Georgia Tech researchers found many types of bacteria, include E.coli, in the middle to upper regions of the troposphere. (Photo: USDA)

Scientists have discovered a considerable number of living microorganisms, including bacteria, in the middle to upper regions of the troposphere, the region of our atmosphere that’s about seven to 20 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology said their findings might help other scientists learn more about the role microorganisms play in forming ice that may impact weather and climate.

Health and medical experts studying the transmission of disease could also benefit by gaining new insight into long-distance transport of bacteria.

Conditions in the troposphere cannot support most other forms of life without the aid of special equipment. Temperatures there can drop to as low as -55° C and the air pressure and density are considerably lower than on earth.

Microorganisms, such as bacteria, are plentiful and can be found everywhere on the Earth and in the sea.

These hardy little forms of life not only survive but actually thrive in some of the harshest conditions known to man. They live within other forms of life, such as the human body; in the soil and the air surrounding us; in scalding hot springs; the great depths of the ocean; and inside rocks deep within the Earth’s crust.

A view outside the window of a DC-8 aircraft as air samples are gathered for a NASA study. Georgia Tech scientists found living microorganisms in the samples. (Photo: NASA)

The microorganisms  documented by Georgia Tech scientists were gathered from air samples recovered as part of NASA’s 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) program, which studies low- and high-altitude air masses associated with tropical storms.

NASA gathered the air samples from aboard a DC-8 aircraft that flew over both land and ocean, including the Caribbean Sea and portions of the Atlantic Ocean during and after two major tropical hurricanes in 2010, Earl and Karl.

Attaching a special filter system developed by the Georgia Tech team to the aircraft’s outside air sampling probes, researchers were able to collect numerous particles, including the microorganisms.

Once the air samples were taken, the filters were removed from the aircraft and sent to researchers for examination.

Rather than resorting to conventional cell-culture techniques to make their analysis, the researchers instead used genomic techniques, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) – a biochemical technology used in molecular biology that magnifies a piece of DNA, allowing scientists to generate millions of copies of the DNA sequence, as well as gene sequencing to spot and estimate the quantities of microorganisms contained within the air samples.

The researchers found more bacteria than fungi among the microorganisms.

“We did not expect to find so many microorganisms in the troposphere, which is considered a difficult environment for life,” said one of the study’s authors, Kostas Konstantinidis, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech. “There seems to be quite a diversity of species, but not all bacteria make it into the upper troposphere.”

Terry Lathem, a graduate student in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft while gathering samples of microorganisms in the atmosphere. (NASA)

The living bacterial cells found made up about 20 percent of the total particles detected within the size range of 0.25 to 1 microns in diameter.

Air samples taken over the ocean were found to contain mostly marine bacteria, while primarily terrestrial bacteria was found in samples taken above land.

The researchers also found that hurricanes had a major impact on the distribution and dynamics of microorganism populations.

Kostas Konstantinidis joins us for this weekend’s radio edition of Science World.  He’ll tell us how these findings could help advance research in climatology and medicine.

Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen now to the interview below.

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Influenza is unpleasant for many, and for some people, can be deadly. (Photo: NatalieJ via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Imagine that one day soon when you tune in to your favorite radio or TV station for the latest weather forecast, you’re given a flu forecast as well.

Adapting techniques used in modern weather prediction, scientists at Columbia University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have come up with a way to produce localized forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks.

The researchers hope their new flu forecasting system, still in its initial phases, will serve both local and international health officials with highly detailed information, while also providing easier-to-understand versions for the general public. The researchers plan to get the system to an operational state within the next year or two.

Jeffrey Shaman, assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health is the lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He says peak flu season can greatly vary from year to year, and from region to region.  For example, Atlanta, a Southern U.S. city might reach its peak flu season weeks ahead of Anchorage in the far northwest.

Students in Kazakhstan wear surgical masks to help prevent the spread of flu during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.  (Photo: Nikolay Olkhovoy via Wikmedia Commons)

The system will track flu outbreaks from week to week, location to location, showing the prevalence of flu in our own areas.

“I think what you can expect from it is weekly prognostications, weekly predictions, of how far in the future the peak of a flu outbreak is expected to be,” said Shaman.

Comparing his team’s flu forecasts to weathercasts we’re all used to, Shaman says the meteorological forecasts tell you, for example, that there’s an 80 percent chance of rain tomorrow, which prompts you to expect wet weather.

The flu forecast, on the other hand, would tell you that the peak of the flu season will be hitting your area within perhaps the next week or month reminding you to take any steps necessary to minimize the impact of the flu on you and your family.

The influenza forecast will also be able to provide data to health officials on the size and scope of the outbreak as well, allowing them to better plan a public health response.

Previous research conducted by Shaman and his colleagues found that U.S. wintertime flu epidemics were most likely to take place following a spell of very dry weather.

A microscopic image of the H1N1 (swine flu) influenza virus. In 2009, the World Health Organization declared this new strain to be a pandemic.

Using a computer model that incorporated this finding and feeding it web-based estimates of flu-related sickness in New York City from the winters of 2003-04 and 2008-09, Shaman and co-author Alicia Karspect of the the National Center for Atmospheric Research were able to produce weekly flu forecasts for those time periods that predicted the peak timing of the outbreak more than seven weeks ahead of the actual peak.

Shaman says that three ingredients are needed to do this kind of forecasting.

First, a mathematical model that describes the transmission of influenza within a specific population or community.

Next, real-time observations of what’s currently going on in the real world.  Shaman says data comes from web-based estimates of influenza-like illnesses, recorded by various hospitals and clinics that see or treat patients with symptoms consistent with the flu.

And finally, a statistical or data assimilation method similar to those used in weather forecasting, to pull in data from the observations into the model that generates the predictions.

Yes, a flu shot may sting a little bit but the CDC recommends a yearly flu vaccine as the first and most important step in protecting ourselves against flu viruses. (Photo: US Navy)

Variations made to the incoming data stream, as conditions change, keep the model updated and on track to better reflect real-world conditions allowing for much more accurate forecasts.

Shaman and his research colleagues plan to test their system in other localities across the US by using up-to-date data.

“There is no guarantee that just because the method works in New York, it will work in Miami,” Shaman said.

Jeffrey Shaman joins us this weekend on the radio edition of “Science World.”  Tune in to the radio program (see right column for scheduled times) or check out the interview below.

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Scanning electron micrograph of very small and numerous bacterial cells inhabiting icy brine waters in Antarctica’s Lake Vida. (Photo: Christian H. Fritsen, Desert Research Institute)

Scientists say they have found ancient microbial life in dark and very salty water some 20 meters below the surface of a frozen and isolated Antarctic lake. The finding could provide scientists with insight into how life could possibly exist in the most extreme environments on Earth as well as elsewhere throughout the cosmos.

In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) the researchers say they took the microbes from the Antarctic’s Lake Vida, which contains no oxygen but has the highest nitrous oxide levels found in any natural bodies of water on Earth. The scientists describe the icy environment in which the sample microbes were taken as a briny liquid, about six times saltier than normal seawater and with an average temperature of minus 13.5 degrees centigrade.

“This study provides a window into one of the most unique ecosystems on Earth,” said lead author Dr. Alison Murray from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada. “Our knowledge of geochemical and microbial processes in lightless icy environments, especially at subzero temperatures, has been mostly unknown up until now. This work expands our understanding of the types of life that can survive in these isolated, cryoecosystems (ecosystems found in ice) and how different strategies may be used to exist in such challenging environments.”

Previous studies going back to 1996 show the Lake Vida brine and its microbial residents have had to do without outside resources that normally support life (i.e.: sunlight or oxygen) for more than 3,000 years. Despite what many would consider being an unlivable habitat, the researchers in this project found that the polar lake supports what they call a surprisingly diverse and large community of bacteria that can survive the harsh conditions.

To ensure that their samples and the microbe’s ecosystem weren’t affected or contaminated by human or other external influences, the researchers developed specialized equipment and a set of very strict procedures when they set out to retrieve them during expeditions to the Antarctic back in 2005 and 2010.

Members of the 2010 Lake Vida expedition team use a sidewinder drill inside a secure, sterile tent on the lake’s surface to collect samples for their research. (Photo: Desert Research Institute, Emanuele Kuhn)

Regarding the high levels of nitrous oxide that was found in the lakes salty water, the scientists say that geochemical analyses are suggesting that the N₂O was generated by chemical reactions between the salty water and the lake’s iron-rich sediments. The chemical reaction also produced an amount of molecular hydrogen, which the researchers say may be what has been providing the energy that was needed to sustain the community of diverse microbial life.

“It’s plausible that a life-supporting energy source exists solely from the chemical reaction between anoxic salt water and the rock,” explained co-author Dr. Christian Fritsen, also from DRI.

“If that’s the case,” Murray said, “this gives us an entirely new framework for thinking of how life can be supported in cryoecosystems on earth and in other icy worlds of the universe.”

Murray said that the scientists involved with the project are continuing their research by analyzing the non-organic components, the chemical interactions between Lake Vida brine and sediment, and by using various methods of genome sequencing, and are learning more about their rare microbial find.

They also suggested the research and findings produced for this study could also provide some help to others who conduct investigations into possible cryoecosystems that might be found in the soil, sediments, wetlands, and other lakes that lie beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.