That's A Lot of Microbes

From USA Today...
Hot vents deep in the ocean harbor thousands of previously unknown microorganisms, scientists report. By examining the DNA of microbes taken from two hydrothermal vents [Axial Seamount] off the coast of Oregon, researchers identified as many as 37,000 different kinds of bacteria and 3,000 archaea, a type of microorganism distinct from bacteria, according to researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. and the University of Washington. Their findings are reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science." This is sure to make Christine's weekend.

More like this

Engineers Study Brain Folding In Higher Mammals: Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis are finding common ground between the shaping of the brain and the heart during embryonic development. Fungus Genome Yielding Answers To Protect Grains, People And Animals: Why a pathogen is a pathogen…
Tiny microbes beneath the sea floor, distinct from life on the Earth's surface, may account for one-tenth of the Earth's living biomass, according to an interdisciplinary team of researchers, but many of these minute creatures are living on a geologic timescale. This is from a press release…
Protect Your Vote: Avoid Election Machine Errors: Of all the conceivable problems that could lead to a miscount Election Day, there's one possibility that voters can do something about - avoid making election machine-related errors, says a University of Maryland researcher who led a comprehensive…
The first in a series of posts on circadian clocks in microorganisms (from February 23, 2006)... Many papers in chronobiology state that circadian clocks are ubiqutous. That has been a mantra since at least 1960. This suggests that most or all organisms on Earth possess biological clocks. In the…