Tag Archive for 'Archaea'

Scientists Find Extraterrestrial Cyanide Compounds in Meteorites

Jun 26, 2019 by News Staff

A research team led by scientists from Boise State University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has identified several complex cyanide compounds...

This colorized image shows a species of the haloarchaea genus Halorubrum. Scale bar - 2 μm. Image credit: Reid et al, doi: 10.1017/S1473550406002916.

Biologists Find Arsenic-Breathing Microbes in Oxygen-Poor Regions of Pacific Ocean

May 9, 2019 by News Staff

A team of marine biologists from the University of Washington has found communities of arsenic-breathing microbes in the oxygen-deficient zones of the...

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP (named in honor of Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin). This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. Image credit: NASA / NOAA / GSFC / Suomi NPP / VIIRS / Norman Kuring.

Researchers Estimate Total Mass of Earth’s Deep Life: 15-23 Billion Tons of Carbon

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

An international collaboration of researchers from the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) has made several important discoveries, including how much and what...

Microscopy image of Sulfolobus solfataricus. Image credit: D. Janckovik / W. Zillig.

Researchers Find First Ever Evidence for Epigenetics in Archaea

Dec 6, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of California, Santa Cruz, has found evidence that an evolutionary phenomenon...

An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA.

Common Ancestor of All Cellular Life on Earth Emerged Very Early in Planet’s History

Aug 23, 2018 by News Staff

New research from the Universities of Bristol and Bath suggests life originated on our planet a lot earlier than previously thought. An artistic conception...

Three major populations from Echinus Geyser, Yellowstone National Park: Marsarchaeota (>1 µm cocci, red arrow), Thermocladium spp. (0.3–0.4 µm diameter filaments), and Sulfolobus islandicus-like organisms (

Marsarchaeota: Microbiologists Discover New Lineage of Archaea in Yellowstone

May 15, 2018 by News Staff

A group of Montana State University microbiologists has discovered a new archaeal lineage living in the extreme geothermal environments in Yellowstone...

Thin-section electron microscopy of an agar overlay containing plaques of the representative Autolykiviridae virus 1.008.O; virus particles in contact with cell membranes are observed to occasionally possess tail-tube-like structures, whereas those not in contact with cells do not. Image credit: Kauffman et al, doi: 10.1038/nature25474.

Scientists Find New Type of Virus in World’s Oceans: Autolykiviridae

Jan 25, 2018 by News Staff

Non-tailed double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses infect bacteria and dominate water samples from the world’s oceans. They have long escaped analysis because...

3.465-billion-year-old fossil microbes indicate that life in the Universe is common. Image credit: Reimund Bertrams.

Study: Simple Life Forms are Common throughout Universe

Dec 19, 2017 by News Staff

A detailed analysis of 3.465-billion-year-old microbial microfossils provides evidence to support an increasingly widespread understanding that life in...

This image shows Watson 021, a single H7 ordinary chondrite, weighing 135 g. The sample has a large crack, lined with alteration minerals, that runs down its middle and only one third of its fusion crust remains intact. This meteorite shows near complete oxidation of its reduced metal and sulfide phases making this a W4 chondrite. Watson 021 is extensively shocked, exhibiting globular silicate metal emulsions and shock veins that crosscut the sample. Tait et al found that microbial communities in samples of Nullarbor Plain soil are more diverse than those in Watson 021 and other meteorites, which are highly uniform in their species evenness and species richness. Image credit: Tait et al, doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2017.01227.

Research Opens New Way to Understand Possible Martian Life through Meteorites

Jul 20, 2017 by News Staff

New research from Monash University and the University of Queensland has added a new dimension to understanding life on the Red Planet with the discovery...

According to Williams et al, the earliest metabolisms of the Archaea were based on the anaerobic reduction of carbon dioxide, and likely evolved during the earliest period of Earth’s evolutionary history. This is an artist’s impression of an Archean landscape. Image credit: Tim Bertelink / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Scientists Improve Evolutionary Tree of Life for Archaea

May 28, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international group of researchers from UK, France, Hungary and Sweden has provided new insights into the origins of the Archaea, the group of simple...

Archaea were first found in extreme environments, such as volcanic hot springs; pictured here is Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Jim Peaco / National Park Service.

Bathyarchaeota: New Deep-Sea Methane-Consuming Microorganisms Discovered

Oct 26, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of biologists from Australia and the United States has discovered two new species of methane-metabolizing archaea. Archaea were first...

This family tree of Earth’s lifeforms is considered a first draft of the 3.5-billion-year history of how life evolved and diverged. Colors represent proportion of lineages represented in databases of the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Image credit: Cody E. Hinchliff et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1423041112.

Researchers Create Tree of Life for More Than Two Million Species

Sep 21, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from eleven institutions in the U.S. has produced a first draft of the ‘tree of life’ for 2.34 million species...

These rocks, recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program on board the drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution, are from the Earth’s upper mantle that underwent intense alteration by heated seawater. The rocks show a systematic change in color from rusty brown (top) to green and black (bottom), reflecting the chemical gradients across the fluid mixing zone. These chemical gradients played a key role in supporting microbes with chemical energy and the substrates they needed to thrive. Fossilized microbes were found in white veins consisting of the minerals calcite and brucite. Image credit: Ocean Drilling Program.

Scientists Find Evidence of Ancient Microbial Life in Sub-Seafloor Mantle Rocks

Sep 1, 2015 by News Staff

Traces of ancient microbial communities have been found in rock samples of Earth’s mantle from a seafloor hydrothermal system that was active more than...

This false-color image shows a cell of thermophilic methanogenic archaea. Image credit: University of California Museum of Paleontology.

Lokiarchaeota: Biologists Discover ‘Missing Link’ Microorganism

May 7, 2015 by News Staff

A team of biologists, co-led by Dr Lionel Guy and Dr Thijs J. G. Ettema from Uppsala University in Sweden, has discovered a new group of microorganisms...

Unique Microorganisms Found in Atacama Region

Jun 11, 2012 by News Staff

A new DNA analysis of rocky soils in the martian-like landscape on some volcanoes in South America has revealed a handful of bacteria, fungi, and other...