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The book discusses the ways in which high hydrostatic pressure (i.e. water pressure) affects all grades of life which thrive at pressures much greater those in our normal environment. The deep sea is the best known high pressure environment, where pressures reach a thousand times greater than those at the surface, yet it is populated by a variety of animals and microorganisms. The earth's crust supports microorganisms which live in water filled pores at high pressure. In addition, the load bearing joints of animals like ourselves experience pulses of hydrostatic pressure of a magnitude similar to the pressure at mid ocean depths. These pressures affect molecular structures and biochemical reactions. Basic cellular processes are drastically affected - the growth and division of cells, the way nerves conduct impulses and the chemical reactions which provide energy. Adaptation to high pressure also occurs in complex physiological systems such as those which provide buoyancy. Probably the greatest challenge to our understanding of adaptation to high pressure is the stabilisation of the nervous system of deep sea animals to avoid convulsions which pressure causes in shallow water animals. Additionally the book provides insight into the engineering required to study life at high pressure: equipment which can trap small deep sea animals and retrieve them at their high pressure, equivalent equipment for microorganisms, laboratory microscopes which can focus on living cells under high pressure, incubators for bacteria which require high pressure to grow, high pressure aquaria for marine animals and lastly and briefly, manned and unmanned submersible vessels, Landers and deep drill hole sampling. Rather like the organisms studied many laboratory instruments have been adapted to function at high pressure.

Author Biography

Dr. Alister Macdonald graduated in Zoology at Bristol University. After post doctoral research at the University of East Anglia he moved to Aberdeen University, becoming Reader In Physiology in 1984. His work on deep sea animals with Dr. I Gilchrist tackled the recovery of small animals without decompression, their tolerance to pressure and recovery from decompression paralysis. Additionally, he demonstrated homeoviscous adaptation of deep sea fish membranes to high pressure. Work at sea alternated with laboratory studies of cellular processes at high pressure; membrane bilayers, membrane bound enzymes, ionic regulation, electrophysiology - latterly patch clamp studies of various ion channels and of anaesthetic  -  ion channel interactions. Collaboration with much valued students and senior colleagues was a key part of this wide range of activity, involving The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA) and the Bermuda Marine Biological Station for Research, The Rowett Research Institute and the Marine Laboratory, (both in Aberdeen), Queen's University, Belfast, Brunel University, and the Universities of Liverpool, Nottingham, North Carolina and Western Australia, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, and the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany.

Table of Contents

High pressure and High pressure environments.- High pressure: molecules, chemical processes and cellular structures.- The high pressure micro-environment of vertebrate load bearing joints- Effects of high pressure on the activity of ordinary animals, including humans, and on the function of their excitable cells and ion channels.- The effects of decompression and subsequent re-compression on the activity of deep sea animals and eukaryote cells. The isobaric collection of deep sea animals.-Molecular adaptation to high pressure: proteins in deep sea animals.-  Molecular adaptation to high pressure: membranes.- Prokaryotes at high pressure in the Oceans and the Deep Biosphere.- Hydrothermal vents: the inhabitants, their way of life and their adaptation to high pressure.- Buoyancy at depth.- Divers: Air breathing animals, including humans, at high pressure.- Adaptation to high pressure in the laboratory.-  High pressure equipment used in the laboratory, at sea and at depth.

Feature

Presents the idea of three high pressure biological environments - the deep sea ; Earth's Crust (Deep Biosphere) and the high pressure micro-environment in load bearing joints in humans and other terrestrial animals Explains the fundamental nature of pressure by way of familiar examples, like water freezing and less familiar examples, like the properties of cells and of proteins Explains the nature of the molecular and physiological adaptations to high pressure which have been worked out in deep sea bacteria, including those living in hot hydrothermal vents, deep sea fish and crustacea and deep diving marine mammals Shows that the adaptation of all grades of life to high pressure is comparable to their adaptation to the more familiar extremes of temperature, involving evolutionary changes in molecular structures and in physiological organization Engineering aspects of high pressure biology are presented, for example deep sea equipment, deep boreholes, and microscopes which make it possible to see living cells at pressures similar to those at the bottom of the ocean The basic phenomena explained in the book help the reader understand other concepts, like the use of high pressure in pharmaceutical and other biological technologies, sterilization and processing of foods

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