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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 10/21/2006 : 21:47:59
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According to an article by Sara Goudarzi in LiveScience, researchers have discovered a long-isolated bacterium in a South African gold mine which derives its sole energy from the nuclear decay of uranium: quote:
Bacteria Found Nearly 2 Miles Underground
By Sara Goudarzi
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 19 October 2006
02:20 pm ET
Scientists found a gold mine of bacteria almost two miles beneath the Earth's surface.
The subterranean microorganisms, a division of Firmicutes bacteria, use radioactive uranium to convert water molecules into useable energy. Uranium is an element contained within the Earth's crust and is an abundant source of energy.
The presence of such terrestrial organism raises the potential that bacteria could live beneath the surface of other planets such as Mars.
The researchers found the bacteria when they learned of a water-filled fracture [image] in a South African gold mine close to Johannesburg. Upon sampling the water they noticed something odd.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 10/22/2006 : 08:03:20 [Permalink]
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Cool.... Maybe we can manipulate them into eating waste....
Joe |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/24/2006 : 00:11:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Original_Intent
Cool.... Maybe we can manipulate them into eating waste....
Joe
I think we both have a touch of the "application bug." I'm always trying to imagine a use for each new scientific discovery.
In this case, though, I doubt that the new bugs would be of any use in cleaning up, or even sequestering, radioactive waste. They apparently don't actually run their own little nuclear reactors to use up the uranium, but only get their power from the chemicals created by the radiation of its natural decay, the "hydrogen and hydrocarbons that form when water exposed to radiation from rocks containing uranium breaks down".
So, if I read this right, the organisms are even less responsible for uranium turning into Pb 206 (a stable isotope of lead) than photosynthetic plants are for turning the sun's hydrogen to helium.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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