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transcript
Karen Lloyd: From a certain perspective, we are the two worst people to work with and our discipline is the two worst. But I think when you find people from two different fields who don’t normally talk to each other, find ways to talk to each other, find ways to bridge that gap, there’s a big discovery out there. .
I am a microbiologist studying deep sea mud. Nothing excites me more than mud.
Peter Barry: And I’m an isotope geochemist and I study volcanoes. We usually study completely different things, but for this special study, we came together to study microbes.
Lloyd: microbes. But probably not the microbes you’re thinking of.
Barry: yes. Unlike the microbes that live in the human gut, they live around volcanoes and utilize the heat of these volcanic systems to thrive.
Crew: Microbial interview microphone, take one, A mark, soft stick.
microphone: So where do we start?
directed by: don’t know. How do you get started?
microphone: Beginning? You will definitely need another cup of Scotch. do you know how old i am We have to go all the way back before humanity even existed.
Lloyd: Microorganisms are microscopic organisms, so they can exist in the form of single cells or as colonies of cells.
Barry: They are incredibly diverse.
Lloyd: Yeah, and they can do all sorts of wild sh. Like Anammox clearing nitrogen pollution from farms and making a key ingredient in rocket fuel. Pyrodictium can live in boiling water and Thermus aquaticus contributed to the understanding of modern medicine. Nothing we do with DNA would be possible without enzymes drawn from this organism. It’s a whole ecosystem full of different things, as different from each other as giraffes come from mushrooms.
Barry: that’s right. Until recently, people didn’t really understand that life could exist there.
Lloyd: No oxygen, no sunlight, really hot. It doesn’t seem like a place to really find team life, but it is.
Barry: wait a minute. i need to take this Hello.
microphone: Hi. I’m Dr. Bacteria from Jones Labs at Vanderbilt. What do you call it when two carbons are related?
Barry: I’m not exactly….
microphone: Carbon dating. get it? You call it carbon dating.
Barry: Oh my god, Mickey. can’t believe it. Our team has been very busy these past few years. Microorganisms were sampled in volcanic regions on Earth. For example, our buddy Mike is from about a mile below the Mariana Trench.
microphone: When people hear that I live under the earth’s crust, they say, “So you’re from hell?” But what do you know? i’m just a normal guy Mike, microbes, Mickey. I happen to live in the Earth, where things are done differently.
Lloyd: Here on the surface, plants use light to consume carbon dioxide to make food for themselves and others.
Barry: But of course there is no sunlight underground.
Lloyd: So this ecosystem has to figure out a way to make food for everyone without using light, and instead uses chemistry to do it. can be used to consume carbon dioxide to feed everyone, and the types of organisms that can do this are…
Barry: It is called a chemolithoautotroph.
Lloyd: They are microorganisms that use chemicals, chemotherapeutics, stones from rocks, and autotrophs to make food.
directed by: So if these microbes consume carbon dioxide, can they help get rid of it here?
microphone: yes. I will eat your carbon, give it to me. I swallow your climate crisis right away. Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom.
Barry: Well, I wouldn’t say that this study points to any climate change solution. Because that’s not what we’re researching.
Lloyd: But it’s a breakthrough.
Barry: literally. breakthrough.
directed by: If you could say one word to everyone in the world, what would it be?
microphone: ah. Check out Mike the Micro-
directed by: No, come on. I mean, what should people know about you and microbes?
microphone: You humans have been talking about moonwalking for 60 years. The next frontier isn’t in space, it’s at your feet.
