Photo # 3 (Oct 2009)

D. rad Bacteria: Candidate Astronauts

If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving, 

and for once could do nothing,

perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness

of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves with death.

 

Perhaps the earth can teach us,

as when everything seems dead in winter and later proves to be alive.

 

Now I'll count up to twelve

and you keep quiet and I will go.

                         - Pablo Neruda

 

Credit: Michael Daly (Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences), DOE

These bacteria could survive on another planet. In an Earth lab, Deinococcus radiodurans (D. rad) survive extreme levels of radiation, extreme temperatures, dehydration, and exposure to genotoxic chemicals. Amazingly, they even have the ability to repair their own DNA, usually with 48 hours. Known as an extremophile, bacteria such as D. rad are of interest to NASA partly because they might be adaptable to help human astronauts survive on other worlds. A recent map of D. rad's DNA might allow biologists to augment their survival skills with the ability to produce medicine, clean water, and oxygen. Already they have been genetically engineered to help clean up spills of toxic mercury. Likely one of the oldest surviving life forms, D. rad was discovered by accident in the 1950s when scientists investigating food preservation techniques could not easily kill it. Pictured above, Deinococcus radiodurans grow quietly in a dish.

We need not despair or feel too guilty if we do destroy all life on our planet as we know it. Gaia will survive, as will some hardy organisms such as these bacteria. There will be a new and better start, without humans who hoard so much for themselves that in the end, nothing is left for each other.

The clock is ticking... We have passed '350 milestone"... The estimated point of 350 parts per million of carbon atoms in our atmosphere, beyond which there may be no return from the consequences of global heating...

Will we wake up to these alarms, and move into the high geared action we know we are capable of - as the US did at the start of World War II? Can each of us give our maximum to stopping global heating and to restoring our planet to a viable balance of uses of resources and healing the depredations of human and natural resources to restore the natural balances in Nature?
                        - Dan Benor, MD