NSF-funded researchers discover evidence of microscopic life at the ...( d in Antarctica. If the team's concl...)

If the team's conclusions prove true, the discovery not only has important implications for the search for life in other extreme environments on Earth, but also for the possibility that life -- at least at the microscopic level -- may exist elsewhere in the solar system. Furthermore, the snow bacteria may possess unique enzymes and membranes able to cope with a subzero existence.

The team was careful to take samples at the edge of the clean-air sector at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to prevent contamination of the samples by bacteria from human habitation. The containers of bacteria were flown, still frozen, within 24 hours to the Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center at NSF's McMurdo Station for analysis. In examining the snowmelt, the researchers found coccoid and rod-shaped bacteria, some of which appeared to be dividing.

The findings by Carpenter and his colleagues, Senjie Lin, of the University of Connecticut, and Douglas Capone, of the University of Southern California, also may be significant because a separate team of NSF-supported investigators reported that ice cores taken at Lake Vostok, deep in the Antarctic interior, indicate the presence of microbes in what is suspected to be a vast pool of liquid water thousands of meters below the Antarctic ice sheet. That finding may have similar implications for extending the known limits of life.

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Contact: Michelle Edwards
medwards@nsf.gov
703-306-1070
National Science Foundation
5-Jul-2000