Nathalie Cabrol

But what this place is showing us is what's happening right here, right now on our own planet.

And by exploring those extreme environments, we are also reaching to places not too many people go.

And so we are learning more about our own biospheres.

and the diversity of our own life here on earth.

So these are the two main thing, you know, that I would say.

On top of those volcanoes, it's about bacteria, you know, mostly.

Yes.

They have adapted to very high UV radiation, and it's not only because they are at high altitude.

It's because early Earth didn't have an ozone layer.

So when the ancestors of those bacteria originated,

they have to survive a world where you had lots of short UV coming down at the surface.

And also lots of hydrothermal environment, you know, volcanoes and hot water, lots of salt.

And you see all this toolbox still embedded in those microorganisms today, four billion years later.

It's just amazing.

And depending on the environment, they are going to switch some of these defenses adaptation on or off.

The UV situation there is so nasty that here you have bacteria like that.

I know bacteria, you find them everywhere.

It's really something you find all over the place.

But if you find them here in California, they will turn their protection against UV during the day in summer, and they will switch it off at the end of the day.

there in the Andes, it's so nasty that that thing stays on all the time.