A Very Long Nap

[Recusant]

The article below and the paper it's based on describe microbes found in ancient ocean sediments. The authors of the paper say that these are microbes that were buried in the sediments millions of years ago. The constraints of the environment (6 kilometers below the surface of the ocean, 75 meters below the ocean floor in a layer of clay with extremely limited resources of any sort) make any cell division pretty much impossible, so they're the originals, not descendants. Also they're under "thick porcellanite layers" which apparently act as a barrier to microbial migration.

"Scientists Have 'Woken Up' Microbes Trapped Under The Seafloor For 100 Million Years" | ScienceAlert

Researchers have successfully revived tiny microbes trapped dormant in a seemingly lifeless zone of the seabed for more than 100 million years.

A team of scientists from Japan and America were looking to see whether microscopic life survives in the less-than-hospitable conditions beneath the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean.

"We wanted to know how long the microbes could sustain their life in a near-absence of food," said microbiologist Yuki Morono from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, who led the study.

They got their answer: microbes that had been trapped in seabed sediments deposited 100 million years ago could be revived with the right food and a bit of added oxygen.

Which is impressive. The pressure is immense for microbes on the seafloor, all that water stacked on top of the seabed. Not to mention the lack of oxygen, few essential nutrients, and the measly energy supplies.

When life gets trapped in other high-pressure environments, fossils usually form given a million years or more, but these mighty microbes were very much alive.

"We knew that there was life in deep sediment near the continents where there's a lot of buried organic matter," said Morono's colleague, geomicrobiologist Steven D'Hondt from University of Rhode Island. "But what we found was that life extends in the deep ocean from the seafloor all the way to the underlying rocky basement."

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Aerobic microbial life persists in oxic marine sediment as old as 101.5 million years" | Nature Communications

Abstract:

Sparse microbial populations persist from seafloor to basement in the slowly accumulating oxic sediment of the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG). The physiological status of these communities, including their substrate metabolism, is previously unconstrained. Here we show that diverse aerobic members of communities in SPG sediments (4.3‒101.5 Ma) are capable of readily incorporating carbon and nitrogen substrates and dividing. Most of the 6986 individual cells analyzed with nanometer-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) actively incorporated isotope-labeled substrates. Many cells responded rapidly to incubation conditions, increasing total numbers by 4 orders of magnitude and taking up labeled carbon and nitrogen within 68 days after incubation. The response was generally faster (on average, 3.09 times) for nitrogen incorporation than for carbon incorporation. In contrast, anaerobic microbes were only minimally revived from this oxic sediment. Our results suggest that microbial communities widely distributed in organic-poor abyssal sediment consist mainly of aerobes that retain their metabolic potential under extremely low-energy conditions for up to 101.5 Ma.

For those who read these posts, any opinions on whether adding paragraph breaks to abstracts of scientific papers is helpful, annoying, or indifferent?

Sparse microbial populations persist from seafloor to basement in the slowly accumulating oxic sediment of the oligotrophic South Pacific Gyre (SPG). The physiological status of these communities, including their substrate metabolism, is previously unconstrained.

Here we show that diverse aerobic members of communities in SPG sediments (4.3‒101.5 Ma) are capable of readily incorporating carbon and nitrogen substrates and dividing. Most of the 6986 individual cells analyzed with nanometer-scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) actively incorporated isotope-labeled substrates.

Many cells responded rapidly to incubation conditions, increasing total numbers by 4 orders of magnitude and taking up labeled carbon and nitrogen within 68 days after incubation. The response was generally faster (on average, 3.09 times) for nitrogen incorporation than for carbon incorporation. In contrast, anaerobic microbes were only minimally revived from this oxic sediment.

Our results suggest that microbial communities widely distributed in organic-poor abyssal sediment consist mainly of aerobes that retain their metabolic potential under extremely low-energy conditions for up to 101.5 Ma.

[xSilverPhinx]

100 million years?!  And I thought my power naps were long.

For those who read these posts, any opinions on whether adding paragraph breaks to abstracts of scientific papers is helpful, annoying, or indifferent?

Personally, I don't mind either way. Adding paragraph breaks might make it less taxing on the brain to read long texts, I don't know (though I believe it does). Since abstracts are short however, I am indifferent. 

Not to derail the main topic of this thread, but did you know that, for reading long texts, a font with serifs is less taxing on the brain? I prefer sans serif such as Arial over Times New Roman, but when you add the little differences serifs provide to letters, a 'c' looks a little less like an 'e', 'q' a little less like 'p' etc. It's interesting stuff. I didn't know that until I had to write my thesis. 

[Recusant]

100 million years?!  And I thought my power naps were long.

For those who read these posts, any opinions on whether adding paragraph breaks to abstracts of scientific papers is helpful, annoying, or indifferent?

Personally, I don't mind either way. Adding paragraph breaks might make it less taxing on the brain to read long texts, I don't know (though I believe it does). Since abstracts are short however, I am indifferent. 

Not to derail the main topic of this thread, but did you know that, for reading long texts, a font with serifs is less taxing on the brain? I prefer sans serif such as Arial over Times New Roman, but when you add the little differences serifs provide to letters, a 'c' looks a little less like an 'e', 'q' a little less like 'p' etc. It's interesting stuff. I didn't know that until I had to write my thesis. 

I did know that, but only because I'm a sort of typeface geek. 

[Dark Lightning]

Experiment-

I've always chosen Verdana in an 11-point font for most of what I wrote in work instructions. We had guidelines, and that was one that was allowed. Engineering drawings were a different animal. Some of the words could be as big as 36-point, per the standard.

I've always chosen Times New Roman in a 12-point font for most of what I wrote in work instructions. We had guidelines, and that was one that was allowed. Engineering drawings were a different animal. Some of the words could be as big as 36-point, per the standard.

I still like Verdana! My tired old eyes can read it better.

[xSilverPhinx]

100 million years?!  And I thought my power naps were long.

For those who read these posts, any opinions on whether adding paragraph breaks to abstracts of scientific papers is helpful, annoying, or indifferent?

Personally, I don't mind either way. Adding paragraph breaks might make it less taxing on the brain to read long texts, I don't know (though I believe it does). Since abstracts are short however, I am indifferent. 

Not to derail the main topic of this thread, but did you know that, for reading long texts, a font with serifs is less taxing on the brain? I prefer sans serif such as Arial over Times New Roman, but when you add the little differences serifs provide to letters, a 'c' looks a little less like an 'e', 'q' a little less like 'p' etc. It's interesting stuff. I didn't know that until I had to write my thesis. 

I did know that, but only because I'm a sort of typeface geek. 

 

[xSilverPhinx]

Experiment-

I've always chosen Verdana in an 11-point font for most of what I wrote in work instructions. We had guidelines, and that was one that was allowed. Engineering drawings were a different animal. Some of the words could be as big as 36-point, per the standard.

I've always chosen Times New Roman in a 12-point font for most of what I wrote in work instructions. We had guidelines, and that was one that was allowed. Engineering drawings were a different animal. Some of the words could be as big as 36-point, per the standard.

I still like Verdana! My tired old eyes can read it better.

I also like Verdana better, but why are fonts with serifs used in books and long texts, hmm? hmmmmmm? Checkmate unbeliever! 

[Recusant]

Times New Roman is an older typeface. This is boosted to 13 point.

A serif font designed for the electronic age is Georgia. This is 12 point.

It's a generalization and your mileage may vary. I've found that reading an actual book I definitely prefer a serif typeface, but spending an hour or two staring at a page is different than flitting around the internet, and I'm no doubt prejudiced by years of reading books set in serif typefaces. I haven't spent enough time reading from a tablet to say, but I expect I'd find that I preferred a serif font there as well.