Extremophiles are organisms that can survive and thrive under extremes of temperature, pressure and the like. How do these organisms achieve elevated resistance to levels of radiation that are lethal to most other forms of life? They are able to live in such human-unfriendly places due to the extremozymes they use.
Dr. Madhan Tirumalai, currently working in Houston, will give a presentation on extremophiles at HRPO on the 7th, from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. A portion of the talk will cover whether Earth-born extremophiles could have the potential to survive the rigors of interplanetary travel to the desert-like conditions of Mars.
More about extremophiles:
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/extremophile.html
NASA's Office of Planetary Protection, tasked with preventing biological contamination of environments being explored:
http://www.planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/
Extremophiles
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Christopher K.
- Posts: 6440
- Joined: October 12th, 2009, 3:28 pm
- Location: Baton Rouge, LA
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Christopher K.
- Posts: 6440
- Joined: October 12th, 2009, 3:28 pm
- Location: Baton Rouge, LA
Re: Extremophiles
Extremophile research is now taking place at LSU. Maheshi Dassanayake is investigating some plants which apparently qualify for the category. Menawhile, Vince LiCata is studying extremophiles. (LiCata was nice enough to provide docents to work with HRPO personnel during a cross-department program some years back.)
More information:
https://www.lsu.edu/science/biosci/facu ... nayake.php
https://www.lsu.edu/academicaffairs/cxc ... ntal_1.php
More information:
https://www.lsu.edu/science/biosci/facu ... nayake.php
https://www.lsu.edu/academicaffairs/cxc ... ntal_1.php