Water: the way of life

The ability of life to adapt has allowed it to conquer the most inhospitable environments imaginable. Here we will use neutron scattering as a powerful microscope to observe how organisms that live in the deep ocean, under pressures of up to 1000 atmospheres, can modulate the water within their cells to make it appear that they are under no pressure at all! We will then speculate at how such adaptations may not only work on Earth, but possibly in even more treacherous environments in our solar system, such as the recently discovered subsurface lakes on Mars.

Life and liquid water are strongly associated. So strong is the link, that the search for life beyond Earth has become the search for liquid water. We shall discuss the distribution of water in the solar system, and other planetary systems, before returning to Planet Earth where we will zoom to the molecular level of marine life. How has life adapted to the saline environment and what implications this might have for the pre-biological molecules on Titan, a moon of Saturn rich in carbon and liquid water?