Saturday, February 23, 2013

postheadericon DailyDirt: Another Day, Another New Species...

have become masters of this planet, but there are places on Earth that have been relatively untouched by people, where many new species of life are waiting to be discovered. Most of these life forms are very small - insects, bacteria and other micro-organisms - and tend to live in extreme conditions, which is probably why they have escaped our discovery for so long. Here are some examples of what scientists are increasingly bio-literacy.
  • How many species of life on Earth? According to the National Science Foundation "Tree of Life", which can be anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species on Earth. So far only identified about 2 million. [Url]
  • Penn State researchers have studied the microbial population Ultra at a depth of 3,000 meters in the 120,000 years of ice cores from Greenland glaciers. They were able to isolate a variety of tiny microbes that were either new or related phylogenetically other ultramicrobacteria. [Url]

microbiologists study "thermophile" bacteria in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where temperatures can exceed 350 degrees Celsius. The testimony of the life that grows at high temperatures is 113.25 degrees Celsius. Thermophiles are not only useful to help us search for traces of past or present life on other planets, but also produce enzymes that can be used at high temperatures and genetic research. [Url]

an expedition sponsored by NASA in 2011, he found a large phytoplankton bloom in the Arctic ice in the Chukchi Sea. It was the first direct observation of an algal bloom under the ice, thought to be impossible, and now scientists believe that these algae can actually be more broad and could be an important indicator of changes important in arctic ecosystems such as that caused by global warming. [Url]

If you want to read something more interesting and evocative, see this link (but not totally random!) Post Techdirt.
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