Re: Fwd: Re: Did the K-T impact event seed Titan with life?

[Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>]

It isn't safe to generalize about bacteria. Almost everything we know about 
them comes from species that can be grown "in captivity". Recent analyses 
of "wild" bacterial DNA indicates that this is probably something like 1% 
of all species. It was only quite recently for example that it was realized 
that Archaea make up a large proportion of oceanic biomass.

Tommy Tyrberg


At 21:44 2006-03-19, David Marjanovic wrote:
> > The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), a NASA research satellite
> > launched in the 1980s, showed that bacterial spores remain viable in
> > space for at *least* 6 years (after 6 years, the satellite was
> > retrieved).
>
> It should be mentioned that very, very few bacteria sporulate. *Bacillus*, 
> *Clostridium*, and not much else. AFAIK magnetotactic bacteria don't sporulate.
>
> Anyway, I guess the meteorite was settled by bacteria after it had arrived 
> in Antarctica...