Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Bugle Bomb here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: for you today. Traditionally, it's been thought that liquid water
Speaker 1: was necessary to sustain life as we know it, but
Speaker 1: some research has indicated that that might not be the case.
Speaker 1: I'll let former Lauren explain, Hey their brain Stuff Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogel bond here. Life's resilience keeps astounding us. Unimaginable as
Speaker 1: it may seem, there's a thriving population of microorganisms in
Speaker 1: the cold, dry, nutrient poor soils of Antarctica. A study
Speaker 1: may have just revealed the secret to their survival, and
Speaker 1: that revelation could transform our quest to find life on
Speaker 1: other planets. Antarctica is a continent which famously goes dark
Speaker 1: for months on end during the winter season, a period
Speaker 1: in which it sees no sunlight. This presents a big
Speaker 1: challenge to organisms who need to photosynthesize, that is, convert
Speaker 1: solar light into food. Intense dryness is another hurdle. Certain
Speaker 1: parts of the continent received no precipitation whatsoever, and even
Speaker 1: though Antarctica is covered in ice, drinkable water is scarce.
Speaker 1: And then we have the issue of carbon all known
Speaker 1: life is based on this element, and yet very little
Speaker 1: of it can be found in Antarctic dirt. But life
Speaker 1: uh finds a way. For years now, biologists have known
Speaker 1: about the existence of diverse bacteria communities in Antarctica's soils.
Speaker 1: How could anything survive under such extreme conditions. To gain
Speaker 1: some insight, a team of Australian and New Zealander scientists
Speaker 1: took a hard look at micro filled dirt samples from
Speaker 1: two ice free sites in eastern Antarctica. Both areas are
Speaker 1: deserts where no plants can grow. The McMurdo Dry Valleys
Speaker 1: region has even been compared to the surface of Mars.
Speaker 1: The place has received no rainfall in almost two million years,
Speaker 1: its humidity levels are staggeringly low, and ice, snow, and
Speaker 1: liquid water are all practically non existent there. On December six,
Speaker 1: the team published their findings in the journal Nature. They
Speaker 1: reported seeing DNA traces from twenty three microbial organism inside
Speaker 1: those soil samples. By reconstructing the microbes genomes, the scientists
Speaker 1: learned that many of these life forms had genes that
Speaker 1: made them exceptionally good at processing carbon, monoxide and hydrogen.
Speaker 1: The researchers theorized that the organisms are able to meet
Speaker 1: their energy requirements by pulling both of these gases, along
Speaker 1: with carbon dioxide, straight out of the atmosphere. In other words,
Speaker 1: because of Antarctica's shortage of sunlight and suitable water, as
Speaker 1: well as nutrient poor soil, these microbes could be surviving
Speaker 1: off of air alone. Should this be true, planets and
Speaker 1: moons that were once written off as completely uninhabitable might
Speaker 1: be able to sustain life after all. Maybe alien organisms
Speaker 1: don't need drinking water or abundant sunlight on their home worlds. Instead,
Speaker 1: it could be that the only thing they require is
Speaker 1: the right combination of atmospheric gases. But the study scientists
Speaker 1: say more research is needed to see if this phenomenon
Speaker 1: exists in other parts of the world as well as
Speaker 1: outside of it. Today's episode but written by Mark Fancini
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Clang. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other expectation breaking topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of
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