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Life. 

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The biggest mystery.

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What is Life?

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When did it happen?

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How did it surge? 

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Did it happen in our planet?

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Or did it come from other  worlds?

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This is Gerardo Garrido

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And I travelled to Iceland in  the company of Ricardo Amils.

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Ricardo is an astrobiologist,  someone that searches for life  forms out of our planet.

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He is my guide to a world he  only can see.

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He is a detective of the origin  of life who searches for clue in the most hostile places.

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We will visit  infernal ponds  surrounded by sulphur.

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Lethal lakes. 

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Poisonous rivers.

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The heart of glaciers. And the  surroundings of an active  volcano.

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And even we will go underground  to find answers in the darkness.

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THE DARK WORLD

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LIFE AND WATER

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Our planet boils in life.

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There could be as 10 million animal and plant species living  with us, according to science.

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But all of them need water for  living.

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Our journey to know the origin of life drive us to the  encounter with water.

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Why is water so important for  life?

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You and me are made by water in  80 percent.

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Water is essential for life.  Without water, there is no life. It is the best marker for life. 

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That is the reason people search for life on Mars.

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Life is a solvent.  It makes possible that systems can interchange molecules.

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You need a solvent for working.

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Water is the most powerful solvent in Nature.

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It allows the movement of this  microscopic creature.

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And makes its metabolism to function.

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Water makes possible the miracle of Life.

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But Life is much more than  water.

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We drive to the cost in the middle of a hard rain.

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Weather give us a stop and we meet the beautiful Icelandic  horses.

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Life seems very easy to distinguish.

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And we know something is alive by just see it.

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Along our journey we meet many dead seagulls.

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And many chicks they do not how to fly.

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To decide between the living and the inanimate seems very easy.

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But we will find it is not easy  at all.

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Ricardo, would you explain what  is life?

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Minds so privileged as Lynn  Margulis, or the Nobel Prize  Schrödinger wrote books 

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trying to establish the  definition of  life, and they failed.

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This is a problem for Biology.  We can separate 
and analyze the components of life, we know all macromolecules inside cells...

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We can synthesize them ...but if we mix them, like does not surge.

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Scientists can not make life in their laboratories.

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The Frankenstein myth is out of reach of science.

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Many believe life surged in an  ocean like the one we have in  front.

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Could it happened spontaneously in a place like this billion of  years ago?

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The classic models suggest life originated in submarine  volcanoes 

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where gases and basic components, by chemical  reactions,produced the bricks   of life.

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The more we back on time, the more diffuse the line gets  between  the inanimate and the living.

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To show it, Ricardo brings me to an extraordinary place, 
built in basalt column, where things are  not what they suppose to be.

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Are virus alive?

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This is a debatable question for virologists.

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For some they are alive, for others not.

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But virus can not reproduce by themselves, what is a  fundamental property of life.

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And here we hace a nice sample.

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These are minerals, basalt, mineral structures.

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Minerals can reproduce by themselves, but they are not  alive.

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This is a invisible Universe in everything, earth, the seas, the atmosphere.

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A single gram of soil can contain a billion of bacteria.

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But if the first cells appear in the ocean, they left no clues.

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And Ricardo suggests that perhaps life could not happen there.

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To solve this mystery, we have to travel to another place, that is very different.

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A place that still preserve the conditions when life appeared.

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Iniciation.

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Before the trip, we decide to take a rest in Reikiavik.

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Few things are better than  talking about science while listening jazz and blues.

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After, while we are taking a good hot soap, Ricardo talk about the primordial soup of  life.  

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And he mentions the work of one of his colleagues, Dave Deamer.

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Deamer has investigated for decades one of the biggest  mysteries.

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Hod did the first living cells manage to protect themselves?

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Deamer discovered that the oceans 
did not provide the  conditions  for the making of membranes.

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Where did it happen?

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The next day, we begin our trip  to an extraordinary place, searching for answers.

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Close to the highlands of Iceland, we find a world  strongly affected by wild winds.

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It's very cold, but fumaroles around us exhale heat and vapor.

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In their borders, Nature draws beautiful pictures that seem 
impressionist paintings,  with an hypnotic attraction.

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Abd we finally arrive at a precious blue colored hot pond. 

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Did life start in a place like this?

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160 years ago, Darwin wrote a letter to a colleague 
that  described the possibility that life in a place like this 

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A  hot lagoon like this, that  contained the different components necessary for life to emerge.

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Ricardo, which ingredients are necessary for life to surge?

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The fundamental elements for life are nucleic acids,  
information, and proteins, that  make the cellular components 

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And specially the membranes,  they are the barriers 
that separates the living things from the rest.

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This is essential to concentrate the elements inside than can work.

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My colleague and friend Dave Deamer, from the California  University, has been working here.

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He has investigated, under the conditions we find here, 
how the components of life surged, and very specially, the membranes.

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What if we call him, and talk about all these issues?

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It is an excellent idea.

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Lets talk with him.

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Hello David. How are you? 

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I know you had been here taking samples
 to make your experiments about membrane synthesis.

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Surely you enjoyed a much better weather,
 not like now, with all this strong winds that make  almost impossible to work.

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Happy to meet you Ricardo.

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This morning, probably your evening.

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Wellcome to Iceland.

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I stayed there last summer for a couple of weeks.

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I can guarantee your experience is going to be spectacular.

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I walked along numerous hot springs.

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Is one of the most beautiful places to find them.

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While I was walking it came some of the ideas that are now part of my research.

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You are in this amazing  landscape of a volcanic island.

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coming up from hot magma.

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 underneath driving the volcanism that is just constant  in the Icelandic background. 

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Deamer is convinced that, in a  site like this, life was cooked.

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Life is written by nucleic  acids, instructions 

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They are instructions manuals for microscopic organisms,

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Icelandic horses.

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Us.

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Every living being has its  written genetic code. 

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But this amazing amount of information is packed in these  very long molecules.

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If we unroll all the DNA of a  person, 
we could travel to the moon and back to Earth about 150.000 times.

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How did this extraordinary molecules emerge?

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It must had a source of energy  capable of making polymers.

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And we are all familiar with polymers.

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Polyester, polystyrene, polyethylene.

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I suspect the shirt that I am wearing contains polyethylene.

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Believe or not, your nucleic acids are also polyesters.

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It is extraordinary that the ester linkages, that hold nucleic acids together  

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To make these long linear molecules are nothing but a single molecule bond called ester.

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Imagine that this finger is a molecule of acid and the other is an alcohol 

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If I put them together, it makes an ester bond. 

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What we are doing in the laboratory and in the field is making ester bonds.

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We take shelter of the strong winds to eat something hot.

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So these hot springs we saw are similar to this soup. 

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And this soup could contain the temperature, the water and the  necessary ingredients...

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That is, what we have here is  very similar to...

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...to the cuisine of Life.

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The cuisine of life, how it  emerged.

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And Deamer actually believes that the origin of life is an  act of cuisine.

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To have the adequate  ingredientes to make life  possible.

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Deamer formed a singular team  with his colleague, 
Dr. Bruce  Damer, at California University in Santa Cruz.

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They tested their findings in the laboratory at places like Iceland and New Zealand.

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These pioneers reproduce, in a  primitive Nature, 
the chemical reactions that made life possible billion of years ago.

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I was in Hell Cape, north of New Zealand. 

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We made experiments there try to reproduce what we see in our laboratory.

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Is the next stage of research in our research.

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See if what we got in the laboratory actually can work in  these sites.

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We call analog sites to what the Earth had before  life.

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Four billion years ago at the beginning of life on Earth.

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Life emerged under two  conditions.

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It needed very long molecules to hold the information

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And it learned to protect itself from the outside by developing a membrane.

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Strong winds outside, cold, extreme conditions...

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Despite of this, you insist that life, something we consider a  fragile thing, 

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Life is on the knive edge, is  very close to death.

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Despite these extreme conditions, you are convinced that life emerged in a place  like this.

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There is no doubt life emerged in extreme conditions.

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In the time of life origins, the planet has a strong volcanic activity.

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The conditions were very hard.

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But it is not true that life is a fragile thing.

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Life adapts very easily to extreme conditions

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Today we have found that is  associated to volcanic activity.

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Darwin predicted it.

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In his Beagle voyages, he visited salinas, very salty  places, and observed life in those.

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And he deduced the following. 

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If life exists in these  conditions 

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It should be life in the coldest places

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It should be life at the top of the mountains.

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And it should be life in the interior of the Earth.

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It must happened a physics to form things as ordinary as  simples as soup bubbles.

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Molecules which are fatty acids in the original soup. Everybody use soup from centuries ago.

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Fatty acids can make membranes we call bubbles.

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Those same fatty acids in water they produce what we call microscopic membranes.  

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We call them lipid vesicles or liposomes.

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And occurs spontaneously.

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I happens in the laboratory and in the field.

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If lipids are presents, polymers are encapsulated.

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So that is the way it happened.

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Very long molecules that hold information assembled... 

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And they were protected by membranes similar to soup bubbles.

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And life made its way. 

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Ricard take us to a place where  life confronts extreme conditions.

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It's another World.

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Lost Worlds.

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Smelling to rotten eggs and sulphur is everywhere.

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For this detective that searches for answers, 

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...the place is almost a time travel where smog threatens to  erase all details to our cameras.

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We are at Seltun, Iceland

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One of the best extreme places to study the origin of life.

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And here we can see organisms adapted to live in such extreme  conditions 

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H igh temperature, very low acidity, and even high  concentration of heavy metals.

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We are surrounded by vapor and acid everywhere.

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What can survive in these poisonous ponds?

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Here we can see algae...

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Easy to identify by the green color of the chlorophyll

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They are surely making photosynthesis in an extreme environment like this.

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These are boiling waters and very acid.

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The probe of Ricardo reveals their temperature, more than 84  celsius centigrades. 

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Their corrosive power destroy metals.

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What it can survive nearby?

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We have here a nice example of  the extreme conditions of this volcanic area.

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We can see, in water at high temperature, it is boiling because of the volcanic activity

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We see patches of green algae that are growing in the  surroundings.

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The are probably taking advantage of the heat and the emissions of CO2

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And the hydrogen sulfide that is oxidized, making all the surroundings of sulphuric acid.

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After this finding, smog invades again this Lost World.

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Ricard talks about an acid lake that is very important for the origin of life.

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We can barely distinguish its shore because of the bad  weather.

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Despite the rain and the winds, the team is determined to shoot.

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Smog is everywhere.

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Lethal Lake

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While we are walking, Ricardo tells me an extraordinary story.

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This lake is lethal for most living things

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But not for all.

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Next day, the smog vanishes, and we decide to get a try.

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We could not imagine the marvelous we would find.

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The turquoise color waters of the Graenavath lake shines as a precious stone.

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We are at the Graenavath lake, Iceland. Ricardo, why you drove  us here?

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You can see this is a lake that has a very special color.

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It is acid.

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It has a very low acidity because of the volcanic activity

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It is in a volcanic cone.

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We have found here a microorganism, a bacteria called Acidiphilium.

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It can live with and without oxygen.

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So here is the home of a living beings that possibly do not  have oxygen 

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They are surrounded by sulphur, and despite of all, they get  comfort.

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This is a predilect place for  them.

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And the most interest of all, this lake is a Mars analog.

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The  lake is in a volcanic cone, the minerals, the kind of life that lives here...

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It is a place that shows how was Mars a long time ago.

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While we are walking, I imagine this could be a Martian lake.

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A lake born from a Volcano many millions of years ago.

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  This strange bacteria could survive in the red planet.

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We have a time machine to travel to the past of the primitive Earth.

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Being the witness of how a volcano is born.

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Six months later.  

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I have always thought bacteria are smarter than we believe.

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They have dominated our world since billion of years ago.

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It seems crazy, but there is no doubt the evolved into us.

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And the volcanoes cooked the necessary ingredients to produce them.

236
00:33:07,359 --> 00:33:12,440
While I am walking, I imagine I  see a primitive Earth.

237
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:21,799
And sometimes I think bacteria could have emerged in similar  landscapes of other worlds.

238
00:33:40,799 --> 00:33:47,759
There is another possibility for the origin of life, apart from the vapor of hot springs.

239
00:33:48,519 --> 00:33:50,519
The Cold. 

240
00:33:51,039 --> 00:33:53,039
Life that came from the Cold.

241
00:33:57,559 --> 00:34:00,599
Did life emerged in the ice?

242
00:34:01,799 --> 00:34:04,960
In temperatures below zero?

243
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:15,920
Ricardo proposes to travel to  one of the biggest glaciers in  the world.

244
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:27,440
And while we drive to the north, he tells me an extraordinary  story.

245
00:34:28,519 --> 00:34:33,440
An experiment that started in a laboratory, where a Chemist called Stanley Miller

246
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:44,400
And his pupil, Jeffrey Bada, put ammonia and cyanid
 in a test tube, and froze it for 25  years.

247
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:57,519
I did not know about this, until Stanley told me while we had dinner.

248
00:35:01,079 --> 00:35:09,559
He mentioned a set of tubes with a mixture of ammonia and cyanide freezes during 25 years. 

249
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:22,400
I almost dropped my fork. I told him, what? After 25 years, it is time to stop!  

250
00:35:29,079 --> 00:35:33,559
The first thing I saw is that the tubes were brown.

251
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:42,000
We found amino acids and nucleic bases.

252
00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:52,199
We never expected them to surge at -25 C below zero.

253
00:35:53,599 --> 00:35:57,760
Even there was a test tube that was at -75 celsius degrees.

254
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:02,760
The cold sculpted the bricks of Life.

255
00:36:04,559 --> 00:36:08,760
Nucleic bases, the genetic code.

256
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,599
Also aminoacd, that build up proteins

257
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:24,360
Nature sculpts surprising forms in the surroundings.

258
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:29,440
A grand piano cover made on ice and battled by the sea waves.

259
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,760
The head of a jaguar.

260
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:47,480
Once Inside this glaciar cave, I remember what happened in those frozen tube test.

261
00:36:49,039 --> 00:36:53,800
Ice, water and the passing time.

262
00:36:55,280 --> 00:37:01,079
If 25 years of intense cold were enough to produce some of the bricks of life...

263
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:07,679
What the million of years were able to create?

264
00:37:08,159 --> 00:37:11,760
The evolution created us,  organic intelligence forms.

265
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,679
We arrive at Jökulsárlón, one of the biggest glaciar lakes in the world. 

266
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:29,280
It is easy to let your eyes wander in this iced landscape.

267
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:59,800
In this moment I understand that the ice open doors to new  worlds.

268
00:38:12,079 --> 00:38:18,280
Fantastic frozen worlds where everything could be possible.

269
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:26,480
We are at Jökulsárlón, an spectacular glacial lake.

270
00:38:28,119 --> 00:38:35,800
This is a particular ecosystem, with an analogy of life in another planets, isn't it Ricardo?

271
00:38:37,199 --> 00:38:49,440
We are at Iceland, very volcanic, so it is very likely  
that under that glacier, it would be enough heat to melt ice

272
00:38:50,639 --> 00:38:58,440
And produce subterranean lakes equivalent
 to  those you could find in Europa, a moon of Jupiter, or Encedalus.

273
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:10,719
Distant words where, despite the cold, they could harbor oceans 
 under ice caps of kilometers of thickness.

274
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:23,559
Probes have detected in Europa, one of the Jupiter moons,
  plumes of what seems water vapor.

275
00:39:24,639 --> 00:39:31,880
Like gigantic geysers that make its way through kilometers of  ice.

276
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:39,599
How liquid water can occur in  those cold planets?

277
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,239
Where the heat does come from?

278
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,360
In Europa, and probably in Encedalus, 

279
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:52,320
It is not the heat by itself, is the eccentricity of the orbit of the moon around Jupiter,.

280
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:59,159
that produces very energetic tides.

281
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:07,800
It is not the heat by itself, is the eccentricity of the orbit of the moon around Jupiter,.

282
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:13,880
The tides of Jupiter are very powerful I guess,  much more than the tides of the moon here.

283
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:20,360
It is not only the size what matters, is the eccentricity of the orbit.

284
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:24,119
The type of twist of the moon.

285
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,320
I understand, is a very eccentric orbit

286
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:35,360
If life exists in those world, they are presumed to be  bacteria, Ricardo affirms.

287
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:47,320
Bacteria have been isolated in the ice of the glaciers, 
and even in the ice of the drinks we take.

288
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:59,000
But even the simplest bacteria  is a gigantic step forward in evolution.

289
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:12,280
During this trip, a question it is on my mind.

290
00:41:14,079 --> 00:41:19,440
How long took life to create a humble bacteria?

291
00:41:20,079 --> 00:41:22,360
After exploring beaches of black sand, 

292
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:26,280
glacial lakes

293
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,880
hot springs

294
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:40,440
and volcanic ashes, Ricardo had a surprise for me.

295
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:45,840
Ricardo, you head is in somewhere else.

296
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:51,239
You are right. Iceland is fascinating, its hot spring, the world of sulphur.

297
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,760
There is no doubt it is very interesting concerning the  origin of life.

298
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,719
But I am going to bring you to another place.

299
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:00,719
Where are we going now?

300
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:02,800
First I have to show you something.

301
00:42:03,559 --> 00:42:05,559
What do you see here?

302
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:20,719
I tell you Ricardo, this is lunch time, and what I see here is a dish of macaroni with tomato.

303
00:42:21,519 --> 00:42:23,519
This is not tomato macaroni. 

304
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:31,840
This is hematite, the product of extraction of energy 
 by microorganism that live in certain conditions.

305
00:42:33,039 --> 00:42:35,039
Hematite, this is the first time I hear it.

306
00:42:35,079 --> 00:42:38,400
Hematite is an iron oxide.

307
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:43,119
It is produced when bacteria oxidizes pyrite.

308
00:42:43,119 --> 00:42:46,559
Pyrite is made by volcanoes.

309
00:42:47,199 --> 00:42:49,480
But this still seem to me tomato macaroni.

310
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:55,920
What would you say about how old are these microorganisms?

311
00:42:56,679 --> 00:42:58,679
No idea, Ricardo, I do not know.

312
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:08,320
The recent research that  produced this image estimate that the age is 4.2 billion years ago. 

313
00:43:09,599 --> 00:43:14,039
4.2 billion years? They are almost as old as the same Earth!

314
00:43:14,039 --> 00:43:16,039
Earth has about 4.5 billion  years old!

315
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:22,000
Right. So what it follows is that life emerged very quickly  on our planet.

316
00:43:23,119 --> 00:43:25,119
Yes, it took about 300 million years to emerge.

317
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,880
Ricardo, where these structures were found?

318
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:34,440
These tubules were found in  Quebec, in Canada.

319
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,920
So are we going there?

320
00:43:37,159 --> 00:43:44,119
No. I am going to bring you to a much more interesting place  
where this phenomenon is happening while we are talking.

321
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:48,039
So let's go!

322
00:44:07,119 --> 00:44:10,519
Río Tinto, a Spanish town in the province of Huelva

323
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,519
holds one of the biggest copper mine in open sky.

324
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:30,880
I am the special envoy of  Ricardo to track here a critical clue about the origin of life.

325
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:35,880
Life burns energy. 

326
00:44:36,519 --> 00:44:38,519
And it produces waste.

327
00:44:39,159 --> 00:44:41,159
Fingerprints.

328
00:44:43,599 --> 00:44:47,480
I am searching for the artists  that made these fascinating  tomato macaroni.

329
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:54,639
They could be the oldest inhabitants, almost as old as our planet.

330
00:45:01,039 --> 00:45:05,880
Ricardo wants me to explore the  river where the mine take its name.

331
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:08,639
El Río Tinto

332
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,519
It is the most enigmatic place I have never seen.

333
00:45:14,599 --> 00:45:16,599
Blood River

334
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:21,960
Sulphur smelling is very  intense.

335
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:26,800
A surprise awaits in every step.

336
00:45:32,679 --> 00:45:37,280
The river makes a pond.

337
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,920
Its waters are of a very intense dark red color.

338
00:46:03,599 --> 00:46:07,440
It is like the blood that comes from the interior of the Earth.

339
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:15,280
Without fishes, frogs, or aquatic insects.

340
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:21,760
Only the sound of the hot breeze against the pine acículas.

341
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:40,119
Ricardo recombined not to touch these acid waters.

342
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,119
They burn like sulphuric acid.

343
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,920
There are curious yellow lumps like popcorns.

344
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,920
Nevertheless, I detect some life in the waters.

345
00:47:02,159 --> 00:47:05,559
Vegetable filaments that wave.

346
00:47:06,119 --> 00:47:11,159
Green lumps of algae in the nearby rocks similar to what we found in Iceland.

347
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:20,960
After walking dozens of kilometers, 

348
00:47:21,119 --> 00:47:23,079
my suspicions are confirmed.

349
00:47:23,079 --> 00:47:25,719
The river maintains intact its personality along its course.

350
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,760
Its smelling and color.

351
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:41,039
Even downstream, while we are approaching to the river mouth, at the end of the day. 

352
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:50,960
Ricard explained that the river maintains its low acidity along its 100 kilometer course.

353
00:47:52,079 --> 00:47:54,079
Even in heavy raining.

354
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:59,400
It is an astounding river, unique. And must be preserved.

355
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:03,000
I have never seen anything like this in all my life.

356
00:48:06,079 --> 00:48:11,559
Ricardo let me a map to reach the birth of the river the  following morning. 

357
00:48:12,199 --> 00:48:16,039
I follow the creek or red and yellow waters.

358
00:48:16,039 --> 00:48:18,039
I take a way to my left to go up.

359
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,480
And a reach a debris hill of stones.

360
00:48:46,039 --> 00:48:50,639
Is it here where this mystery is born?

361
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:06,159
Ricardo is back again among the ruins of the old mine installations in Zarandas.

362
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:25,559
A site that seems the scene of a dystopic film, surrounded by destruction.

363
00:49:26,639 --> 00:49:28,639
Reencounter

364
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:30,800
Also, the place we meet again.

365
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:47,480
Iron oxide is present everywhere.

366
00:49:48,079 --> 00:49:56,920
But its effects are even more  impressive in the oldest train machines, railways and wagons.

367
00:50:00,760 --> 00:50:07,559
Iron is corroded in such a grade I have never seen before.

368
00:50:07,559 --> 00:50:10,880
A world dominated by corrosion.

369
00:50:14,639 --> 00:50:17,679
The universe of Iron

370
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:27,039
Hello Ricardo. From the greenish blue Iceland landscape 

371
00:50:27,159 --> 00:50:30,760
you bring me to one of the sites more oxidized of the Earth.

372
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:34,679
I promised you. I told you I will bring you to a place where  there is action on iron.

373
00:50:34,679 --> 00:50:40,760
You are seeing here all the  oxidized material 
 from trains because of the  action of microorganisms.

374
00:50:42,519 --> 00:50:44,519
For many years people ignored them.

375
00:50:44,519 --> 00:50:47,440
They did not know that this oxidation was produced by biology.

376
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,960
But today everything is well documented and researched.

377
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:56,599
Amazing! So it is not the oxygen the culprit, but the bacteria.

378
00:50:56,599 --> 00:50:58,599
That is correct.

379
00:50:58,599 --> 00:51:00,599
Lets see some of them.

380
00:51:00,599 --> 00:51:02,599
I am going to show you my river.

381
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:24,320
The Man and the River.

382
00:51:32,119 --> 00:51:37,760
Ricardo is the scientific guardian of this extraordinary river

383
00:51:39,559 --> 00:51:43,880
Thanks to it he made a career as an astrobiologist.

384
00:51:48,199 --> 00:51:50,199
The River Guardian

385
00:51:50,199 --> 00:51:54,679
He has the keys of its secrets.

386
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,559
As I suspected, the Río Tinto is too far to be considered a dead river.

387
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:10,360
This river is amazing, but I can not see fishes, frogs or birds.

388
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:15,360
You will never see them.

389
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:19,559
Obviously this is a river that  does not have the type of life you could find in any other  river.

390
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:23,119
Here there are only microorganisms, they are  impossible to see.

391
00:52:25,119 --> 00:52:29,719
The reason is because all the eucariotas, excepting the algae  you can see, 

392
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:34,159
They can not live because of the acidity and heavy metal content of the waters of the river.

393
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:40,320
The classic idea is that this is a polluted river.

394
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:44,960
A byproduct of the industrial pollution that comes from the  mine.

395
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:47,599
But this is the best way to refuse this argument.

396
00:52:47,599 --> 00:52:49,599
In the oldest terraces of the river

397
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,400
similar of what we are seeing here, in Berrocal

398
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,519
has been dated, and they are 8 millions old. 

399
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:05,719
Eight millions years ago there  were no miners taking metals in  any mine of the world.

400
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:10,360
So is there any manner to know if the river is polluted or not?

401
00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:14,119
The important issue is to find the origin of the river.

402
00:53:14,119 --> 00:53:18,800
We have been searching for it in the last years

403
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,119
And we demonstrated that the river is a by product of a subterranean bioreactor.

404
00:53:22,119 --> 00:53:27,760
Where microorganisms that burn metallic sulfides to obtain energy 

405
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:30,800
From the pyrite Iberian deposits, that are very rich on pyrite.

406
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:38,400
They are very happy!  They eat the pyrite 
and then they defecate sulphuric acid and ferric ion.

407
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,800
 and this is what you see in the river.

408
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,000
So we can conclude that under all of this, 

409
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:47,199
there is a biological reactor, a fabric of life.

410
00:53:47,199 --> 00:53:49,199
That is right.

411
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:54,400
Is what we call the Dark World. 
 It is a kind of life that does not need sunlight or photosynthesis. 

412
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:58,440
Something we see that happens in the surface of the planet.

413
00:53:58,440 --> 00:53:59,840
But this is happening under our feet, in the  underground.

414
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:02,760
And this is the Dark World you talked about in Iceland.

415
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:06,719
That is correct, and that is why I have brought you here, to show my Río Tinto.

416
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:17,280
Algae are the most visible signal of life in these waters.

417
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:21,360
This is a multi parametric probe. 

418
00:54:22,599 --> 00:54:25,960
We are going to measure the acidity, the pH.

419
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:29,599
We can se that the pH is maintained along the course of  the river.

420
00:54:29,599 --> 00:54:33,440
We are just in the middle of the course of the river.

421
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,320
After we can go where the river is born and measure its pH.

422
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,039
Put the probe in the water.

423
00:54:44,039 --> 00:54:46,039
The pH is 2.5.

424
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:52,880
Shake it a little and again, 

425
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:00,199
Yes, the pH is 2.5.

426
00:55:00,199 --> 00:55:06,000
Ricardo tells me about other important survivors, apart from  algae and bacteria.

427
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:19,320
In 2022, his team of Center Of Molecular Biology Severo  Ochoa (CSIC)
took samples in different parts of the river.

428
00:55:21,119 --> 00:55:29,119
We sent the samples to Frank Fox, 
one of the best micro cinematographers of the world, at Konz, Germany.

429
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:35,519
Unfortunately, the samples were delayed and remain in obscurity during al most a week.

430
00:55:39,199 --> 00:55:43,440
First results were discouraging.

431
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:47,000
Skeletal landscapes of dead  algae and dying diatomea.

432
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:54,880
But...surrounded by bacteria!

433
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:59,960
The autthentic queens of Río Tinto.

434
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,880
Some of them make twists 

435
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,039
like microscopic snakes.

436
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,760
Despite the problems, Frank did not abandon.

437
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:23,760
He added some water and exposed the samples to sunlight.

438
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:42,960
Gradually, superior life started to flourish.

439
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:59,400
An Euglena, an algae that resembles an animal, makes  elegantly its way.

440
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:13,559
A single amoeba tries to engulf the skeletal of a diatomea.

441
00:57:16,239 --> 00:57:20,000
This one has got a double prize, living algae.

442
00:57:25,599 --> 00:57:31,400
And a curious encounter between an amoeba and an Euglena, where no one wins.

443
00:57:36,239 --> 00:57:39,559
Within days, life start to flourish.

444
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:47,360
These are ciliates of the genre Euplotes.

445
00:57:49,519 --> 00:57:53,280
They seem creatures from another planet.

446
00:57:58,559 --> 00:58:02,880
These protozoa move vividly and fast.

447
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:20,920
This is a bombproof couple, never separate.

448
00:58:36,079 --> 00:58:40,280
Others explore the algae, like fishes swimming along coral reefs.

449
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:53,239
Someone like to grow peacefully.

450
00:59:01,199 --> 00:59:08,880
Euglenas start to form vibrant colonies.

451
00:59:18,239 --> 00:59:22,239
And step by step, diversity grows.

452
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:31,199
Heliozoa. They seem miniature  stars creating rays.

453
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:41,920
Even more than three months, some of the inhabitants of this  river refuse to die.

454
00:59:50,079 --> 00:59:54,400
Under Frank's microscope, we witness the spectacle of the  life of the Rio Tinto.

455
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:58,599
As anyone has seen before.

456
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:22,360
The Dark World.

457
01:00:30,199 --> 01:00:33,519
In our next move, we approach  one of the gates of the Dark  World.

458
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:45,039
A gigantic crater of a diameter of 1200 meters and 300 meters deep.

459
01:00:47,559 --> 01:00:53,559
One of the biggest mines in the open sky of the world.

460
01:00:53,559 --> 01:00:57,159
Corta Atalaya.

461
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:03,159
The terraces of 12 meters high shine in a brilliant orange in the morning.

462
01:01:06,119 --> 01:01:13,360
But our interest is below these dark waters

463
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:17,000
The Dark World.

464
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,119
To what depth can life survive here?

465
01:01:20,119 --> 01:01:24,800
This is the geological section of an flood mine

466
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:28,239
You can see the level of the freatic water.

467
01:01:28,239 --> 01:01:35,480
This is the level of the water inside and that allows microorganisms to live under.

468
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:45,199
What depth? Our team of the Astrobiology Center drilled a hole of 620 meters near here.

469
01:01:45,199 --> 01:01:52,639
And we have found life. And this is not the limit. We are convinced there is life even deeper.

470
01:01:53,119 --> 01:01:56,159
It is believed that the limit of life is the temperature.

471
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:01,159
Temperature? So what is the temperature limit for living beings?

472
01:02:01,159 --> 01:02:08,280
 In the laboratory it is  possible to cultivate  microorganisms at 132 celsius centigrate.

473
01:02:09,039 --> 01:02:12,840
That means you need a pressure cooker to cultivate them.

474
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:21,440
Mine is now a tourism attraction.

475
01:02:21,440 --> 01:02:26,320
But Ricardo proposes me another gate for this World that no one knows like him.

476
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:32,599
And this is the site of our last experiment.

477
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:37,840
The birth of Río Tinto.

478
01:02:39,519 --> 01:02:43,119
The threshold of an inaccesible universe.

479
01:02:47,079 --> 01:02:50,519
Put it a bit deeper.

480
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:54,800
The pH is only 2.

481
01:02:55,679 --> 01:02:59,719
This is much lower that the acidity we found in the intermediate part of the river.

482
01:03:07,519 --> 01:03:11,360
There is no river in the world like this.

483
01:03:18,599 --> 01:03:23,360
More than 100 kilometers of waters that maintains an extraordinary acidity.

484
01:03:33,079 --> 01:03:37,719
They are only the tip of the iceberg of the Dark World.

485
01:03:43,000 --> 01:03:51,079
So can we conclude that the river is not polluted?

486
01:03:51,079 --> 01:03:55,840
The river is not born polluted. This is the cotton test.

487
01:03:56,519 --> 01:04:01,039
Obviously when it cross the mine area there could be interactions with the mine residues.

488
01:04:01,039 --> 01:04:05,880
But here, this is pristine. This comes from the underground.

489
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:09,480
So let's go into this Dark World we have talked about.

490
01:04:24,719 --> 01:04:27,760
We go through the rock pores.

491
01:04:30,559 --> 01:04:33,159
There is no light and oxygen.

492
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:41,679
We are now more than 600 meters deep.

493
01:04:41,679 --> 01:04:43,679
It's getting hotter.

494
01:05:02,400 --> 01:05:07,719
Billions of bacteria burn the iron of the rocks.

495
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:14,800
Some of them learned to breath nitrates.

496
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:18,440
The Dark Wolrd is overwhelmed by enormous pressures.

497
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:24,519
And the time runs slower.

498
01:05:24,519 --> 01:05:31,039
Some bacteria could divide perhaps each 1000 years.

499
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:39,400
Many rules of biology are broken in this world,  Ricardo tells me.

500
01:05:55,559 --> 01:06:00,039
 Cooperation is more important than competence.

501
01:06:10,239 --> 01:06:13,400
Everybody are necessary in this universe.

502
01:06:31,559 --> 01:06:35,760
Life creates the conditions that allow its existence. 

503
01:06:46,719 --> 01:06:55,760
Collaboration among different species 
was vital for the origin of life, a prediction of biologist Lynn Margulis.

504
01:06:57,679 --> 01:07:06,239
And we, the powerful human beings, could not live without  the help of these bacteria.

505
01:07:06,239 --> 01:07:10,079
When it started everything?

506
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:16,719
After getting back from this Dark World, where time stops.

507
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:21,639
Our tour in the mine train gets a very special meaning.

508
01:07:21,639 --> 01:07:27,679
This is not only a train that show us the old times of the big mine copper industry.

509
01:07:27,679 --> 01:07:35,760
These are the tomato macaroni  you show me at Iceland
and you promise me  to show them here, in Río Tinto.

510
01:07:37,559 --> 01:07:44,199
So we go. This train will drive  us to the sites where 
they are producing these kind of structures right now.

511
01:07:44,199 --> 01:07:50,119
Now I see this is a journey to  the same origins of life.

512
01:07:52,679 --> 01:07:57,599
This is a snapshot of something that could happened more than 4 billion years ago.

513
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:04,760
So this train compress the long history of life on Earth in about only one year.

514
01:08:20,119 --> 01:08:23,680
January, 1. The Earth is born.

515
01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:39,920
Around February 25, first bacteria emerge.

516
01:08:39,920 --> 01:08:44,920
They have dominated our world.

517
01:08:56,359 --> 01:09:00,279
 The first animals appear on November.

518
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:06,600
Dinosaurs dissapereared about December 25, at Christmas Day.

519
01:09:08,199 --> 01:09:13,800
And we appeared in the last 15  minutes of the year. 

520
01:09:25,079 --> 01:09:28,800
I admire the Rio Tinto making its way in the pine forest.

521
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:33,760
And I wonder if there were others blood rivers when life  started.

522
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:40,319
Blood rivers boosted by subterranean kingdoms of  bacteria.

523
01:09:40,319 --> 01:09:43,479
Other Dark Worlds.

524
01:10:17,119 --> 01:10:19,119
Other worlds

525
01:10:20,640 --> 01:10:22,640
Iron.

526
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:25,720
An ancestral energy source.

527
01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:34,119
While we walk, Ricardo suggests  to raise our look to another  world.

528
01:10:42,239 --> 01:10:44,239
Mars.

529
01:10:51,680 --> 01:10:53,680
The red planet.

530
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,640
A world rusted to the bone.

531
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:33,760
Iceland, Rio Tinto

532
01:11:34,479 --> 01:11:37,760
It seems that the ghost of Mars follows us everywhere.

533
01:11:37,760 --> 01:11:42,399
You should know we are now walking over the best Mars analog.

534
01:11:42,399 --> 01:11:44,399
Why?

535
01:11:44,399 --> 01:11:50,199
Mars is the red planet. And Río Tinto, you know what is its color because of its name,Tinto.

536
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:55,640
Both share the same red color because of the oxidized iron that is prevalent in both.

537
01:11:57,720 --> 01:11:59,720
Spheres of hematite have been found on Mars.

538
01:12:01,199 --> 01:12:04,479
The same iron oxide that is present in Río Tinto.

539
01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:15,600
At one Martian crater hill, the Perseverance rover found something. 

540
01:12:16,560 --> 01:12:19,079
Signs of ancient water.

541
01:12:19,079 --> 01:12:21,079
Iron oxides.

542
01:12:21,079 --> 01:12:23,079
And mysterious black spots

543
01:12:23,079 --> 01:12:27,920
that suggest that microscopic life flourished from Martian underground.

544
01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:32,920
May be by burning iron minerals?

545
01:12:35,159 --> 01:12:39,000
So do you believe we will find life on Mars?

546
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:44,720
Not in the surface, as water dissapeared since many million of years ago.

547
01:12:44,720 --> 01:12:49,800
But we have found life in the underground here in Earth. So why not in Mars?

548
01:13:33,399 --> 01:13:36,119
The life we have on Earth, could it had came from Mars?

549
01:13:36,720 --> 01:13:43,399
If life emerged on Mars, an meteoritic impact 
from Mars could have brought the life to  Earth.

550
01:14:09,359 --> 01:14:14,199
But if Mars and the Earth are the same old, about 4.5 billion  years

551
01:14:14,199 --> 01:14:18,119
then life appeared faster on Mars. 

552
01:14:18,119 --> 01:14:24,319
We have a difficulty here, as we know that life emerged on Earth very soon.

553
01:14:24,319 --> 01:14:26,319
There was no room for this difference.

554
01:14:27,199 --> 01:14:31,079
We should start to look further than the solar system.

555
01:14:31,079 --> 01:14:34,199
So life comes from much further.

556
01:14:34,199 --> 01:14:36,199
It could come from much further.

557
01:14:46,399 --> 01:14:51,920
From a past of four billions years ago, we travel to the  future.

558
01:14:53,239 --> 01:14:58,560
A future perhaps without humans beings.

559
01:15:02,319 --> 01:15:08,479
Specially if we make this planet inhabitable for us.

560
01:15:15,079 --> 01:15:23,239
While we walk on this dystopian landscape, I wonder about life and time.

561
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:27,880
We believe bacteria are sketches of a primitive life.

562
01:15:29,000 --> 01:15:33,359
But in fact they are very sophisticated structures.

563
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:39,039
 In the world of robotics, bacteria would be very advanced artificial intelligences.

564
01:15:39,039 --> 01:15:44,319
Were 300 million years enough to allow them surging from chaos?

565
01:15:48,640 --> 01:15:51,560
Can we imagine this time period?

566
01:16:02,479 --> 01:16:08,720
Astronomer Fred Hoyle believed life came from outer space.

567
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:31,920
Do you think life was very easy to form?

568
01:16:35,079 --> 01:16:37,479
I do not think it was easy at all to form.

569
01:16:37,479 --> 01:16:43,359
It think I don't  believe... it  was easy at all to form.

570
01:16:43,399 --> 01:16:55,000
I think the forms of life that  you would get 3.8 billion of  years ago in Greenland 

571
01:16:55,840 --> 01:17:01,359
would be not much different from the life we have here today, the bacterial life. 

572
01:17:03,800 --> 01:17:08,119
He believed that the probability of life emerging at random on Earth

573
01:17:08,119 --> 01:17:12,319
was almost zero.

574
01:17:13,000 --> 01:17:18,199
As if one tornado destroying an hangar with all the separated pieces of a 747 jumbo plane 

575
01:17:18,199 --> 01:17:21,119
could assemble them in a plane capable of flying.

576
01:17:31,399 --> 01:17:37,399
I  decided to phone our friend Dave Deamer to ask him about it.

577
01:17:43,119 --> 01:17:47,800
Regarding Fred Hoyle metaphor of the tornado and the 747  airliner.

578
01:17:50,520 --> 01:17:56,560
Hoyle gots stuck with the idea that entropy 
and disorganization always increases, no matter what.

579
01:17:56,560 --> 01:17:59,600
Here is a counter example.

580
01:17:59,600 --> 01:18:07,560
If we add a solution of salt and sugar a shelve 
with a cap bottle, nothing would happen in a million years.

581
01:18:07,560 --> 01:18:12,359
But if I take off the cap and let the solution evaporate

582
01:18:13,159 --> 01:18:15,560
at some point crystals begin to form.

583
01:18:27,079 --> 01:18:33,680
Each crystal is an example of an entropy decreasing to a minimum.

584
01:18:34,760 --> 01:18:37,520
Another example is a soup solution

585
01:18:38,399 --> 01:18:43,239
If the soup solution is undisturbed, it would sit forever.

586
01:18:44,399 --> 01:18:48,880
But if I add a little energy by blowing air with a straw

587
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:52,800
beautiful soup bubbles form and float away.

588
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:55,800
These are examples of self assembly. 

589
01:18:55,800 --> 01:19:02,479
and it seems obvious to me that self assembly 
proceses played an essential role in the origin of life.

590
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:23,439
I imagine now blood rivers like  Río Tinto, but in primitive landscapes of Mars.

591
01:19:25,319 --> 01:19:28,359
And perhaps in another worlds.

592
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:35,840
Ricardo, after talking so much about the origin of life

593
01:19:36,119 --> 01:19:40,119
what do you think how could be the end?

594
01:19:40,479 --> 01:19:44,439
We could talk about the end of our species.

595
01:19:44,439 --> 01:19:48,880
Specially if we behave in the way we do today.

596
01:19:48,960 --> 01:19:53,479
But at the end of life I am convinced microorganisms will persist.

597
01:19:54,680 --> 01:19:58,840
So the human species becomes extinct and bacteria will survive us.

598
01:19:58,840 --> 01:20:01,640
That is the idea.

599
01:20:58,960 --> 01:21:03,319
The end of our species drive us to the beginning.

600
01:21:04,640 --> 01:21:08,079
We need to raise our look to other worlds

601
01:21:08,920 --> 01:21:13,359
Sites very different to our home, the Earth.

602
01:21:14,479 --> 01:21:19,039
Searching for answers.

603
01:21:25,159 --> 01:21:29,239
Where perhaps life is now the  rule. 

604
01:21:31,319 --> 01:21:33,319
and not the exception.