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NSF PR 97-61 - October 10, 1997
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Limits of Life on Earth: Are They the Key to Life
on Other Planets?
New NSF Grants to Foster Answers
From scalding hot places that rival Dante's Inferno
to frigid locations colder than the dark side of the
moon, scientists taking part in a $6 million National
Science Foundation (NSF) research initiative are searching
for life forms on Earth that may provide insight about
possible life on other planets. The first NSF awards
in this initiative -- which is titled Life in Extreme
Environments (LExEn) -- involve more than 20 research
projects and some 40 scientists who will look at life
in Earth's most extreme habitats.
"Life flourishes on the earth in an incredibly wide
range of environments," explains Mike Purdy, coordinator
of the NSF initiative. "These environments may be
analogous to the harsh conditions that exist now,
or have existed, on earth and other planets. The study
of microbial life forms and the extreme environments
they inhabit can provide new insights into how these
organisms adapted to diverse environments, and shed
light on the limits within which life can exist."
NSF's directorates of biological sciences; engineering;
geosciences; mathematical and physical sciences; and
office of polar programs are providing total funding
of $6 million to explore the relationships between
organisms and the environments in which they exist.
A strong emphasis has been placed on environments
that are near the extremes of conditions on earth.
Funding will also support research about our solar
system and beyond, to help identify possible new sites
for life beyond earth.
Scientists are studying environments such as the earth's
hydrothermal systems, sea ice and ice sheets, anoxic
habitats, hypersaline lakes, high altitude or polar
deserts, and human-engineered environments such as
those created for industrial processes. Projects involve
finding techniques for isolating and culturing microbes
found in extreme environments, developing methods
of studying these microbes in their natural habitats
and devising technologies for recovering non-contaminated
samples.
Attachment:
Attachment
Highlights of LExEn Projects
- Hyper-arid deserts are among the most extreme
environments on earth. The Atacama Desert
in Chile, with its rainless regions, is one such
hyper-arid desert here on earth. LExEn grantees
Frederick Rainey and John Battista of Louisiana
State University will investigate the range of
microorganisms living in this hyper-arid desert,
with the goal of shedding light on the survival
of microorganisms in similar extreme environments
elsewhere on earth.
- Recent investigations have identified microbial
communities in various crustal environments down
to 9,200 feet below the earth's surface. Very
few microbial samples exist from deep within continental
crust, because coring is expensive. But now Tullis
Onstott of Princeton University has uncovered
a unique opportunity to study microbial communities
at depths more than 10,000 feet below the surface:
in the gold mines of South Africa. Reconnaissance
samples taken from a hole bored into a uranium-rich,
gold-bearing mine in South Africa have shown the
presence of intact microbial cells. Onstott will
examine the relationship between mineralogy and
bacteria living in these deep rocks by conducting
intensive research at one particular South African
gold mine.
- Microorganisms may lie, Lazarus-like, viable
but entombed in ice sheets and ice caps of the
Tibetan plateau, the South American Andes, and
the north and south polar regions. A project
by Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosely-Thompson,
glaciologists at Ohio State University (OSU),
and their colleagues will resuscitate microorganisms
from ice cores kept at OSU's Byrd Polar Research
Center, and use recovered DNA from the organisms
to determine relationships to other organisms,
as well as abundance and age. The scientists will
assess the longevity of the organisms as well
as the diversity of tiny life-forms deposited
at the same geographical site thousands or even
hundreds of thousands of years apart. The researchers
hope to uncover extinct genes or gene fragments
to compare with modern counterparts.
- What is the telltale signature of past life
in extreme environments? The University of
Rochester's Ariel Anbar and colleagues will study
whether stable isotopes of key metabolic metals
fractionate -- and leave their "John Hancock"
-- when the metals are taken up and metabolized
by microorganisms. If this is the case, the method
could be used to identify traces of life in extreme
environments where other "biomarkers," or signs
of life, cannot be used. The study will focus
on copper and zinc isotopes expected to be abundant
when these metals are taken up by microbes in
a process catalyzed by enzymes, and iron isotopes
expected when iron is reduced in reactions mediated
by microbes.
- Many regions of the solar system where life
is postulated to exist, such as the oceans of
Jupiter's moon Europa, are characterized by pressures
far greater than those experienced at earth's
surface. Relatively little data exists on
the nature of barophilic (high-pressure-loving)
life forms, or the pressure boundaries within
which life may exist. Douglas Bartlett of the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla,
California, will conduct research on genetic components
associated with survival in high-pressure conditions.
In his studies, Bartlett will use so-called hyper-barophiles
recently obtained from a high-pressure location
at the bottom of the Japan Trench, a deep-sea
location where pressures reach many tons per square
inch.
- How does one study the ancient climate of
Mars? James Kasting of Pennsylvania State
University hopes to look back through time and
see what the paleoclimate on Mars was like. Early
Mars appears to have had a warm and wet climate,
but existing climate models have been unable to
explain this hypothesis. The answer may lie in
methane, which, if added to the Martian paleoatmosphere,
may have brought the surface temperature above
the freezing point of water early in the planet's
history. But where would this methane have come
from? Such a source could, in principle, have
been provided by bacteria living on the surface
of early Mars.
- Water, water, everywhere, and how critical
to the existence of life, but is it preserved
as liquid beneath the icy crust of Charon, Pluto's
moon? Until now, researchers have believed
that water may be maintained on planetary surfaces
through radiative heating from nearby stars. Douglas
Lin from the University of California and coworkers
will examine whether a layer of water can persist
below the surface of a planet's moon, maintained
as liquid by tidal interaction between planet
and moon. They will analyze such interaction between
Pluto and Charon as well as between Uranus and
its "satellites."
Attachment
List of LExEn Awards
FULL NAME
TELEPHONE # |
INSTITUTION |
PROPOSAL TITLE |
Jan P. Amend
314-935-4258 |
Washington University, St. Louis |
Growth Media for Hyperthermophiles: Geochemical
Constraints on Realistic Carbon and Energy
Sources in Shallow Marine Hydrothermal
Systems |
Ariel D. Anbar
716-275-5923 |
University of Rochester |
Biogenic Fractionations of Transition Metal
Isotopes: Novel Methods for the Examination
of Life in Extreme Environments |
Douglas H. Bartlett
619-534-4233 |
Scripps Inst. Of Oceanography |
Characterization of the Upper Pressure
Limits for Microbial Life |
Don K. Button
907-474-7708 |
University of Alaska |
Characteristics of Bacteria Native to Extremely
Dilute Environments |
David A. Caron
508-289-2358 |
Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. |
Protistan Biodiversity in Antarctic Marine
Ecosystems: Molecular Biological and Traditional
Approaches |
James P. Cowen
808-956-7124 |
University of Hawaii |
Collaborative Research: Development of
Capability to Measure Proxides of Microbial
Activity Within Ocean Crust |
Christian H. Fritsen
406-994-2883 |
Montana State University |
Collaborative Research: Microbial Life
within the Extreme Environment Posed by
Permanent Antarctic Lake Ice |
John E. Hobbie
508-289-7470 |
Marine Biological Laboratory |
Ecology of Microbial Systems in Extreme
Environments: The Role of Nanoflagellates
in Cold and Nutrient-Poor Arctic Freshwaters |
Holger W. Jannasch
508-289-2305 |
Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. |
New Physiological and Phylogenetic Types
of Hyperthermophiles at Deep-Sea Hydrothermal
Vents |
Eric L.N. Jensen
602-727-6335 |
Arizona State University |
Prospects for Life on Planets in Binary
Star Systems |
James F. Kasting
814-865-3207 |
The Pennsylvania State Univ. |
Collaborative Research: Methanogenesis
and the Climate of Early Mars |
Douglas N.C. Lin
408-459-2732 |
University of California |
Habitable Planets and Satellites in the
Outer Solar System |
Derek R. Lovley
413-545-1578 |
University of Massachusetts |
Fe (III)-and Humics-Reducing Microorganisms
in Extreme Environments |
George W. Luther
302-645-4208 |
University of Delaware |
Collaborative Research: Pyrite, a Crucial
Mineral and Surface for Microbial Life
in Extreme Hydrothermal Environments |
Tullis C. Onstott
609-258-6898 |
Princeton University |
A Window Into the Extreme Environment
of Deep Subsurface Microbial Communities:
Witwatersrand Deep Microbiology Project |
Frederick A. Rainey
504-334-2127 |
Louisiana State University |
Combining Culturing and Non-Culturing Approaches
for the Isolation of Prokaryotes from
a Hyper Arid Desert Environment |
William S. Reeburgh
714-824-2986 |
University of California |
Experimental Studies on Hydrogen Biogeochemistry
in Anoxic Environments |
John N. Reeve
614-292-2301 |
The Ohio State University |
Longevity and Diversity of Microorganisms
Entrapped in Tropical and Polar Ice Cores |
David A. Stahl
847-491-4997 |
Northwestern University |
Diversity and Habitat Range of Sulfate-Reducing
Microorganisms |
Gordon T. Taylor
516-632-8688 |
SUNY at Stony Brook |
Biology and Ecology of South Pole Snow
Microbes |
Thomas C. Vogelmann
307-766-6293 |
University of Wyoming |
The Snow Alga Chlamydomonas nivalis: Photosynthesis
Under the Greatest Extremes of High Light,
UV-B Radiation and Low Temperature on
Earth |
Russell H. Vreeland
610-436-2479 |
West Chester University |
Paleobiology of Ancient Salt Formations:
Examination of Primary Crystals for Biological
Materials |
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