Life has been discovered in warm volcanic caves under the sea floor

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A mile and a half below the ocean’s surface, the seafloor looks just as alien as the surfaces of other planets.

Deep-sea volcanic ridges, formed by the collision of tectonic plates, create underwater hot springs in an extremely cold environment. These hydrothermal vents release warm towers of elements that attract groups of animal life, such as tube worms.

Vents have intrigued scientists, and the species that live around them, for half a century. There, animals develop symbiotic relationships with bacteria that use chemical reactions to produce sugars essential for life beyond the reach of sunlight.

Now, the study of deep-sea animals has led to the discovery of an unexpected ecosystem where life thrives in unexpected places.

Underwater robot arms have helped uncover communities of giant tube worms and snails that live in volcanic caves beneath warm vents in the Pacific Ocean.

“Animals are able to live under hydrothermal vents, which is amazing to me,” said Dr. Sabine Gollner, senior scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Marine Research.

Scientists discovered the habitat during a 2023 expedition to the East Pacific Ridge, a volcanically active ridge in the Pacific Ocean. Overturning small sections of the Earth’s crust has revealed tiny tubeworm larvae as well as some tubeworms up to 1.6 feet (0.5 m) long.

The results suggest that the unique ecosystems on the seafloor and within the seafloor are interconnected, allowing life to flourish above and below the ocean floor.

If you’ve ever craved carbohydrates, it may be an instinctive craving that could pre-date our existence as a species.

New research has traced the evolution of a gene called AMY1, which produces the enzyme amylase. It enables humans to break down starchy foods such as pasta, bread, and potatoes for energy.

The expansion of this gene likely began hundreds of thousands of years ago, long before the beginning of agriculture, and even before the division of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, when ancient humans added some carbohydrates to their menu in prehistoric times.

SpaceX’s powerful Starship rocket blasted off from Boca Chica, Texas, for its fifth test flight last Sunday — and this time, the experiment demonstrated the rapid recovery and reusability of rocket boosters through an unprecedented engineering feat.

A stunning video showed a pair of massive metal pincers called “chopsticks” grabbing a massive rocket booster in midair after it separated from the spacecraft.

Separately, luxury fashion house Prada and commercial space company Axiom Space revealed the new design of the spacesuits that Artemis III astronauts will wear on the moon.

Researchers at MIT are developing a wearable robotic system called “SuperLimbs” to help astronauts recover from falls. In the partial gravity of the moon, it took NASA astronaut Charlie Duke three attempts to get up after falling to the moon in 1972 while testing lunar soil.

In 1854, scientists discovered for the first time fossils of a crocodile-sized arthropod that lived 300 million years ago and looked like giant millipedes.

But many mysteries about the creature called Arthropleura remain, and it may take another 170 years before researchers find a specimen with a full head.

Examinations of the well-preserved fossils, still trapped in stone, showed that the arthropod had a millipede-like body, a centipede-like head and crustacean-like eyes.

This discovery not only changes how researchers understand the way giant arthropods lived, but also highlights the close evolutionary links between centipedes and millipedes.

Researchers strongly suspect that the subsurface ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, represents a habitable environment, and now NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is on its way to investigate.

The spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday and will reach orbit around Jupiter and its interesting moons in April 2030.

The probe is NASA’s largest spacecraft designed for a planetary mission, and will make 49 flybys of Europa, eventually getting incredibly close to its surface.

Instruments like ice-penetrating radar will study the ocean beneath the moon’s thick icy crust, and a magnetometer will “sniff” particles emanating from plumes rising through cracks in the frozen surface to analyze the composition of the body of water.

Zoom in on these mind-expanding stories:

Scientists have discovered microplastic particles in the breaths of bottlenose dolphins that live off the southeastern coast of the United States for the first time, suggesting that marine mammals are inhaling potentially harmful particles.

Astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy that bears a striking resemblance to the Milky Way, and it could change theories about how galaxies formed and the universe evolved.

– The robot designed by researchers at Yale University moves like a caterpillar and can amputate its limbs and continue moving if trapped, just as a gecko can release its tail when grabbed by a predator.

-Did you miss your chance to catch a glimpse of the full Hunter Moon this week? See this year’s most striking supermoon photos from around the world.

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