Julius Csotonyi on Dark Ecology in 'Dark Eden' - Part 1

Julius Csotonyi is a thermal vent biologist with expertise on organisms that thrive on geothermal energy in the dark depths of the ocean where there is almost no light from the sun.  He is also someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about  ‘speculative biology’, imagining various exotic possibilities for the existence of life in extreme conditions that are very different from those we are used to on the surface of our planet.  Our conversation is a follow-up to our previous episode with Chris Beckett, author of the 'Dark Eden' trilogy, so this is where we put some meat on the bones of the dark ecology which forms the setting of the 'Dark Eden' books.  Julius is an absolutely delightful wealth of information, whose love of science radiates throughout our conversation. In this, the first half of our conversation, we talk about the evolution of bioluminescence and light sensing in organisms who live in the dark world on the ocean floor, the different biological strategies that make use of bioluminescence, anoxygenic phototrophs that use infrared radiation rather than visible light to drive photosynthesis in the dark (!) and how that might lead to new and different ideas about the origin of life on earth – and hence the possible origin of life on other worlds. 

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