Posted on 02/03/2005 12:21:09 PM PST by 68skylark
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tiny single-celled organisms, many of them previously unknown, have been discovered beneath nearly seven miles of water in the deepest part of the ocean.
A sample of sediment collected from the Challenger Deep southwest of Guam in the Pacific Ocean Islands yielded several hundred foraminifera, a type of plankton that is usually abundant near the ocean surface.
"On the species level, all the species we found from the Challenger Deep are quite new," researcher Hiroshi Kitazato said vie e-mail.
The outer shapes are similar to other known foraminifera, but details of their structure differ, explained Kitazato, of the Institute for Research on Earth Evolution, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.
"I am very surprised that so many very simple, soft-shelled foraminifera are dwelling at the deepest point of the world ocean," he added.
"It is also exiting that most of the group belong to the oldest branch of foraminifera," he added, suggesting that these deep locations may form some sort of refuge for them.
These distinct creatures probably represent the remnants of a deep-dwelling group that was able to adapt to the high pressures, the researchers suggest in reporting the find. Their discovery is reported in this week's issue of the journal Science.
Because the water is so deep, the pressure where the find was made is 1,100 times more than normal atmospheric pressure at the surface.
While many foraminifera have hard shells, the researchers noted that this newly found group does not.
Similar, though not identical, groups have been found in other, slightly shallower, ocean trenches, they note.
The creatures probably can exist by ingesting particles of organic matter that drift down from above or materials that are dissolved in the seawater, Kitazato said.
The research was funded by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science, the Kaplan Foundation and the Natural Environment Research Council.
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On the Net:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org
Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology: http://www.jamstec.go.jp
Well my mind is now officially in the gutter:)
Here I thought we were going to read something like shades of "The Abyss".
PH-is this worth pinging the crevo list for?
That's what's meant by "occupying a niche."
Don't feel bad, I thought it said orgasms.
Organisms not ORGASMS, planckton breath. lol :-)
nikos
Dang. I thought it was Ted Kennedy who was lower than whale feces.
:-)
*raises hand*
Yes, The ORGAniSMS were found in the deepest, darkest, wettest, most vulnerable part of the ocean where man had thrust his long hard probe for the last vestiges of life ......
WOW, what a place to have sex
Yeah, it's interesting. I'll ping the list. (How do I make these decisions?)
At least it's not trying to survive in an overgrown Marin County culvert...
I understand the trip down was a REALLY hairy experience!
Future Democrat voters? Paging Mr. Dean, please pick up the white courtesy phone...
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Well, if chlamydia and other bacteria can exist in Paris Hilton, I don't see why this is so surprising.
Betchya it makes their ears pop.
We were talking, a day or so ago, about "new" phyla. This is the sort of thing I was thinking about. (Whether this is a good example or not, I haven't a clue.) It could be happening, or be on the verge of happening, almost all the time. It's difficult to know except after millions of years of hindsight.
Air pressure on Venus is 100 times earth's atmospheric pressure. The Goldilocks band is not as narrow as it at first appears.
You owe me a keyboard!!! ;-)
I don't but keyboards for perverts with dirty minds......;^)
Speaking of Venus, it would be nice for NASA (or whoever) to send a mission to check the Venusian atmosphere for evidence of microbial life.
All life on earth is made up of intelligent single cell organisms, whose only desire is life.
It cares not where, nor how, it just knows that it will find a way to adapt and keep on living.
Scientists talk of mutation, where random changes are made, and those that work best are kept, because the creature lives.
While some of this is true, most 'mutation' is a willing change by the individual cells to adapt to new environments and find a way to survive.
There are creatures in the ocean that spend part of their life like a plant, with roots in the bottom, and stalks.
Later, they pull up root, so to speak, and change into a snakelike creature that swims through the ocean.
Rhinoceros beetles decide how to make their 'armor' look. It doesn't just grow, they participate in exactly how it (the chitin) grows.
A virus enters the body and makes up a combination of molecules(chemicals) shaped like various keys or geometric shapes, that will enter a normal cell, lock into place, and disable it. They do this without before running into the first normal cell. They know what and how to make the 'keys' before they get to the lock. Pretty smart, huh?
A human changes according to the way we think about ourselves and see ourselves. Our intelligence is made up of the collective intelligence of each individual cell.
The first creature on Earth, the oldest, and the most in number, is the same creature we are, and are made of.
Eukaryotes.
Mine too...I read "orgasms"! LOL
P.S. Sorry, the PROKARYOTES were first. The Eukaryotes were second, having an internal engine (nucleus) which the PK's don't. A Eukaryote is a prokaryote with a booster engine.
They helped convert the atmosphere so further life could develop.
They are our God, but who created them?
Woods Hole was not involved.
The architects of the earth's atmosphere were primarily the cyanobacteria, which are prokaryotes.
Via Drudge??
At the same time as Earth was infused, those moons probably were.
But I bet Bedford was......
Thanks for the ping! Indeed, I wonder how they will date the emergence of it absent a geologic record?
They can dig a sea-floor core and look for older specimens. They might be fossilized. (I'm not sure if fossils of such animals are possible, and I'm not sure they can operate a dig that deep.)
Talk about deep thoughts.
Abyssians??
..nothing has been shown, that he still isn't. IMHO, These Organisms are still a much higher (on many levels) lifeform than many (if not all) Washington D.C. Liberals. :^)
Thanks.. :^)
Don't feel bad, you're in good company. I'm going to go genuflect or something now.
I did not have sex with that sea canyon, the Merianas trench.
I wonder how far down a full beer can would make it before being crushed like a bug?
"We were talking, a day or so ago, about "new" phyla. This is the sort of thing I was thinking about. (Whether this is a good example or not, I haven't a clue.) It could be happening, or be on the verge of happening, almost all the time. It's difficult to know except after millions of years of hindsight."
As a bugologist, IMHO, these are more likely an old group, just newly discovered, especially since the authors said they were related to the oldest branch of the forams.
"They can dig a sea-floor core and look for older specimens. They might be fossilized. (I'm not sure if fossils of such animals are possible, and I'm not sure they can operate a dig that deep.)"
A sea floor core is technically possibly, but very difficult at that depth. The bugs are "soft shelled", so a fossil is possible, but highly unlikely. Think of a foram as a single celled snail. Hard shelled forams are very common fossils.
Seems likely. I was just using this as an example. A new body type could pop up. In a crowded world it would have a tough time, and it would take forever for it -- and its ever-varying progeny -- to be recognized as a new phylum. The whole conjecture was in response to a question about "why don't we see new phyla"?
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