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Hot Topic
Origins
Extreme Life
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Cutting through the Protein Knots
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
10/24/02 |
| As webmaster of 200,000 computers across the globe, the Stanford computational biology team (folding@home) has unraveled the first 3-dimensional knot of a model protein, using the now familiar screensaver supercomputer popularized by SETI@home. |
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What's Living in the World's Highest Lake?
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
10/21/02 |
| An international team of scientists this week began a three-week trek to the highest lake in the world. This is the first in a series of four articles about their expedition to Licancabur, Chile. Each Monday for the next three weeks, we will bring you interviews with different scientists who are participating in this Andean expedition. |
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SpinCam: Pancake Recipe for Life
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/22/02 |
| Centrifuge-cameras begin exploration of life and genetic changes at the extremes of high gravity-- in the only animal with a completely sequenced gene library. |
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Extreme Animals
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/01/02 |
| Because of their ability to withstand hostile conditions, tardigrades and other cryptobiotic organisms are of interest to astrobiologists. Some tardigrades can survive in temperatures as low as minus 200 degrees Celsius (minus 328 F). |
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Tracking the Path of Green Slime
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
08/28/02 |
| Cyanobacteria gave us oxygen for the atmosphere and a protective ozone layer, and they led to the development of all the green plants in the world today. They can be found everywhere from the surface of the oceans to underneath rocks in the desert. |
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Bacteria: Survival in Siberia
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
08/14/02 |
| While Mars experts have gathered evidence of ice on Mars for some time, results in May from the Odyssey spacecraft showed large amounts of subsurface ice. The concept of suspended animation supports the plots of dozens of science fiction books and movies. |
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Prospecting for Viruses
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
08/04/02 |
| Under scalding, acidic conditions, how do life processes function? Because of their simplicity relative to cellular life forms, the 3500 described viruses may offer scientists the best opportunity to glean information about survival in extreme environments. |
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High-pressure Living
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
06/12/02 |
| Most researchers have concluded that only some exotic forms of life might survive at 30 miles below ground or 100 miles beneath the ocean. But a recent study published in Science magazine highlights what might be a large and subterranean biomass, even for common surface bacteria. |
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Salt of the Early Earth
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
06/11/02 |
| Scientists have long assumed that life originated in the sea. If life did spring from salt water, that could explain why all organisms use salt. But Paul Knauth, an astrobiologist with Arizona State University, says while we always assume that life came from the ocean, this theory has never been proven. |
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