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The microbes that caver Michael Ray Taylor calls "dark life" are found deep in the earth, in boiling oceanic vents, Antarctic ice, and lots of other places far from the reach of the sun's energy. These "extremophiles" are energy opportunists, subsisting on chemicals, radioactivity, or the faint light of molten rock. The study of these organisms is quite new, and scientists are learning that examining them may provide hints about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Dark Life is a first-person tour of the places Taylor has looked for archaebacteria and other strange microorganisms--Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, the hot springs of Viterbo in central Italy, NASA laboratories, and the halls of academia. Taylor met with passionate scientists searching for answers about how things can live deep in the earth and if they can survive in the unimaginable cold of outer space while hitchhiking on meteors. Dark Life chronicles the triumphs and disappointments of this new field of science with engaging and personal stories.
The steady but frustrating progress of science is never more apparent than in the passages relating to the rise and fall of ALH84001. The potato-sized meteorite from Mars (and the scientists who analyzed it) enjoyed brief but frenzied attention when it was announced that microscopic forms in the rock may have indicated the presence of nanobacteria. But if you're expecting resolution to this question in Dark Life, be warned: to Taylor, it's the journey that's most exciting. --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
The dark life of the title is made up of the masses of bacteria that live deep within the bowels of earth. Taylor (Cave Passages), a veteran caver and professor of communication and theater arts at Henderson State University in Arkansas, explains that these tiny organisms are so abundant that collectively they are thought to weigh more than all the aboveground biomass. Species as yet undiscovered by scientists are thought to abound and to be likely to shed insight into the origin of life. While of interest, none of this is particularly controversial. What is hotly debated is the size of the smallest of these life forms. Taylor argues in favor of the existence of nanobacteria, life so small that many scientists refuse to believe they are possible, contending instead that the patterns observed are due to chemical rather than biological processes. The debate is crucial because the fossils attributed to a rock from Mars are of this sortAif nanobacteria don't exist, traces of life have not been found on the red planet. Mixing science and adventure writing, Taylor describes fact-finding and collecting expeditions into uncharted caves. While he does a commendable job of vivifying the beauty of these strange environments and the passions of the scientists who study them, he is much less evenhanded when discussing the scientific controversy swirling around the nanobacteria themselves. Agent, Esther Newberg.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
