Ice is melting around the world and glaciers are disappearing. Water, which has been solid for thousands and even millions of years, is being released into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. Embedded in this new fluid water, and now being released, are ancient microbes whose effects on today's organisms and ecosystems is unknown and unpredictable. These long sleeping microbes are becoming physiologically active and may accelerate global climate change. Defrosting Ancient Microbes explores the emergence of these microbes. The implications for terrestrial life and the life that might exist elsewhere in the universe are explored.
- Reaching Backwards
- Life and How to Detect It
- Fossils
- Sources of Ice - Here, There, and Everywhere
- Ice as a Preservative
- Glaciers, Ice Fields, and Sea Ice
- Permafrost
- Subglacial and Ice-Covered Lakes
- Extraterrestrial Ice and Astrobiology
- Diverging Ideas and Converging Research
- Adaptable and Valuable Organisms
- Genome Recycling
- Health Hazards
- Contamination and Decontamination
- Global Climate Change
- What's Next?
Scott Orland Rogers is a professor of molecular biology and evolution at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. He received his PhD in plant molecular biology from the University of Washington, Seattle. He was an assistant professor and associate professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry before moving to BGSU. He has taught courses in biology, botany, cell physiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, bioinformatics, and molecular evolution. Research in his lab includes studies of microbes and nucleic acids preserved in ice, life in extreme environments, group I introns, molecular microbial phylogenetics, microbial metagenomics/metatranscriptomics, ancient DNA, and plant development.
John D. Castello is Professor Emeritus in College of Environmental and Forest Biology at ESF State University of New York in Syracuse.