LIGHT-harvesting bacteria have been discovered deep in the ocean where no sunlight penetrates. They use the dim red glow of a hot hydrothermal vent to photosynthesise. The finding points to new possibilities for life in the dark places of other worlds.
Thomas Beatty of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his team collected water expelled by a vent called the TY black smoker off the coast of Central America. The vent, which spews water at at 350 °C, is nearly 2.5 kilometres deep on the East Pacific Rise, a submerged mountain range that runs south from the Gulf of California.
Back in the lab, Beatty's team was able to grow photosynthetic green sulphur bacteria from one of the samples (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0503674102). These bizarre organisms convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds by oxidising sulphur compounds. They thrive in oxygen-free environments such ...
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