[Geysers] "Green Finger Pool" inquiry from Lee Whittlesey

[David Schwarz]

   Here's one reference:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070726142026.htm.  They name
Octopus Pool, Mushroom Pool, and Green Finger Spring as the known sources of
the organism.

   I'm kind of confused why the mainstream media is at all interested in
this.  Life forms that convert light to chemical energy are pretty common.
Most of them are called "plants."  Some are also protozoa or bacteria.  As
far as I can tell, this discovery is of interest because it's a member of a
class of bacteria previously unknown to photosynthesize, which should be of
great interest to the niche group of scientists who study this particular
class of organism.  I don't know why anyone else should care, and headlines
like "*Microbe* Makes Energy From
Light<http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/26/microbe_pla.html?category=earth&guid=20070726153030&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000>"
lead me to believe that the journalists have never heard of photosynthesis
before.  They make it sound like the conversion of light to chemical energy
is some exciting new discovery, rather than the long-understood main source
of energy for life on Earth.

David

On 8/13/07, TSBryan at aol.com <TSBryan at aol.com> wrote:
>
>  In a message dated 8/13/2007 6:29:46 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
> Lee_Whittlesey at nps.gov writes:
>
> The media has been full of news about a spring at LGB (Sentinel Meadows
> Group) some five kilometers from Octopus Spring that converts light into
> energy.  It has been informally called "Green Finger Pool."
>
> Does anyone have a more precise location for this?
>
>  1. I've never heard of the thing, nor seen any such media. Any
> references/sources that can be cited?
>
> 2. Isn't the distance from Octopus Spring to Sentinel Meadows rather
> greater than 5 kilometers?
>
> Scott Bryan
>
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