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Read questions and answers in the Mail Buoy» December 1, 2011 How would the organisms tell you about how life might have begun on Earth and where you might look for life on other planets? How do YOU think these organisms could survive the harsh conditions? Sofya Dear Sofya, these are very smart questions. In fact, another student asked your first question a few days ago. Look back on the Mail Buoy page and you will find our answer. (It was rather long, or we would copy it here.) As for your second question, studying the organisms living in the brine lakes and their adaptations to a low water activity environment may give us some clues about the possibility of life forms on other planets without obvious sources of water. Where we would look for life on other planets? Maybe Europa, which is a moon of Jupiter. This moon has a surface of ice and most likely there is liquid water beneath the ice. But as we know from our own research (protists living in low water activity environments), planets without water may also be home to life forms. Maybe one day someone will even discover life on a planet like Mars. You never know. And this is what makes research so exciting. Dr. Thorsten Stoeck
Do you expect the life forms in the brine lakes to have any unusual organelles? Ivan V. Dear Ivan, this is a very good thought. Indeed, the organisms living in the brines have most likely (we do not know yet for sure) very specific organelles to cope with the harsh conditions in their environment. The most difficult environmental factors to deal with down there are the lack of oxygen, the availability of toxic substances like hydrogen sulfide (a gas that smells awfully like rotten eggs and which is produced mainly by bacteria) and also the extremely high salt concentration, which deprives cells of the essential water. Therefore, the organisms living in the brines must have organelles and metabolic mechanisms to cope with these conditions. Some of them we already know exist, like an organelle which is called a "hydrogenosome.” With such an organelle, an organism can produce energy without oxygen (humans and most animals need oxygen to produce energy....you can feel it yourself: when running fast you need to breathe more in order to provide more oxygen to your muscles). But we hardly know anything about the organelles dealing with high salt concentrations or toxic substances in the brines. We hope to find some answers on our expedition. Dr. Thorsten Stoeck
Dear Team of Expedition 14, Camilla H. Dear Camilla, its basic cellular processes going. As a smart student you now most certainly wonder, why we lack water in the deep-sea brine lakes. The answer to this question is that the high salt concentration binds all available water and even attracts the water that is within living cells (this process is called "osmosis"). Therefore, the amount of water that is freely available to organisms in the brine lakes is close to zero (scientists speak of a "low water activity"). And this water activity in the brine lakes is as low as on other planets like Mars. Studying the organisms living in the brine lakes and their adaptations to a low water activity environment may give us some clues about the possibility of life forms on other planets without obvious sources of water. Dr. Thorsten Stoeck Did you find any interesting chemicals or materials in the deep brines? Tadeh D. As biologists, we look at the organisms living in the brines, rather than materials and chemicals. But this is a very good subject, as there are several scientists, for example geologists and chemists, that look specifically for materials and chemicals. And we guess that chances are very high to find something new down in the deep brines in the next couple of years. Dr. Thorsten Stoeck
If you discover something new, will it be observed right there on the ship or will it be sent back to a lab? Sarah O. Dear Sarah. In case we detect something new and highly interesting (which we hope we will), we most likely will only know once we are back in our home labs. Even though we have microscopes on board, it would be very difficult to identify microbes that are new to science because we would have to do a number of analyses with the species of microbes we find here. For example, we need to look at genes that tell us a little bit about the true identity of the organisms we discover. Only in our labs do we have the means to do such analyses. Here on board the Atlantis we predominantly preserve the samples in a way that allows us to bring everything back home safely. Dr. Thorsten Stoeck
Hello. My question is when the Jason or the other vehicles, how can you keep track of them? How can you make sure that you don't need to check every minute? Michelle L. Very good question. We have water detection systems in all the junction boxes. If we got water in one of them an alarm goes off. Also we have gauges that show us pressures of the various systems. As long as we are showing pressure with no changes we know the systems are intact. Those gauges are monitored by the people operating the system via one of the video cameras on Jason. Also we are always looking down on Jason from a video camera mounted on Medea. That gives us a very good look at Jason, kinda like a helicopter watching traffic. You can learn more about Jason and how it works on the Dive and Discovery website, at www.divediscover.whoi.edu/tools/jason.html. What model is the ship that you are located on, what year was it designed and manufactured, and where was it from? Jenny T. Hi Jenny, The Atlantis is Model AGOR 25. Construction was completed in 1997.
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