At 1,700 metres beneath the Atlantic, mussels live in darkness and follow the tides

There can be a striking sense of rhythm in a place where sunlight never reaches and the only changes in the surroundings are brought about by the movement of the ocean. For a species of deep-sea mussel living nearly 1,700 metres under the Atlantic Ocean, this is part of their everyday life. Inhabiting an environment that appears to have little connection with the daily rhythms experienced by animals on the surface, these mussels reportedly have an internal biological clock of their own.On November 2, the University of Vienna issued a press release about research conducted in collaboration with its partner institutions: IFREMER in France, the University of Oldenburg and the AWI in Germany. Scientists have now discovered that cells taken from these deep-sea mussels can maintain a 24-hour rhythm even when kept under constant laboratory conditions. The finding is particularly interesting because the animals' natural environment is largely influenced by the tides, which follow a cycle of approximately 12.4 hours.The study, published in thejournal EMBO Reports, also notes an important technical achievement: researchers successfully established cell cultures from a deep-sea mussel and man...