Life, Down Under

[ethics]

A few years ago the life forms around deep-ocean thermal vents were a surprise. Now ancient <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/99/1213/microbe.shtml">bacteria alive in rock 2 miles down have been found.</a>

The story is in the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/09/MN154689.DTL&type=science">San Francisco Chronicle.</a> It is also at <a href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/021209/021209-1.html">Nature.Com</a>.

Other bacteria survived frozen in the pressures of an ocean 100 miles deep. This increases the known limits of where life can exist on any planet.

People always used to say that life is a miracle because life is so hard to come by. I tend to disagree and think that life strives all the time to take over a new environment, or an environment inaccessible to humans.

These types of stories always wake up the kid in me who thinks there's got to be some form of life on Mars, Europa, and other celestial bodies.

[Sunriser13]

These kinds of discoveries fascinate me, also. The life that is deep in the ocean, some right at geo-thermal vents where nobody ever thought something could possibly live - strange, wonderful creatures beautifully designed for just that environment. Life that is found smack dab in the middle of a glacier or a volcano. It almost doesn't surprise me anymore no matter where they "find" something else... of course, they were never "lost", you know! ;)

More and more, the wonders of nature on this planet alone impress upon us the importance of all life. The symbiosis of all of us is something we need to greater understand and protect.

[mikeky]

It is amazing how adaptable species can become to survive. But I think the beginning of sustainable life still seems a complicated enough process to be call a miracle, no matter which view you take on how it all started.