{"id":12581,"date":"2018-04-18T11:08:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T18:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/?p=12581"},"modified":"2018-10-30T10:31:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T17:31:25","slug":"microbes-in-underground-aquifers-beneath-deep-sea-mid-atlantic-ridge-chow-down-on-carbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/press\/microbes-in-underground-aquifers-beneath-deep-sea-mid-atlantic-ridge-chow-down-on-carbon\/","title":{"rendered":"Microbes in underground aquifers beneath deep-sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge &#8216;chow down&#8217; on carbon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All life on Earth &#8212; from blue whales to microbes &#8212; uses carbon in one form or another. But all carbon is not created equal. In the oceans, some carbon-containing compounds, such as sugars and proteins, are quickly gobbled up by microorganisms, while others &#8212; such as the chitin found in fish scales &#8212; are much harder to consume. Scientists have long believed that relatively little of the latter, called &#8220;refractory carbon,&#8221; is degraded in the ocean. Much of it falls to the ocean floor and helps make up deep-water sediment, or so the thinking has been. Now a research team led by ecologists Sunita Shah Walter of the University of Delaware and <strong>Peter Girguis<\/strong> of Harvard University has shown that underground aquifers near the undersea Mid-Atlantic Ridge act like natural biological reactors, pulling in cold, oxygenated seawater, and allowing microbes to consume more &#8212; perhaps much more &#8212; refractory carbon than scientists believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All life on Earth &#8212; from blue whales to microbes &#8212; uses carbon in one form or another. But all carbon is not created equal. In the oceans, some carbon-containing compounds, such as sugars and proteins, are quickly gobbled up by microorganisms, while others &#8212; such as the chitin found in fish scales &#8212; are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41],"tags":[],"organization":[45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12582,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12581\/revisions\/12582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12581"},{"taxonomy":"organization","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/organization?post=12581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}