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New Signs of Polar Life
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/23/04 |
| Summary: Finding moss and lichen colonies in Antarctica depends on weathering not only the cold, but also extremes of dryness. On ninety-nine percent of the Poles, no vegetation can grow. But scientists with the British Antarctic Survey have found a remarkably robust colony of plants photosynthesizing from a rocky haven. |
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Ring of Life
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/12/04 |
| Summary: Molecular biologists have uprooted a traditional perspective on life's ancient ancestry, if their supplanted tree-of-life metaphor is modified to look more like a ring-of-life. |
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Unsung Species Co-Endangered
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/12/04 |
| Summary: Extinction of a species is not just a permanent loss of biological diversity, but may have ripple effects as co-dependent species suffer from the absence of what may be linked predator-prey relatsionships. |
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Deception Point
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
09/06/04 |
| Summary: Bestselling author, Dan Brown, has concocted a tale for astrobiologists called "Deception Point". But how can one separate facts from fiction? Consider the scientific possibilities of dissecting a meteorite full of insect-like fossils. |
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Whale of a Species
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
08/06/04 |
| Summary: One finds alien looking species in deep sea niches, but few could have imagined a whale-eating worm with neither mouth nor eyes. When a whale dies, this species comes to life. Even more remarkable is the female gestates her own reproductive partners-- by engulfing a dozen or so immature males alive. |
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The Spillproof Earth
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
07/27/04 |
| Summary: Texas A&M University and NASA are teaming up to bring new levels of planetary protection against forward contamination of other worlds from our space probes. The team hopes to sterilize future hardware using a well-known technique called electron beam irradiation. |
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Living Deep
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
07/27/04 |
| Summary: Nearly three miles below the ocean surface waits a relatively unexplored and unexploited frontier. The Scripps Institute is tracking large animals that live at this depth, as they test the hypothesis that this unique ecosystem has entered a phase of starvation and food shortages. |
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Ocean Extreme Shows Its Spine
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
07/23/04 |
| Summary: While scientists speculate on the requirements of life elsewhere, the diversity of terrestrial species continue to surprise. The latest addition to the marine census includes the smallest creature with a backbone. |
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The Human Extreme
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
07/19/04 |
| Summary: Most scientists never think of extremophiles as higher organisms like humans, but deciphering what Greek antiquity considered a noble extreme--the marathon race--suggests that what one organism can survive may not be entirely dependent on the traditional environmental pressures. |
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Pristine Polar Lakes
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| Topic: Extreme Life |
07/13/04 |
| Summary: Aircraft surveys over the world's last unexplored biological frontier, Lake Vostok, have revealed twin sub-basins. Not only is the polar lake isolated from contamination from open air, but also may harbor two ecosystems that do not share water flows. |
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