Microbial biogeography by Victor Parro, Ana Justel and Antonio Quesada
Nature is one of the most prestigious academic and scientific journals in the world, and having the opportunity to be featured in one of its articles is one of the most significant milestones in the history of the Windsled.
On January 17, Nature published the article “Microbial biogeography along a 2,578 km transect on the East Antarctic Plateau,” which documents the discovery of microbial life in extremely inhospitable environments such as Antarctica, where temperatures can drop to -40°C.
This finding proves that even at a depth of 4 meters, in samples at least 50 years old and buried under extreme conditions, life is still possible. This opens the door to the possibility that life could also exist in similar environments, such as Jupiter’s moon Europa or certain regions of Mars.
This research, conducted by a team from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), INTA-CSIC, la Universidad Autonoma, and with the participation of the University of Maine, was also made possible thanks to the WindSled, which transported the necessary scientific equipment to carry out the project. The expedition where these investigations took place was called “Unexplored Antarctica,” which occurred between December 2018 and February 2019.
On this occasion, the team was once again led by Ramón Larramendi, who was accompanied on this expedition by Hilo Moreno, Ignacio Oficialdegui, and Manuel Olivera.
You can find more details about the article here:
https://www.nature.com
We would also like to highlight the article published by our friend and colleague Rosa Tristán, where you can find much of the information from the Nature article in Spanish:
https://rosamtristan.wordpress.com