by A person cannot survive in the Mariana Geul without protection. At the deepest, the Geul dives 35,000 feet under the surface of the Pacific to a region ruled by crushing pressure and darkness.
Yet life finds somehow a way. The Hadal Slakfish, with delicate fins and translucent body, roams the dark and ice -cold water. Gigantic shrimp -like creatures into a foot long cleaning of fallen debris, including wood and plastic, and transparent eel with fish -like heads hunt for prey. A carpet of bacteria breaks down the Dead Sea beings and Plankton to recycle nutrients.
We only scratched the surface of somewhat thrive in the deepest areas of the ocean. But a large project has now added more than 6,000 new microbes to the number of deep -sea types.
The research project of Mariana Trench Environment and Ecology, or more, or in short, a team of scientists, has collected a sediment from the Hadal Zone – the deepest part of the ocean – in the Mariana Geul and two other areas. The research showed thousands of new species and two adjustments that allowed the microbes to thrive under intense pressure.
Another team collected the taken of 11 deep sea fishing and found a mutated gene that could stimulate their ability to survive. The sequencing of the genome of a gigantic shrimp -like being suggested that bacteria stimulated his metabolism to adapt to high pressure environments.
Studying these mysterious species can cause new medicines to combat infections, inflammation or even cancer. They show how creatures adapt to extreme environments, which can be useful for technical printing or radiation-resistant proteins for space exploration.
“The deep sea, especially Hadal Zones, represents some of the most extreme and least explored environments on earth,” the study -author wrote to him and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The project hopes to “push the boundaries of our understanding of life” in this extraterrestrial world, added Shanshan Liu and her team at BGI Research, in a separate study.
Meet more
Oceans cover around 70 percent of the earth’s surface. Yet we know very little about their inhabitants, especially on the ocean floor.
Since the sixties, several missions – some autonomous, others manned – have tried to explore the deepest part of the Pacific, the Mariana Trench. More than 30,000 feet deep, it could completely subject Mount Everest.
De Geul is a ruthless environment. The pressure is more than 1,000 times larger than that at sea level, and with Challenger Deep – the deepest point that is navigated so far – the temperature is just above freezing. The seabed there is dressed in complete darkness.
Yet a manned descent found Flatfish 65 years ago and large shrimp-like creatures that bloom in the Geul-De first signs that life could survive in such extreme environments. More recently, James Cameron, best known for directing films such as Titanic, Dived up to almost 36,000 feet and took images that helped to identify even more new species.
It seems that the deep sea is a series of exotic species that still has to be discovered. The lake project collects copies of the deepest trenches around the world to learn more.
More trusts a deep sea dipper called Fendouzhe, which means in the Chinese region or hunter. Fendouzhe is self -driving and can survive the freezing temperatures and enormous pressure. It contains three crew members and has two mechanical arms with devices – cameras, sonars, exercises.
The immersion reached the bottom of the Mariana Geul in 2020 followed by missions to the Yap Trench and the Filipino pelvis. Scientists on board collected more than 1,600 sediment samples from several Hadal zones between 6 and 11 kilometers, or about 4 to 7 miles, under the sea.
Added to the punitive pressure and the lack of light, the deep sea has few nutrients for the environment. It is really “a unique combination that distinguishes it from all other marine and terrestrial environments,” the authors wrote.
Substitute genes
Sediments contain genetic material that survives intact when they are brought to the surface for analysis.
One study outlined a landscape of living beings in the deep ocean with the help of an approach called Metagenomics. Here scientists have given genetic material of all microbes in an environment, so that they can reconstruct a bird eye of ecology.
In this case, the collection “10-fold is larger than all previously reported”, the team wrote. More than 89 percent of the taken is completely new, which suggests that most belong to previously unknown microbial species that live in the deep ocean.
Samples collected from other trenches have different genetic profiles, which suggests that the microbes are learned to adapt to different deep ocean environments. But they share similar genetic changes. Different genes encourage their ability to digit toluene as food. The chemical is best known for producing paints, plastics, medicines and cosmetics.
Other genes destroy metabolic waste products called reactive oxygen species. In large quantities, these damage lead DNA and lead to aging and illness. The beings also have a reinforced DNA repair system. This can help them adapt to intense pressure and cold temperatures, both of which increase the chance of these harmful chemicals that cause damage.
Deep Sea Super Forces
In the meantime, other studies in the genetic composition of fish and shrimp -like creatures peer in the Hadal Zone.
In one, scientists gathered samples with the help of the Fendouzhe -hundred and an autonomous Rover, which cover locations of the Mariana Geul to the Indian Ocean. The team zeroed itself at about 230 genes in deep sea fish that stimulate survival under pressure.
Most of these help repair DNA damage. Others increase muscle function. Surprisingly, all 11 types of deep sea fishing shared a single genetic mutation. Engineering of the same mutation in lab-grown cells helped them to convert DNA instructions in RNA more efficiently into RNA-De first step cells when making the proteins that coordinate our body functions.
This is “probably beneficial in the deep sea environment,” the team wrote.
Top predators in the deep trust in a steady stock prey, especially a shrimp-like species called amphipodes. Entire genome sequence of these beings showed the shrimp that thrive thanks to various good bacteria that help them defend against other bacteria species.
There are also some other intriguing findings. Although most deep sea fishing, for example, have lost genes associated with eyesight, one kind of genactivity related to color view showed. These genes are similar to ours and may show them the color, even in total darkness.
Scientists are still digging through the lake database. The coalition hopes to strengthen our understanding of the most resilient life forms on earth – and possibly inspire travel in other extreme environments, such as space.
