The ca. 3.48 Ga Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, is well known for hosting some of Earth's earliest convincing evidence of life (stromatolites, fractionated sulfur/carbon isotopes, microfossils) within a dynamic, low-eruptive volcanic caldera affected by voluminous hydrothermal fluid circulation. However, missing from the caldera model were surface manifestations of the vol...

Biologists are used to the idea that structure and function are interconnected; they can relate the gross anatomy of a limb to locomotion, the organization of a mitochondrion to energy production, and the geometry of an enzyme to a catalytic activity. Therefore, they would expect textbooks and conferences on the nucleus to relate the vital functions like replication and transcription to the und...

4.2 Microbial Mats, Stromatolites and Their Environments .............................................. 67 4.2.1 What Are Microbial Mats and Stromatolites? Some De fi nitions ...................................................................... 67 4.2.2 Microbial Mats and Stromatolites: The Geological Evidence ............................................... 67 4.2.3 Strati fi cation and Struct...

Silicification of organisms in silica-depositing environments can impact both their ecology and their presence in the fossil record. Although microbes have been silicified under laboratory and environmental conditions, viruses have not. Bacteriophage T4 was successfully silicified under laboratory conditions that closely simulated those found in silica-depositing hot springs. Virus morphology w...

In Guangdong province, many hot springs were exploited and developed into popular places for tourist. In addition, hotels have been set up near hot spring sites to attract people, including local citizens, to spend their spare time inside these so-called “spring hotels”. In our study, indoor air quality was investigated in four hot spring hotels in Guangdong province, China. Measured indoor pol...