The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice
-
0:01 - 0:03Can you guess what this is?
-
0:04 - 0:08What if I told you there's a place
where the creatures are made of glass? -
0:08 - 0:11Or that there are life-forms
that are invisible to us, -
0:11 - 0:14but astronauts see them all the time?
-
0:14 - 0:19These invisible glass creatures
aren't aliens on a faraway exoplanet. -
0:19 - 0:20They're diatoms:
-
0:20 - 0:24photosynthetic, single-celled algae
responsible for producing oxygen -
0:24 - 0:27and helping seed clouds
on a planetary scale -
0:27 - 0:31and with intricately sculpted,
geometric exoskeletons made of -- -
0:31 - 0:32yeah, glass.
-
0:33 - 0:37You can see them in swirls
of ocean-surface colors from space. -
0:37 - 0:38And when they die,
-
0:38 - 0:40their glass houses sink
to the depths of the oceans, -
0:40 - 0:42taking carbon out of the air
-
0:42 - 0:43and with them to the grave,
-
0:43 - 0:48accounting for a significant amount
of carbon sequestration in the oceans. -
0:48 - 0:50We live on an alien planet.
-
0:50 - 0:53There is so much weird life
here on Earth to study, -
0:53 - 0:56and so much of it lives
at the edges of our world, -
0:56 - 0:59of our sight and of our understanding.
-
0:59 - 1:01One of those edges is Antarctica.
-
1:02 - 1:04Typically, when we think about Antarctica,
-
1:04 - 1:07we think of a place
that's barren and lifeless ... -
1:07 - 1:09except for a few penguins.
-
1:09 - 1:12But Antarctica should instead
be known as a polar oasis of life, -
1:12 - 1:15host to countless creatures
that are utterly fascinating. -
1:16 - 1:19So why haven't we seen them
on the latest nature documentary? -
1:19 - 1:22Well, they lurk beneath the snow and ice,
-
1:22 - 1:24virtually invisible to us.
-
1:24 - 1:26They're microbes:
-
1:26 - 1:29tiny plants and animals living
embedded inside of glaciers, -
1:29 - 1:31underneath the sea ice
-
1:31 - 1:33and swimming in subglacial ponds.
-
1:33 - 1:36And they're no less charismatic
than any of the megafauna -
1:36 - 1:38that you're used to seeing
in a nature documentary. -
1:39 - 1:44But how do you compel people
to explore what they can't see? -
1:44 - 1:47I recently led a five-week
expedition to Antarctica -
1:47 - 1:51to essentially become a wildlife
filmmaker at the microbial scale. -
1:51 - 1:53With 185 pounds of gear,
-
1:53 - 1:55I boarded a military aircraft
-
1:55 - 1:57and brought microscopes into the field
-
1:57 - 2:00to film and investigate
these microscopic extremophiles, -
2:00 - 2:03so that we can become more familiar
with a poorly understood ecosystem -
2:04 - 2:05that we live with here on Earth.
-
2:06 - 2:09To film these invisible
creatures in action, -
2:09 - 2:11I needed to see where they call home --
-
2:11 - 2:13I needed to venture under the ice.
-
2:14 - 2:18Every year, the sea ice nearly doubles
the entire size of Antarctica. -
2:18 - 2:21To get a glimpse below
the nine-feet-thick ice, -
2:21 - 2:25I climbed down a long, metal tube
inserted into the sea ice -
2:25 - 2:28to witness a hidden
ecosystem full of life, -
2:28 - 2:33while being suspended between the seafloor
and the illuminated ceiling of ice. -
2:34 - 2:36Here's what that looked like
from the outside. -
2:36 - 2:38It was just absolutely magical.
-
2:40 - 2:43Some of the critters I found
were delightful things like seed shrimp -
2:43 - 2:46and many more beautiful,
geometric diatoms. -
2:46 - 2:49I then went farther afield
to camp out in the Dry Valleys -
2:49 - 2:51for a couple of weeks.
-
2:51 - 2:5498 percent of Antarctica
is covered with ice -
2:54 - 2:58and the Dry Valleys are the largest area
of Antarctica where you can actually see -
2:58 - 3:02what the continent itself
looks like underneath all of it. -
3:02 - 3:04I sampled bacteria at Blood Falls,
-
3:04 - 3:08a natural phenomenon of a subglacial pond
spurting out iron oxide -
3:08 - 3:12that was thought to be utterly lifeless
until a little more than a decade ago. -
3:12 - 3:15And I hiked up a glacier
to drill down into it, -
3:15 - 3:19revealing countless, hardcore critters
living their best lives -
3:19 - 3:21while embedded inside layers of ice.
-
3:22 - 3:23Known as cryoconite holes,
-
3:23 - 3:26they form when tiny pieces
of darkly colored dirt -
3:26 - 3:28get blown onto the glacier
-
3:28 - 3:31and begin to melt down into soupy holes
that then freeze over, -
3:31 - 3:34preserving hundreds of dirt pucks
inside the glacier, -
3:34 - 3:36like little island universes
-
3:36 - 3:39each with its own unique ecosystem.
-
3:39 - 3:41Some of the critters I found
you may recognize, -
3:42 - 3:43like this adorable tardigrade --
-
3:43 - 3:44I absolutely love them,
-
3:44 - 3:47they're like little
gummy bears with claws. -
3:47 - 3:49Also known as a water bear,
-
3:49 - 3:51they're famous for possessing superpowers
-
3:51 - 3:54that allow them to survive
in extreme conditions, -
3:54 - 3:56including the vacuum of space.
-
3:56 - 3:59But you don't need to travel to space
or even Antarctica to find them. -
3:59 - 4:02They live in moss all over this planet,
-
4:02 - 4:04from sidewalk cracks to parks.
-
4:04 - 4:08You likely walk right by tons
of these invisible animals every day. -
4:08 - 4:10Others may look familiar,
-
4:10 - 4:13but be stranger still, like nematodes.
-
4:13 - 4:14Not a snake nor an earthworm,
-
4:14 - 4:17nematodes are a creature all of their own.
-
4:17 - 4:20They can't regenerate like an earthworm
or crawl like a snake, -
4:20 - 4:23but they have tiny, dagger-like
needles inside their mouths -
4:23 - 4:27that some of them use to spearfish
their prey and suck out the insides. -
4:28 - 4:30For every single human on this planet,
-
4:30 - 4:33there exist 57 billion nematodes.
-
4:34 - 4:36And some of the critters
you may not recognize at all -
4:36 - 4:38but live out equally fascinating lives,
-
4:38 - 4:43such as rotifers with amazing crowns
that turn into Roomba-like mouths, -
4:43 - 4:47ciliates with digestive systems
so transparent that it's almost TMI, -
4:47 - 4:52and cyanobacteria that look like party
confetti exploded all over a petri dish. -
4:53 - 4:55A lot of times what we see
in popular media -
4:55 - 4:59are scanning electron microscope
images of microorganisms -
4:59 - 5:01looking like scary monsters.
-
5:01 - 5:05Without seeing them move
their lives remain elusive to us -
5:05 - 5:08despite them living nearly
everywhere we step outside. -
5:08 - 5:10What's their daily life like?
-
5:10 - 5:12How do they interact
with their environment? -
5:12 - 5:16If you only ever saw a photo
of a penguin at a zoo, -
5:16 - 5:20but you never saw one waddle around
and then glide over ice, -
5:20 - 5:22you wouldn't fully understand penguins.
-
5:22 - 5:24By seeing microcreatures in motion,
-
5:24 - 5:28we gain better insights into the lives
of the otherwise invisible. -
5:28 - 5:32Without documenting the invisible life
in Antarctica and our own backyards, -
5:32 - 5:36we don't understand just how many
creatures we share our world with. -
5:36 - 5:38And that means we don't yet
have the full picture -
5:38 - 5:42of our weird and whimsical home planet.
-
5:42 - 5:43Thank you.
- Title:
- The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice
- Speaker:
- Ariel Waldman
- Description:
-
In this tour of the microscopic world, explorer and artist Ariel Waldman introduces the charismatic creatures lurking beneath Antarctica's massive ice sheet, the largest on earth. From "cuddly" water bears to geometric algae made of glass, Waldman shows how this seemingly barren landmass is actually a polar oasis of life -- if we just know where to look.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 05:56
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Erin Gregory approved English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Erin Gregory edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice | ||
Leslie Gauthier edited English subtitles for The invisible life hidden beneath Antarctica's ice |