Our guest speaker at this week's Rotary meeting (2 June) was Professor Nick Oliver from the James Cook University.
Nick, whose research disciplines include geology and geochemistry spoke on the topic of "The Origins of Life - are they on the bottom of the ocean?"
In his opening address Nick sickened his talk to an Agatha Christie mystery wth several red herrings!
He then went on to talk about the use of bacteria in gold mining. Scientists have discovered the role of bacteria as gold in the Earth's surface can be dissolved, dispersed and re-concentrated into nuggets as it is transformed by micro-organisms.
Nick spoke about other micro-organisms, extemeophiles (mostly bacteria and archaea - see attached photo) to assist with the biodegradation of waste, production of new fuels, biomining and environmental remedies to damaged land site (eg acid mine damage).
There is a huge future potential for new enzymes to be used to find solutions to medical and environmental problems.
This was all a lead into Nick's major, and stunning, thesis, that scientists now believe that the origins of life (abiogenesis), a natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter such as organic compounds, may have occurred over four billion years ago at the bottom of our planet's oceans.
The earliest known life forms on our planet are putative fossilised micro-organisms, found in "black smokers"; hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.
Nick explained that in the last 30 years the theory of the origin of life has gained support following the deep exploration of the ocean floor by small submarine type of craft called an Alvin.
Scientists used Alvin to go to some 2.5 kilometres under the Pacific Ocean surface to look at the hydrothermal vents. Deborah Kelley, and a group of other scientists discovered alkaline vents that have similar extremophilic bacteria to 4 million year old fossils.
Professor Oliver's fascinating talk generated a great number of questions and follow-up discussion.
President Ross thanked Nick and indicated that he would receive a glass from the Club in due course.
Hanna Falkiner, the chair for the evening also nominated Nick as the wearer of the best hat in our competition for the best hat by Club Members which was a fund-raiser at this week's ZOOM meeting.
Your "friendly extremophile!!
