Wednesday, March 05, 2025

Adaptation to extreme conditions: thermal water biofilm studies could help understand ancient ecosystems

Hungarian researchers have discovered unique bacterial communities in thermal waters that may help unravel the development of stromatolites, one of Earth's oldest rock formations.

Eötvös Loránd University

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Figure 1: As thermal water at 79.2°C reaches the surface, white calcium carbonate precipitates, forming a base for the proliferating red and green layered biofilms—woven bacterial mats (Illustration by Judit Makk).
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Credit: Illustration by Judit Makk

Hungarian researchers have discovered unique bacterial communities in thermal waters that may help unravel the development of stromatolites, one of Earth's oldest rock formations. These findings not only contribute to understanding Earth's geological past but also provide valuable insights into biological and geological processes occurring in extreme environments today.

Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University, University of Sopron, and the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Geological and Geochemical Institute have made a remarkable discovery regarding the development of carbonate structures (stromatolites) formed by microbes. Their findings have been published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports.

This research could improve our understanding of carbonate formations from Earth's history and help reveal modern connections to similar processes.

Stromatolites are layered carbonate structures formed by photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Dating back more than 3.5 billion years, they are among Earth's oldest known fossils. These microorganisms thrived in vast shallow-water colonies in ancient oceans and played a crucial role in increasing atmospheric oxygen around 2.2 billion years ago during the Archaean era. Understanding their formation is significant for both ecological and evolutionary research. However, studying them is challenging because actively forming stromatolites have become increasingly rare today.

During research at the Köröm thermal spring in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, Hungary, scientists observed biological formations structurally similar to ancient stromatolites. The thermal spring environment hosts 3–5 cm thick red and green layered biofilms, which are carbonate-rich microbial mats (Figure 1). These biofilms can thrive under extreme conditions, including low organic matter content, high salinity, significant arsenic concentration, and a temperature of 79.2°C.

The researchers identified correlations between bacterial community composition, physicochemical properties, and limestone precipitation processes. They were the first to describe the similarity between currently living red biofilms and fossilized stromatolites (Figure 2).

This research significantly enhances our understanding of the geobiological processes behind stromatolite formation, both in the modern environment and throughout Earth's history. The findings expand knowledge on biogenic carbonate formation, providing a framework for interpreting fossilized microbial structures and reconstructing past ecosystems.

Beyond offering a glimpse into Earth's ancient past, the discovery also helps scientists better understand ongoing geobiological and geochemical processes on our planet today.

Research Team and Acknowledgments

The research was conducted by Judit Makk, Nóra Tünde Lange-Enyedi, Erika Tóth, and Andrea Borsodi from Eötvös Loránd University’s Microbiology Department, in collaboration with the University of Sopron and the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Geological and Geochemical Institute.

The study was supported by the NKFIH ANN141894, HUN-REN SA-41/2021, ELTE Thematic Excellence Program TKP2020-IKA-05, and the European Union and the Hungarian Government (RRF-2.3.1–21-2022–00014 grants).

The results have been published in the renowned Scientific Reports:
Makk, J., Németh, Á.Cs., Tóth, E., Németh, P., Kovács, I., Dobosy, P., Demény, A., Sipos, G., Borsodi, A.K., Lange-Enyedi, N.T. (2025). Actively forming microbial mats provide insight into the development of microdigitate stromatolites. Scientific Reports, 15:5497. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-90175-0

Figure 2: Biofilm structure analysis (A) ~5 cm thick biofilm sample with distinct color layers. (B) Light microscopy image showing pearl-like mineral grains aligned vertically within the biofilm. (C) Scanning electron microscopy image revealing ladder-like filamentous cell networks. (D) Diverse bacterial cell shapes (blue arrow) and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) (red arrow) stabilizing minerals. The tight microbe-mineral interaction is evident, as bacteria leave cavities and filamentous imprints after their decomposition (yellow arrow) (Illustration by Judit Makk).

Credit

Illustration by Judit Makk

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-025-90175-0

Article Title

Actively forming microbial mats provide insight into the development of microdigitate stromatolites

Challenging our intuitions: How social forces shape success

Literature review

University of Zurich

Success in diverse domains and at different scales — image:
Recent studies view success as the result of the interactions between organizations, teams, and individuals leading to the creation and adoptions of ideas, products, and behaviors. The boxes illustrate examples across arts, business, online systems, and science (gray boxes), as well as examples of the datasets used by researchers to study success (blue boxes).
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Credit: Nature Communications

An international research team led by the University of Zurich has published a review of more than 200 academic studies, revealing that success isn’t just about talent, hard work, or luck – it’s deeply shaped by hidden social forces. The study shows that our intuition about how these social forces shape success is often misleading, and it maps how recent research has challenged long-held assumptions. The collected findings have implications for policy, education, and careers. The authors explained that future efforts to better understand success could pave the way toward social systems where success better reflects quality, talent, and societal values – and where everyone has equal opportunities to flourish, regardless of their backgrounds.

The new review, published in Nature Communications, was led by Manuel S. Mariani, Research Group Leader at the University of Zurich (University Research Priority Program “Social Networks”). The authors reviewed more than 200 scientific papers from diverse disciplines, including sociology, economics, computer science, and management science, covering domains as diverse as science, business, and the arts. The study shows that our intuition about how social forces shape success is often misleading, and it maps how recent research has challenged long-held assumptions.

For example, failure – often seen as a career killer – can be a predictor of future success. A study found that scientist who failed early in securing research funding were more likely to produce groundbreaking work later than those who succeeded immediately. Similarly, in entrepreneurship, research finds that those who fail faster are more likely to learn from failure and build successful companies. The authors suggest that as many systems reward early success, reinforcing inequalities and narrowing opportunities, these findings highlight the need to rethink the importance of early failures for identifying and nurturing talents.

The study also overturns common beliefs about social networks and their impact on the success of products, individual careers, and teams trying to solve complex challenges, among others.

For example, many assume that a celebrity endorsement is the best way to make a product take off. But studies show that persuading a small, tight-knit group of “bridge” individuals connected to different social communities is far more effective at driving mass adoption. These people aren’t famous, but their position in social networks makes them far more influential than celebrities or individuals with many social contacts.

Networks affect individual careers as well. Studies show that different types of social connections help people succeed in different ways. Weak ties – like distant acquaintances – can lead to new job opportunities and novel ideas, while strong ties – like close colleagues or mentors – are better for learning complex skills and gaining support. Yet a recent large-scale experiment involving job seekers on LinkedIn found that the best job opportunities often come from moderately weak ties – not the closest collaborators, but not complete strangers either.

Yet, access to beneficial social connections is not equally distributed. For example, empirical work on the US movie industry indicate that women and men benefit differently from different types of social connections, yet women often lack connections to key decision-makers. This leads the authors to review identity-related biases, finding that while gender diversity can improve team performance, women often face structural barriers to recognition, opportunity access, and career advancements.

The researchers stressed that essential directions for future research include work on how cultural factors, inequality, interventions, and algorithms affect success. “There are increasing debates on whether we live in equitable meritocratic societies. The biases found in the literature do challenge the notion of meritocracy – the belief that success, status, and rewards are purely determined by individual ability and efforts. The positive news is that understanding scientifically the collective dynamics behind success helps map the existing social forces behind success, which can help policymakers and organizations design of more prosperous, meritocratic, and inclusive societies. The overall objective should not be to optimize existing success metrics, but to build better social systems,” says Manuel Mariani

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-54612-4

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Collective Dynamics Behind Success

Urban inequality scaling – Research indicates correlation between population size and elite wealth in urban spaces

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

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Cross-section of the Baths of Diocletian by French architect Edmond Paulin
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Credit: Edmond Jean-Baptiste Paulin (10 September 1848 - 27 November 1915), Public domain

For as long as people have built cities, they have been centers of both opportunity and inequality. In ancient times, this was evident in the size of houses, the grandeur of monuments, and the inscriptions celebrating rulers and elites. Today, we see it in luxury high-rises next to struggling neighborhoods and tent cities in the shadows of monumental public buildings.

The presence of inequality in urban spaces throughout time and across cultures raises an important question: is urban inequality coincidentally common or is it something deeper---an inevitable part of how cities function? A new study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) set out to answer this question, finding striking quantitative similarities between ancient and modern cities when it comes to how elite wealth is expressed in urban spaces.

The researchers found that the same scaling relationships that appear to shape modern economic activity – in which cities grow richer and more productive as they get larger – may also shape the way wealth is concentrated at the top. In other words, the processes that make cities wealthy may also often make them unequal.

“Our research suggests that inequality isn’t just something unfortunate that commonly happens in cities,” says lead author Christopher Carleton, “it’s something that may grow with them, following predictable scaling patterns. It seems as if inequality isn’t a side-effect of city living under particular cultural or economic conditions; it may be a built-in consequence of urban growth itself.”

To reach these results, scientists analyzed evidence from both ancient Roman and modern cities to see how wealth – particularly elite wealth – scales with city size. The data for Roman cities included numbers of monuments and counts of inscriptions dedicating monuments to elite patrons. Data for modern cities included counts of very tall buildings, skyscrapers like the Burj Khalifa or Trump Tower, as well as counts of billionaires per city. They then applied statistical scaling methods to test for mathematical relationships between city size and indicators of elite wealth.

Results show that, as cities grow, elite wealth increases in a sublinear way, meaning that while expressions of elite wealth increase with population size, the growth in elite wealth faces diminishing returns with each increase in city size. This process results in slightly fewer increases in elite wealth indicators than the previous increase in city size produced, indicating that the rate of elite wealth accumulation slows as cities continue to grow.

Altogether, the study suggests that addressing the problem of inequality may be more complex than changing the tax code or adjusting existing policy. To confront the compounding challenges of the Anthropocene, researchers at MPI-GEA continue to seek insights from the past and apply them to modern pressing questions. As co-author Patrick Roberts puts it, “Do different types of urban planning lead to different expressions of inequality? Are there historical examples where inequality was mitigated while cities continued to thrive and increase overall wealth?” Answering these questions will help scientists and policy makers move beyond recognizing patterns to developing meaningful interventions.

Fig. 3: Point scatters showing the empirical patterns in the various datasets analyzed by the new publication.