Carbon-13 fractionation as a metabolic fingerprint

58:19>> Just in this area, >> isolated from the sun. There's no sun. >> Right. Right. Which is important. >> This is important. It's isolated from the sun. It's completely driven by chemical processes that are happening because of the interaction between water and the Earth's crust. Right. >> Mhm. >> And it's completely in isolation from the rest of life on Earth. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. I think that's that's that's a foundational claim >> because because and again I think that just to kind of parse the implications a little bit here part of the point is for a layman like myself a lot of times

58:59we'll think of uh sunlight solar energy as being a required prerequisite for all life >> and when the sun goes away you can't have the light life because that's the only source is why uh uh photosynthesis is so foundational and all this other stuff. >> What this is saying is independent of sunlight and this goes back to your point earlier about why it's different than the the heat vents or heat >> or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. or heat or the sulfur the the active stuff moving out. This is just like slow chemistry

59:39happening in the crust and it and it and out of that slow chemistry in the crust, you still get life. >> You still get life. They still find a way, >> right? As uh Jeff Goldblum was saying, life finds a way no matter where. And there there it's it's incredible how they find a way, right? There's all these adaptations that they've come up with. For example, >> in there in that high pH, those lipid molecules are just going to become like soap. >> Mhm. Right. So, how do you prevent the soapification of my cell membrane? Well, instead of the estrobonds, they're using ether bonds. So, instead of a carbonil bond where the carbon is attached to an oxygen and then two groups, you've got an oxygen that's mediating that. And

1:00:21that oxygen becomes the anchor for your phosphoipids. Not not phosphoippids, sorry, glyolippids because you don't have a lot of phosphate. >> Right. You're using actually like sugar and a bunch of lipids to actually create your cell membrane. The other thing that's kind of crazy is that, you know, at that temperature, fat freezes, right? Butter, butter is a solid in the fridge, >> but that's because it's a saturated lipid. If you use unsaturated lipids like oil, that's not going to freeze. And the reason why it's unsaturated is because you've got these kinks in your carbon skeleton. You've got a double bond instead of all single bonds. And a double bond means you're going to have a kink in your carbon skeleton, which

1:01:02means it's not going to stack up >> as nicely as saturated lipids will, right? And if you're saturated, then everything's going to stack up and you're going to become solid. >> Yes. >> But without the saturation, then you're going to remain liquid and you can you can have that malleability that you need for life. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That's And it's so funny that it's literally that double bond kink of Let me actually pull that back up. That was photo 12. That double bond kink carbon >> in the middle. >> Yeah. >> Literally just that. >> Just that >> totally uh changes the entirety of the the the expanded structure that you scale up to.

1:01:42>> It's kind of crazy, right? >> Like life figures out ways to >> it's crazy >> to make it work. >> Yeah. >> You know, using fund it's just fundamental physics. The double bond creates a kind of weird quantum mechanical effect here where like now my bond can't be linear, >> right? And which means it at at this temperature it can't just then solidify into a block. It has to remain in that. Look at that. >> It's so cool. >> Yeah, I like that. >> It's so cool that like life can find this out. And this has huge astrobiological implications >> obviously >> and for me that's the coolest part. Um >> the cool biosphere analog, right? Like the Mariana's Trench is this first highfidelity analog of cool

1:02:24serpentinization >> in the cold. >> In the cold. >> Okay. Not in the hot, right? >> Not in these um zones where the plates are drifting apart and the heat's coming