The extremely harsh conditions of hyperarid deserts are a true challenge for microbial life. Microorganisms thriving in such polyextreme environments are fascinating as they can tell us more about life, its strategies and its boundaries than other groups of organisms. The Atacama Desert (North Chile) holds two world records of extreme environmental characteristics: the lowest rainfall and greatest surface ultraviolet radiation and total solar irradiance ever measured on Earth. Despite these limiting conditions for life, we recently identified several remarkable examples of endolithic habitats colonized by phototrophic and heterotrophic microorganisms in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert.
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A case of enlarged parietal foramina or foramina parietalia permagna in an individual from the Chinchorro Culture of northern Chile (4000 BP).
Int J Paleopathol
December 2024
Field Museum of Natural History, Integrative Research Center, Chicago, USA; International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM) Icomos, Chile. Electronic address:
Objective: The goal of this study was to analyze and differentially diagnose the presence of two large holes noted in the parietal bones of an individual and the presence of traumatic lesions.
Materials: A partially mummified young adult female associated with the Chinchorro culture, 4000 BP, from the coast of the Atacama Desert (northern Chile).
Methods: The bone lesions were evaluated macroscopically and radiologically.
Identification of a drought stress response module in tomato plants commonly induced by fungal endophytes that confer increased drought tolerance.
Plant Mol Biol
December 2024
Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)-Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentación (INIA/CSIC), Campus de Montegancedo, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain.
Global climate change exacerbates abiotic stresses, as drought, heat, and salt stresses are anticipated to increase significantly in the coming years. Plants coexist with a diverse range of microorganisms. Multiple inter-organismic relationships are known to confer benefits to plants, including growth promotion and enhanced tolerance to abiotic stresses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaking dew in the Atacama Desert: a paradigmatic case of plant water uptake water from an unsaturated atmosphere fails a test.
Ann Bot
December 2024
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Background And Aims: Nolana mollis is a dominant plant species in the hyperarid Atacama Desert. A previous hypothesis states that N. mollis owes its success to the condensation of atmospheric water from undersaturated air onto its leaf surfaces by exuded salts, and absorption of this water by its leaves, or by shallow roots following drip onto the soil surface; living roots of N.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhole-genome sequencing of three extremophile sp. strains isolated from the Atacama Desert.
Microbiol Resour Announc
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Department of Biology, Northeastern University College of Science, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
The Atacama Desert is home to bacteria that use biofilms as a means of protecting themselves against the harsh environment. To inform research regarding this survival mechanism, we cultured and sequenced the genomes of three sp. isolates from Atacama Desert soil.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Simons Observatory: Production-Level Fabrication of the Mid- and Ultra-High-Frequency Wafers.
J Low Temp Phys
May 2024
Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, 08540 NJ USA.
The Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background instrumentation suite in the Atacama Desert of Chile. More than 65,000 polarization-sensitive transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers will be fielded in the frequency range spanning 27 to 280 GHz, with three separate dichroic designs. The mid-frequency 90/150 GHz and ultra-high-frequency 220/280 GHz detector arrays, fabricated at NIST, account for 39 of 49 total detector modules and implement the feedhorn-fed orthomode transducer-coupled TES bolometer architecture.
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