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George Somero
When bizarre life forms were found next to deep-sea volcanic vents near the
Galapagos Islands, for example, it was Somero’s research team that figured
out
how they manage to live. The creatures turned out to be a new form of life never
imagined by scientists, a symbiosis between animals and the bacteria they harbor
in their cells, both drawing energy and sustenance from the sulfur that seeps out
of volcanic magma.
“We are getting a sense of how evolution at the molecular level provides
organisms with the ability to live in these
different environments,” Somero says.
 A laboratory
class at Hopkins
poses for the camera, circa 1906
Some of his discoveries may have medical uses one day. Perhaps more
important, his work helps to explain why relatively small changes a few
degrees of global warming, for example can displace some species from
their natural habitats.
One answer lies in the cells of all living things, where small changes
in the structures that do the cell’s work make all the difference in an animal’s
ability to adapt.
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