Do animals survive without oxygen? What an obvious question, of course not. Or well, at least not that we know right? We've always seen this kind of things in sci-fi movies and that's it, it's not possible in real life.
WRONG
This week the Tel Aviv University has made a revolutionary discovery just about this topic. They finally found a complex organism, the Hanneguya salminicola, which survives without oxygen. But let's take one step at a time.
It is important to underline that this isn't the first living thing discovered to survive without oxygen. There are plenty of single-celled eukaryotes which developed an anaerobic way of surviving. And it's also important to say that this organism isn't even new, we know about him since a long time since it has been found to live inside some kind of salmons. So... what's new?
WRONG
This week the Tel Aviv University has made a revolutionary discovery just about this topic. They finally found a complex organism, the Hanneguya salminicola, which survives without oxygen. But let's take one step at a time.
It is important to underline that this isn't the first living thing discovered to survive without oxygen. There are plenty of single-celled eukaryotes which developed an anaerobic way of surviving. And it's also important to say that this organism isn't even new, we know about him since a long time since it has been found to live inside some kind of salmons. So... what's new?
The sensational discovery was made when, after some studies, researchers finally mapped this little guy's genome. Basically they found out that it had no mitochondrial DNA or even genes to produce it. In simple words, it doesn't have any 'mechanism' in its cells which can transform oxygen in energy. It is out of the ordinary cause, if your think about that, every complex organism works with oxygen. This is the first parasite (made by many cells, not like those single-celled eukaryotes losers) that doesn't work like any of us.
Isn't that amazing? This discovery could also help us understand how extra-terrestrial life might develop on other planets, and with that in mind who knows, we could finally find answers to the many questions about who our galactic neighbours are.
Photocredits: Photo1 by Repubblica.it
Photo2 by Drishtiias.com
Isn't that amazing? This discovery could also help us understand how extra-terrestrial life might develop on other planets, and with that in mind who knows, we could finally find answers to the many questions about who our galactic neighbours are.
Photocredits: Photo1 by Repubblica.it
Photo2 by Drishtiias.com