I’m an ocean microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, and I want to tell you guys about some microbes that are so strange and wonderful that they’re challenging our assumptions about what life is like on Earth.
So, I have a question. Please raise your hand if you’ve ever thought it would be cool to go to the bottom of the ocean in a submarine? Yes. Most of you, because the oceans are so cool.
Alright, now – please raise your hand if the reason you raised your hand to go to the bottom of the ocean is because it would get you a little bit closer to that exciting mud that’s down there.
(Laughter)
Nobody. I’m the only one in this room.
Well, I think about this all the time. I spend most of my waking hours trying to determine how deep we can go into the Earth and still find something, anything, that’s alive, because we still don’t know the answer to this very basic question about life on Earth.