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This deep-sea mystery is changing our understanding of life

2,709,213 views | Karen Lloyd • TED@BCG Milan

How deep into the Earth can we go and still find life? Marine microbiologist Karen Lloyd introduces us to deep-subsurface microbes: tiny organisms that live buried meters deep in ocean mud and have been on Earth since way before animals. Learn more about these mysterious microbes, which refuse to grow in the lab and seem to have a fundamentally different relationship with time and energy than we do.

How deep into the Earth can we go and still find life? Marine microbiologist Karen Lloyd introduces us to deep-subsurface microbes: tiny organisms that live buried meters deep in ocean mud and have been on Earth since way before animals. Learn more about these mysterious microbes, which refuse to grow in the lab and seem to have a fundamentally different relationship with time and energy than we do.

About the speaker

Karen Lloyd

Marine microbiologist

See speaker profile

Karen Lloyd investigates novel types of microbes in Earth's deep surface biosphere, collecting them from remote places such as Arctic fjords, volcanoes in Costa Rica, even deep in mud near the Marianas Trench.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro2939

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