile. There are also some extremophiles that live in Searles Lake just in case someone's interested in looking up the info.
Re: Extremophiles
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 5:39 pm
by wildrose
Extremophiles: The Most Extreme Life Forms on Earth Searles Lake is home to one of these unique microorganisms.
Don’t bother taking a dip in Searles Lake, California. In fact, it’s a stretch to call this wet spot in the Mojave Desert a lake at all. For starters, there’s not much water, mostly just salt-crusted ooze. The ooze smells like a combination of rotten eggs, decaying fish, and old cheese. It has a pH of 9.8—about the same as bleach. To top things off, the ooze in Searles Lake contains ultra-high levels of arsenic: 29,000 times what is considered safe in drinking water. Even the salt content is nasty: 10 times the salt content of ocean water. Amazingly, something actually lives in Searle Lake’s caustic ooze: a type of bacteria called SLAR-1.
The geysers at Yellowstone are supposed to have some extremophiles living in them. There was a documentary I saw a few months ago that talked about this sort of thing. I don't remember any details, just that the microorganisms were able live under extremely harsh conditions.
Re: Extremophiles
Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 8:10 am
by wildrose
Meet the electric life forms that live on pure energy This might be the weirdest type of extremophile yet and the article is simply electrifying!
Unlike any other living thing on Earth, electric bacteria use energy in its purest form – naked electricity in the shape of electrons harvested from rocks and metals. We already knew about two types, Shewanella and Geobacter. Now, biologists are showing that they can entice many more out of rocks and marine mud by tempting them with a bit of electrical juice. Experiments growing bacteria on battery electrodes demonstrate that these novel, mind-boggling forms of life are essentially eating and excreting electricity.
Thermotoga petrophila Here's another one for the collection:
Given their need for high temperatures and anaerobic environments, T. petrophila have been found to inhabit production waters on oil reservoirs. These oil stratifications reach high temperatures and are largely devoid of oxygen, making them ideal for this species of bacterium. Although T. petrophila has not been found to grow in geothermal areas such as volcanic hot springs, other species of the Thermotoga genus have been discovered in these regions, leading to the possibility that such regions could sustain life.
Sulfolobus solfataricus This little fella is a species of archaea that lives in volcanic springs where temperatures reach 80 degrees C (that's 176 degrees F)!
It was first isolated and discovered in the Solfatara volcano which it was subsequently named after. However, these organisms are not isolated to volcanoes but are found all over the world in places such as hot springs. The species grows best in temperatures around 80° Celsius, a pH level between 2 to 4, and enough sulfur for solfataricus to metabolize in order to gain energy. These conditions qualify it as an extremophile and it is specifically known as a thermoacidophile because of its preference to high temperatures and low pH levels.
SLAS-1 is a aloalkaliphilic extremophile isolated from Searles Lake. It lives off of arsenic somehow. ICYDK: Searles Lake contains an alkaline brine with unusually high levels of arsenic. It's amazing that anything can live in the water!
Re: Extremophiles
Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 7:35 pm
by tronagirl
Scientists Finally Figured Out Why Tardigrades Are So Indestructible
Earlier this year, scientists successfully revived a tardigrade that had been frozen solid for more than three decades—a new record for this durable species.
These things are practically indestructible!
Tardigrades are strangely adorable microscopic creatures that are capable of withstanding some of the worst that nature can throw at them. Classified as “extremophiles,” they can survive freezing, total dehydration, radiation, and even the vacuum of space.
World’s hardiest animal has evolved radiation shield for its DNA This is amazing and what's more amazing is that scientists were able to genetically engineer human cells to be radiation proof too.
They can survive in the vacuum of outer space, withstand temperatures ranging from close to absolute zero to nearly 100°C, cope with pressures six times greater than those at the bottom of the deepest ocean and survive dehydration and being frozen for years on end. They can also defy hefty amounts of radiation that would be lethal to most other life on the planet – and now we know how they do it.