Life in the Extreme Mars?
By Bayard Stern
Assistant Editor, Florida State Times
Imre Friedmann has brought prestige to Florida State by studying life in the extreme.
Since Hungarian-born Friedmann arrived on campus in 1968 as an associate professor in biology, he has become world-renowned for discovering microorganisms, or crypto-endoliths, in rocks found in the hottest and coldest climates on Earth.
At 75, Friedmann is studying life in regions of Siberia and even more frigid Antarctica. He also maintains research stations in the Negev Desert in Israel and the Atacama Desert in Chile.
As recognition of his work, Discover Magazine made him the subject of a 10-page article in its May edition. It explains how Friedmann's Antarctic findings could relate to the possibility of life on Mars.
Friedmann was honored in July when he learned that he will be receiving a piece of the now famous Martian meteorite known for its possible organic fossils. It's the one meteorite out of twelve discovered old enough to be from Mars when the environment there may have been conducive to life. The meteorite is controlled by the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and had to be applied for by Friedmann, who had international competition for it. "Among the few people who get a sample," said Friedmann, "most are chemists and geologists, very few biological laboratories got it, so I'm very happy."
Dr. Joe Travis, chairman of the biology department, values Friedmann's presence.
"Given his success, it's not unusual for scientists to go to where more money is or endowed chairs," said Travis. "And like any other faculty member, Friedmann has had his frustrations. But on the whole, he's thrived at FSU.
"He may disagree with you. He may not like what you do, either as my policy as chair, or in a scientific debate. He will fight; he will argue; he will come back at you until the issue is resolved. But when it's over, Imre remains an absolute professional and scholar.
"Friedmann began the work he is doing on Antarctic stone he collected in the late 1970s. The study was an outgrowth of the work he had done on desert microbes."
Friedmann has made 17 Antarctic trips so far, often accompanied by his wife and colleague, Dr. Roseli Ocampo-Friedmann, a microbiologist and professor at Florida A & M University in Tallahassee.
Friedmann never looked for the spotlight; it found him, according to the Discover article. On Sept. 24, 1976, Friedmann published an article describing microorganisms living in the Ross Desert of Antarctica.
The environment there was so cold and dry that scientists had concluded that life could not exist. Soil samples had failed to indicate that living organisms survived there.
Friedmann's article attracted little attention at first because scientists were focusing at the time on the Viking landing on Mars.
When the Martian soil samples failed to reveal life, NASA turned to Friedmann's work. As a result, NASA and the National Science Foundation gave Friedmann grants to further his research. That allowed him to collect samples and study microorganisms throughout the world.
Friedmann believes that life is nonexistent on Mars today. The Martian atmosphere vanished almost completely billions of years ago along with liquid water on the surface, and it's extremely cold, Friedmann said.
If the Martian atmosphere was ever capable of supporting life, Friedmann suggests, fossils of microorganisms may be found inside rocks. Those microorganisms, capable of surviving extreme circumstances on earth, may have been the last forms of life to disappear.
Travis is pleased with the connection of Friedmann's work and Mars.
"All of a sudden they get all this stuff from this Martian rock, and they say ' wait a minute, something may have been alive'"he said. "All this obscure research that Imre's done for years suddenly becomes the vital set of techniques and evidence to determine whether there has been life on Mars."
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