Could sulfur-based microbes live on Mars?
Oldest Fossils This cluster of cells is one example of the spheroidal and ellipsoidal microfossils found at the 3.4-billion-year-old Strelley Pool Formation in Western Australia. David Wacey/University of Western Australia
Clusters of islands poked through hot oceans 3.4 billion years ago, when the world still had no oxygen and the seas churned under a pallid, overcast sky. But life thrived on Earth even then, scientists say — and now they have the world’s oldest fossils to prove it.
There were no plants or algae to photosynthesize and produce oxygen, so microbial life used sulfur for energy and growth, researchers say. Microfossils of these earliest microbes extend the sandstone record of life on Earth by about 300 million years.
“This ability to essentially ‘breathe’ sulfur compounds has long been thought to be one of the earliest stages in the transition from a non-biological to biological world,” said David Wacey, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Western Australia who led the study.
Sulfur-based bacteria exist today, in places likehydrothermal vents and hot springs. And early Archaean rocks have shown evidence for ancient sulfur-based metabolism as early as 3.5 billion years ago, but fossils of these sulfur-based life forms have been difficult to find and even more difficult to verify. Now researchers at UWA and the University of Oxford believe their newest find passes the test.
The fossils consist of carbonaceous cells and the protective sheaths that housed them. They were found in the Strelley Pool Formation, an outcropping of sedimentary rocks in a remote field in western Australia that represents the oldest shoreline on the planet. The fossils were well-preserved between the quartz sand grains of the ancient beach, the researchers say.
The fossils resemble other, well-studied microfossils from 2 billion years ago, the researchers say. They were found clustered in groups, stuck to sand grains in appropriate habitats, and they were even found with pyrite (fool’s gold), which may be byproducts of their sulfur metabolism.
The Strelley Pool Formation: David Wacey/University of Western Australia
Researchers used Raman spectroscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and geochemical analysis to show the fossils indeed contain carbon-based material and that it was not the result of some later contamination. Writing in this week’s edition of Nature Geoscience, they acknowledge it is notoriously difficult to prove the biological nature of putative Archaean-era fossils — but they have several pieces of evidence in this case, including the fossils’ mineralogy and morphology.
Incidentally, the same Oxford team has studied other ancient fossils from a site 20 miles away and considered them not good enough. Those fossils, from the Apex chert in Australia, didn’t have the right mineralogy and shapes for them to be of biological origin, according to an Oxford news release about the Strelley Pool fossils. But these fossils do.
The researchers are now re-examining other fossils using the same methods, trying to determine if they also might contain evidence for life.
And, they say, they’re thinking about the implications this study may have on astrobiology. If life does exist — or did exist — elsewhere in the solar system, it might look something like this. The researchers’ careful evidence tests could be used to figure it out.
“Could these sorts of things exist on Mars? It’s just about conceivable,” said Martin Brasier, a professor of paleobiology at Oxford. “But it would need these approaches – mapping the chemistry of any microfossils in fine detail and convincing three-dimensional images – to support any evidence for life on Mars.”
Microfossils of Sulfur-Metabolizing Bacteria: The fossil cells were found clustered in groups and attached to sand grains. The middle cell in this image has a ruptured wall. David Wacey/University of Western Australia
“Sometimes the naughty babies would crawl up to the cowshed, catch the tail of a calf and stand up. The calves, being disturbed, would immediately begin running here and there, and the children would be dragged over clay and cow dung. To see this fun, Yashoda and Rohini would call all their neighboring friends, the gopis.” (
How can we declare this world to be wonderful? Just turning on the news reveals evidence of how not wonderful this place is. Natural disasters, lying politicians, gruesome murderers living around the block, and so many other horrible sites leave us asking the question, “Why am I here? Why is life so bad?” Yet the paramahamsas, the topmost transcendentalists, consider this place, or any place for that matter, wonderful because it comes from the Lord. Moreover, though He is not personally involved in the daily operations of a land separated from Him, God will still periodically make appearances. Just as the sun rises and sets at regular intervals, the time period of creation when viewed from the perspective of a day has regularly scheduled appearances by the Supreme Lord. Janmashtami celebrates Shri Krishna’s descent to this phenomenal land in His personal self, without any need of changing His form or highlighting certain qualities.
To aid the marginal potency fragments in choosing in favor of returning to the Lord’s association, Krishna periodically comes to earth in various non-different forms. These are personal expansions, while the living entities are referred to as separated expansions. The 
What was so memorable about Krishna’s time on earth? For starters, His birth was not ordinary. For Krishna, there is never birth or death. Actually, the same holds true for the living entities, as nothing can kill the imperishable soul. Birth and death really refer to the spirit soul’s acceptance and rejection of bodies through
The girl was Durga Devi, Lord Shiva’s wife who is in charge of this material creation, which is thus known as Devi-dhama. She is known as Durga because her energy, material nature, is very difficult to overcome. She would give a glimpse of this difficulty to Kamsa, who tried to throw her against a stone wall when he found out that Devaki had delivered another child. But before he could kill her, the child slipped out of his hands and went into the sky, taking on a beautiful form with eight hands. She then warned Kamsa that the child he had feared so much had actually been born already.
Krishna’s elder brother Balarama was also raised in Vrindavana. Both Krishna and Balarama were sons of Vasudeva and Devaki, though they were raised in Vrindavana to avoid Kamsa in the early years. Balarama is the same Ananta Shesha Naga, the serpent bed on whom Lord Vishnu resides in the spiritual sky. Krishna and Balarama did everything together in their childhood, including play different pranks and exhibit naughty behavior. When they began to crawl, they would both regularly get dirt on their bodies. Krishna was raised in Vrindavana by Mother Yashoda and Balarama by Mother Rohini. The mothers would smear their children with saffron in the morning, but by midday the boys would be covered with dirt and come to their mothers. All the hard work of preparation had gone for naught, but seeing their children so happily engaged in play gave the mothers endless delight.
The cows, feeling the pressure on their tails, would then run away. Krishna and Balarama of course did not let go. Hence they would go for a ride in the mud and cow dung, similar to how people “jet ski” on the water for fun. Seeing the beautiful Krishna and Balarama roaming around in the mud like this brought great delight to the mothers and the
As time went by, Krishna would fulfill the prophesy known to Kamsa about his death. More pastimes would occur later on in life as well, but Krishna’s time spent in Vrindavana is what the devotees remember the most. Janmashtami allows any person of any religious persuasion to bask in the delightful sound vibrations of Krishna-katha. Just by regularly hearing about Krishna, one is sure to become a devotee. One who never forgets the beautiful 
