The most Martian place on Earth
1,235,913 views | Armando Azua-Bustos • TED2017
How can you study Mars without a spaceship? Head to the most Martian place on Earth -- the Atacama Desert in Chile. Astrobiologist Armando Azua-Bustos grew up in this vast, arid landscape and now studies the rare life forms that have adapted to survive there, some in areas with no reported rainfall for the past 400 years. Explore the possibility of finding life elsewhere in the universe without leaving the planet with this quick, funny talk.
How can you study Mars without a spaceship? Head to the most Martian place on Earth -- the Atacama Desert in Chile. Astrobiologist Armando Azua-Bustos grew up in this vast, arid landscape and now studies the rare life forms that have adapted to survive there, some in areas with no reported rainfall for the past 400 years. Explore the possibility of finding life elsewhere in the universe without leaving the planet with this quick, funny talk.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
About the speaker
TED Fellow Armando Azua-Bustos studies how microbial life has adapted to survive in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.
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Scientific publications
- Armando Azua-Bustos, Carlos González-Silva, and Gino Corsini. 2017. The hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert, an extremely dry and carbon deprived habitat of potential interest for the field of carbon science. Frontiers in Microbiology.
- Domagal-Goldman S.D., Wright K.E., fourteen other authors, Azua-Bustos A., et al. 2016. The Astrobiology Primer v2.0. Astrobiology 16:561-653.
- A. Azua-Bustos, L. Caro-Lara, y R. Vicuña. 2015. Discovery and microbial content of the driest site of the hyperarid Atacama Desert, Chile. Environmental Microbiology Reports, 7(3): 388–394.
- Azua-Bustos A., González-Silva C. 2014. Biotechnological applications derived from microorganisms of the Atacama Desert. BioMed Research International, in its special edition BIODESERT: Exploring and Exploiting the Microbial Resource of Hot and Cold Deserts". Volume 2014, Article ID 909312, 7 pages.
- Azua-Bustos A., Arenas, C., and Vicuña, R. 2014. Gloeocapsopsis AAB1, an extremely desiccation-tolerant cyanobacterium isolated from the Atacama Desert. Extremophiles. 18(1):61-74.
- Azua-Bustos A. and Vega-Martínez, C. 2013. The potential for detecting life as we don’t know it by fractal complexity analysis. International Journal of Astrobiology. 12: 314–320.- Azua Bustos A., González-Silva C., and Arenas-Fajardo, C., Vicuña R. 2012. Extreme environments as potential drivers of convergent evolution by exaptation: the Atacama Desert Coastal Range case. Frontiers in Microbiology 3: 426.
- Azua-Bustos A., Urrejola C., and Vicuña R. 2012. Life at the dry edge: microorganisms of the Atacama Desert. FEBS Letters 586:2939–2945.
- Azua-Bustos A, González-Silva C, Mancilla R.A., Salas, L., Gómez-Silva B, McKay CP and Vicuña R. 2011. Hypolithic cyanobacteria supported mainly by fog in the Coastal Range of the Atacama Desert. Microbial Ecology. 61:568-581.
- Azua-Bustos, A., González-Silva, C., Salas L, Vicuña, R. 2010. A novel subaerial Dunaliella sp. Growing on cave spider webs in the Atacama Desert. Extremophiles 14(5): 443-452.
- Azua-Bustos A., González-Silva, C., Mancilla R.A., Salas L, Palma R.E., Wynne J.J., McKay, C.P. and Vicuña, R. 2009. Ancient Photosynthetic Eukaryote Biofilms in an Atacama Desert Coastal Cave. Microbial Ecology 58:485–496.
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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.