Scientists at the Graduate School of Oceanography made a surprising discovery recently — there is far less life on Earth than previously assumed. By their calculations, the total biomass of microbes living deep in the seafloor is only about 4 billion tons instead of the 300 billion tons previously estimated, reducing the total biomass of life on Earth by one third.  Reports of this discovery have made news around the world, including Scientific America, National Geographic, R&D Magazine, Providence Business News, Red Orbit, United Press International, Newstrack India, EcoRI, Astrobiology Magazine, Our Amazing Planet, Yahoo News, and numerous news outlets in Europe and the Far East. The URI press release about the discovery is found here.