Reply #12: Don't forget radiosynthesis [View All]

[Ian David]

Newfound Bacteria Fueled by Radiation

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A team of scientists has found bacteria living nearly two miles below ground, dining on sulfur in a world of steaming water and radioactive rock. A single cell may live a century before it gets up the energy to divide. The organisms have been there for millions of years. They will probably survive as long as the planet does, drawing energy from the stygian world around them.

The microbes, found in water spilling out of a fissure in a South African gold mine in 2003, are not entirely new, the researchers report in today's issue of Science. They are similar to ones found in other extreme environments and among the most primitive life forms ever described.

What is unusual is that their underground home contains no nutrients traceable to photosynthesis, the sunlight-harnessing process that fuels all life on Earth's surface. Such a community is an oddity on this planet -- and is of interest to people looking for life on other ones.

"There is an organism that dominates that environment by feeding off an essentially inexhaustible source of energy -- radiation," said Tullis C. Onstott, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the team. "The bottom line is: Water plus rocks plus radiation is enough to sustain life for millennia."

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901671.html