December 2025 – Page 18 – My WordPress Site

Transmission electron micrographs of Serratia liquefaciens cell walls grown under lab-standard (24 h) and Mars low-PTA conditions (28 d)

Astropharmacy / Biotechnology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Mars, Microbiology & Virology

Ultrastructure of Serratia liquefaciens Grown at 7 mbar Under Simulated Martian Conditions

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Surface flux density observed and modelled. The m2F12-37-2.5 (dark green) and cF13-500-3 (light green) stellar atmosphere models are plotted at coefficients Xˆ 1=1 and Xˆ 2 = 1 (the theoretical assumption of the entire stellar surface exhibiting flaring activity). For AU Mic during a flare, the red solid and orange dashed lines show the fitted model spectrum at flare maximum using coefficients from the example fit (the flare data are stated in Table A.1 in Appendix A.2). The inverse H6 model at flare maximum, pre-flare and the ‘fiducial flare’ model from Loyd et al. (2018a) with a comparable ED is plotted as blue dash-dotted, light blue dashed, and purple dashed lines, respectively. Blackbody curves for 3850 K, 6000 K, 8000 K, and 10,000 K are included in black solid, dotted, dash-dotted and dashed lines. The panchromatic AU Mic flux from Feinstein et al. (2022) is plotted in light grey. Insets highlight the FUV (lower left) and TESS (lower right) wavelength ranges. -- astro-ph.SR

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Radiation, Space Weather & Heliophysics

Young M Dwarfs Flare Activity Model: Towards Better Exoplanetary Atmospheric Characterisation

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Environmental and operational parallels and differences between submarines and spacecraft relevant to fungal persistence. Submarines operate under Earth’s gravity and are surrounded by seawater, while spacecraft operate under microgravity, are exposed to cosmic radiation, and are surrounded by the vacuum of space. Nevertheless, both vehicles share conditions that promote fungal persistence, including crew confinement, recirculated air, the utilization of materials prone to degradation, humid or moist areas, stress and limited sleep, and limited medical care. The identification of overlapping fungal taxa—including members of Aspergillus, Penicillium, and Fusarium—in both vessels underscores the relevance of submarines as an analog environment for studying fungal risks in spaceflight. -- mBio

Analog Studies, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Life Support Systems, Microbiology & Virology, Microgravity

mGem: Submarine Mycology — An Analog To Astromycology

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) project is using data from NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) spacecraft to track the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. It tracked it for many weeks when it was behind the Sun as seen by Earth, making it difficult for other telescopes to follow it. The comet is visible in these images created by PUNCH between October 30 and November 2. -- SwRI

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar

SwRI Researchers Use PUNCH To Track Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Artist's impression of Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone, namely a range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the planet's surface. The discovery of exoplanet Kepler-186f confirmed that Earth-size planets exist in the habitable zones of other stars. Kepler-186f resides in the Kepler-186 system, about 500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. (Image: NASA/Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech)

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Origin & Evolution of Life

On The Transitional Character and Regularity of Planetary Abiogenesis

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Inside NASA's Prep For The Moon, Mars, And The Search For life

Analog Studies, Away Teams & Field Reports, Caves, Craters, Mountains & Lava Tubes, Mars, Moon, NASA Astrobiology Program, Video, Audio, Webcasts, Podcasts

Webinar: Inside NASA’s Prep For The Moon, Mars, And The Search For life

by Keith CowingDecember 8, 2025December 8, 2025

Image of HIP 71618 B (indicated by the arrow) taken by the Subaru Telescope. The planet’s host star has been blocked in this image. The star’s position is indicated by the star mark. The high resolution image and the image without text are available from the links. (Credit: T. Currie/Subaru Telescope, UTSA)

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Astronomy & Telescopes, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy

First Results From The Subaru Telescope’s OASIS Survey: Direct Imaging Of New Worlds Around Unexplored Stars

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2025December 7, 2025

a cryoEM volume revealing a two-start (C2) helical filament with a pitch p and diameter of 94.6 Å and 260 Å, and a rise and twist of 3.18 Å and 12.1°, respectively; b local interaction network between neighboring cannula protofilaments in which subunits interlock through donor strand complementation along the axial (e.g., i → j → k) direction and partake in further intermolecular contacts mediated by calcium coordination along the axial and radial (e.g., j-1→j → j + 1) direction; c stick representation of three types of calcium pockets: (i) axial stacking of subunits via type I and II calcium binding centers, (ii) radial contacts are mediated via type III Ca2+ binding sites; d raw cryoEM image of a cannulae filaments loaded with a helically winding thinner filament (2 nm; cargo). White arrows denote winding cargo and dangling cargo associated with the cannulae filaments; e surface electrostatics showing a predominantly negatively charged surface and a positively charged lumen for the cannula model. The representative image in this figure (d) is derived from a total of 2365 cryo-EM movies from two technical replicates.-- Nature Communications

Astropharmacy / Biotechnology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Commercial & Private Sector, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Microbiology & Virology, Origin & Evolution of Life, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Extreme Engineering – Unlocking Design Secrets of Deep-sea Microbes

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2025

Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1878 map of Mars has a distribution of features interpreted as land (white) and sea (blue). Many of the names Schiaparelli gave to locations on Mars are still used today. Source: Library of Congress.

Astrobiology (general), Biosignatures & Paleobiology, NASA Astrobiology Program, SETI & Technosignatures

Responsible Discovery in Astrobiology: Lessons from Four Controversial Claims

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2025December 7, 2025

Figure 3b shows key word frequency over time. Like co-occurrence network map, the term Extremophiles with the highest increase, reaches a cumulative frequency by 2023. As the second most frequently used term, Astrobiology is a trend topic. The term ‘habitability’ is another popular keyword that has increased over the years. Mars is frequently associated with extremophile habitability studies. The term ‘Biological Signatures’ is also on the rise.-- International Journal of Astrobiology

Astrobiology (general), Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Microbiology & Virology, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, People Of Astrobiology, Tardigrades

Navigating Life In The Extremes: A Bibliometric Exploration Of Extremophiles And Astrobiology

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2025