an international team of researchers led by scientists at the University of London Queen Mary, have discovered microorganisms living in sediments under the seabed. These creatures can survive by consuming less energy than it needs to sustain life.
a study published in the journal Science Advances, and briefly about it tells Phys.org. Scientists have known the limits of survival in different environments on Earth. Among other things, set the minimum consumption of energy, with which any life form can exist.
However, the new discovery will force the scientific world to reconsider the limits of survival. Researchers obtained results show that they discovered underwater microbes survive using much less energy than deemed necessary to sustain any form of life.
“the average Person consumes about 100 watts of energy – that means it burns about 100 joules of energy every second, explains study co-author Dr. James Bradley. Is roughly equivalent to power ceiling fans, sewing machines or two standard light bulbs. We calculated that the average microbe that falls in deep oceanic sediments, survival of the using of 50 billion billion times less energy than man.”
According to him, many of them simply exist mainly in an inactive state, that is, they do not grow, share and develop. However, they are able to support their lives. And then a tiny amount of energy that they do consume, is spent for “maintenance” – replacement or treatment of their damaged parts.
Scientists suggest that many microbes, discovered at great depths under the sea, are the remains of populations that inhabited the shallow coastal areas, thousands, and even millions of years ago. They differ markedly from the organisms on the Earth’s surface, which act at short (daily and seasonal) time intervals, depending on the Sun and its energy. It is possible that these microbes are able to live a very long time.
the Study also sheds light on how these organisms actually find the energy. It turned out that the oxygen values for them almost doesn’t matter in sediments inhabited by microbes, the proportion of oxygen does not exceed three percent. Probably, the microorganisms receive energy through production of methane.
