Leave it to California to come up with creatures that could be from Mars. Leave it to scientists to make them green. A new species of bacteria has been discovered thriving without oxygen in the harsh waters of northern California's Mono lake, where conditions perhaps resemble places on the red planet that might support similar life forms, scientists announced Wednesday. A dye used in the laboratory to sort living things from dead stuff rendered the creatures green in an image released by NASA. Under a microscope, the bacteria look like miniature corkscrews winnowing through samples of the highly alkaline water in which they thrive.There is no solid evidence for life on Mars, so discussion of it is speculative. But on Earth in recent years, researchers have found several species of "extremophiles," microorganisms that exist in conditions most living things cannot tolerate. The newfound extremophile, called Spirochaeta americana, swims in a high-mineral, salty environment where the pH can reach 10.5, compared to a range of 6.5 to 7.5 that is generally suggested for backyard hot tubs and swimming pools."The environment these bacteria inhabit would be distinctly inhospitable to many other life forms, including humans," said Elena Pikuta, a microbiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.Spirochaeta americana joins a growing list of organisms on Earth that don't mind extreme heat, cold, darkness or other awful conditions. They are ancient life forms that have endured most of what the planet can throw at them. Extremophiles have been found under Antarctic ice, around superhot volcanic vents, eating rock beneath the sea floor, munching on hydrogen and belching methane inside Earth's crust, and even in the waste from nuclear reactors.
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