Badwater Basin: Death Valley Microbe Thrives There
Nevada, the “Silver State,” is well-known for mining precious metals.
But scientists Dennis Bazylinski and colleagues at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) do a different type of mining.
They sluice through every water body they can find, looking for new forms of microbial magnetism.
In a basin named Badwater on the edge of Death Valley National Park, Bazylinski and researcher Christopher Lefèvre hit pay dirt.
Lefèvre is with the French National Center of Scientific Research and University of Aix-Marseille II.
In this week’s issue of the journal Science, Bazylinski, Lefèvre and others report that they identified, isolated and grew a new type of magnetic bacteria that could lead to novel biotech and nanotech uses.
Magnetotactic bacteria are simple, single-celled organisms that are found in almost all bodies of water.
As their name suggests, they orient and navigate along magnetic fields like miniature swimming compass needles.
This is due to the nano-sized crystals of the minerals magnetite or greigite they produce.
The presence of these magnetic crystals makes the bacteria and their internal crystals–called magnetosomes–useful in drug delivery and medical imaging.
The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy and the French Foundation for Medical Research.
Read more here ...
Showing posts with label microbes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microbes. Show all posts
Monday, December 26, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Fossil microbes discovered in Australia could be Earth's oldest known life form
The fossilised remains of microbes that lived beside the sea in the earliest chapter of life on Earth have been discovered in a slab of rock in Western Australia.
Researchers found the tiny fossils in rock formations that date to 3.4bn years ago, making them strong candidates to be the oldest microbes found. Some clung to grains of sand that had gathered on one of the first known stretches of beach.
The findings paint a vivid picture of life arising when the first land masses began to emerge in fragmentary fashion from the oceans. At the time, volcanic eruptions spewed gas and lava, while a blanket of thick cloud greyed the skies. The moon – much closer than it is today – pulled the oceans into vast tidal surges. There was no breathable oxygen.
"To us it would have seemed like a hellish place to live," said Prof Martin Brasier at Oxford University, who co-authored a report on the fossils in the journal Nature Geoscience. "To early life, this was paradise. A true Eden."
Brasier worked with a team led by Dr David Wacey at the University of Western Australia, who found the fossils in the region's Strelley Pool formation, one of the oldest outcrops of sedimentary rock on Earth.
High-magnification images showed the fossils were spherical, oval and tubular, much like modern microbes, and were of a similar size, between 0.01mm and 0.02mm across.
Researchers who study the origin of life on Earth, typically draw on several strands of evidence to support their findings. Apart from the size and shape of the fossilised microbes, Wacey points to carbon and nitrogen in the cell walls, a hallmark of all living things today.
Further evidence comes from the cells forming chains and clusters, and clinging to sand grains in the sediment. Inside some fossils were exquisitely fine structures that appear as microbes grow and divide.
Some of the microbes are likely to have fed off pyrite, a sulphur-rich iron compound, and produced sulphate as a waste product. Others used this sulphate and produced hydrogen sulphide, the gas that smells like rotten eggs.
"What we can say is that early life was very simple, just single cells and small chains, some perhaps housed in protective tubes," Wacey told the Guardian. "The new evidence from our research points to earliest life being sulphur-based, living off and metabolising compounds containing sulphur rather than oxygen for energy and growth," Wacey said.
Last year, Emmanuelle Javaux at the University of Liege in Belgium, reported microbial fossils in 3.2bn-year-old sediments in South Africa. "That means our discovery pushes back the microbial fossil record by around 200m years," Wacey said.
Some researchers have claimed older microbial fossils, up to 3.5bn years old, but Wacey said these were controversial. "Some are very poorly preserved and could just as easily be non-biological artefacts. Others appear in rocks that are of dubious age, and others lack a sensible metabolism," he said.
Unravelling the nature of the world's oldest organisms will help scientists write the first chapter of life on Earth, but it will also aid the search for life elsewhere. Future missions to Mars, for example, might focus on ancient beaches and river sands that may have turned to rock with traces of primitive life within them.
"It is vital to know what the most simple life on our planet looked like, and how to unambiguously identify it, if we are to have any chance of identifying life elsewhere," Wacey said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/21/fossil-microbes-western-australia?CMP=EMCGT_220811
Researchers found the tiny fossils in rock formations that date to 3.4bn years ago, making them strong candidates to be the oldest microbes found. Some clung to grains of sand that had gathered on one of the first known stretches of beach.
The findings paint a vivid picture of life arising when the first land masses began to emerge in fragmentary fashion from the oceans. At the time, volcanic eruptions spewed gas and lava, while a blanket of thick cloud greyed the skies. The moon – much closer than it is today – pulled the oceans into vast tidal surges. There was no breathable oxygen.
"To us it would have seemed like a hellish place to live," said Prof Martin Brasier at Oxford University, who co-authored a report on the fossils in the journal Nature Geoscience. "To early life, this was paradise. A true Eden."
Brasier worked with a team led by Dr David Wacey at the University of Western Australia, who found the fossils in the region's Strelley Pool formation, one of the oldest outcrops of sedimentary rock on Earth.
High-magnification images showed the fossils were spherical, oval and tubular, much like modern microbes, and were of a similar size, between 0.01mm and 0.02mm across.
Researchers who study the origin of life on Earth, typically draw on several strands of evidence to support their findings. Apart from the size and shape of the fossilised microbes, Wacey points to carbon and nitrogen in the cell walls, a hallmark of all living things today.
Further evidence comes from the cells forming chains and clusters, and clinging to sand grains in the sediment. Inside some fossils were exquisitely fine structures that appear as microbes grow and divide.
Some of the microbes are likely to have fed off pyrite, a sulphur-rich iron compound, and produced sulphate as a waste product. Others used this sulphate and produced hydrogen sulphide, the gas that smells like rotten eggs.
"What we can say is that early life was very simple, just single cells and small chains, some perhaps housed in protective tubes," Wacey told the Guardian. "The new evidence from our research points to earliest life being sulphur-based, living off and metabolising compounds containing sulphur rather than oxygen for energy and growth," Wacey said.
Last year, Emmanuelle Javaux at the University of Liege in Belgium, reported microbial fossils in 3.2bn-year-old sediments in South Africa. "That means our discovery pushes back the microbial fossil record by around 200m years," Wacey said.
Some researchers have claimed older microbial fossils, up to 3.5bn years old, but Wacey said these were controversial. "Some are very poorly preserved and could just as easily be non-biological artefacts. Others appear in rocks that are of dubious age, and others lack a sensible metabolism," he said.
Unravelling the nature of the world's oldest organisms will help scientists write the first chapter of life on Earth, but it will also aid the search for life elsewhere. Future missions to Mars, for example, might focus on ancient beaches and river sands that may have turned to rock with traces of primitive life within them.
"It is vital to know what the most simple life on our planet looked like, and how to unambiguously identify it, if we are to have any chance of identifying life elsewhere," Wacey said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/21/fossil-microbes-western-australia?CMP=EMCGT_220811
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Belly button biomes begin to blossom
Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief
The human navel should be designated as a bacterial nature reserve, it seems. The first round of DNA results from the Belly Button Biodiversity project are in, and the 95 samples that have so far been analysed have turned up a whopping total of more than 1400 bacterial strains. In 662 cases, the microbes could not even be classified to family, "which strongly suggests that they are new to science", says team leader Jiri Hulcr of North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
The project was conceived as a light-hearted exercise in science communication, but is making a serious contribution to the understanding of microbial diversity. Since New Scientist wrote about the initiative in April, samples of bacteria taken when volunteers swabbed their navels with Q-tips have had their "DNA barcodes" read by sequencing the gene for 16S ribosomal RNA, widely used in studies of bacterial evolutionary relationships.
My own sample was among 10 per cent of those in the first round in which reactions to amplify the DNA present failed - so the next installment of the comparison of my belly button biome with that of fellow science writer Carl Zimmer will have to wait for another day. Still, Zimmer has already been having some fun with his results, finding among other things that his belly button hosts Georgenia bacteria, previously found in Asian soils.
Results like this reflect our ignorance of microbial diversity, Hulcr suggests: the inhabitants of our navels seem weird because biologists haven't sampled sufficiently extensively to document the full diversity of microbial life in a variety of habitats. He likens reactions to the first round of belly button results to the astonishment of the first European explorers seeing African big game - which today seem commonplace. "Now you're expecting rhino and elephants," Hulcr says.
Also, identifying bacteria to species is difficult. Noah Fierer's team at the University of Colorado, Boulder, classified them into "operational taxonomic units" having 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences that differed by 3 per cent or less. Apply this standard to mammals, Hulcr explains, and dogs and cats would be lumped together. It means that a "match" between a belly button strain and a species known from the deep ocean, for instance, may actually represent two microbes separated by several million years of divergent evolution.
Although the total number of strains recorded was large, the results so far indicate that a small group of about 40 species accounts for around 80 per cent of the bacterial populations of our belly buttons. "It is tempting to think of the abundant species as the good, core biome of bacteria and the rare ones as transients, struggling to take hold, sometimes at our expense," says Rob Dunn, author of The Wild Life of Our Bodies, and head of the lab in which Hulcr works.
Confirming that theory will require studies on a new scientific frontier: belly button ecology.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/06/peter-aldhous-san-francisco-bu.html
The human navel should be designated as a bacterial nature reserve, it seems. The first round of DNA results from the Belly Button Biodiversity project are in, and the 95 samples that have so far been analysed have turned up a whopping total of more than 1400 bacterial strains. In 662 cases, the microbes could not even be classified to family, "which strongly suggests that they are new to science", says team leader Jiri Hulcr of North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
The project was conceived as a light-hearted exercise in science communication, but is making a serious contribution to the understanding of microbial diversity. Since New Scientist wrote about the initiative in April, samples of bacteria taken when volunteers swabbed their navels with Q-tips have had their "DNA barcodes" read by sequencing the gene for 16S ribosomal RNA, widely used in studies of bacterial evolutionary relationships.
My own sample was among 10 per cent of those in the first round in which reactions to amplify the DNA present failed - so the next installment of the comparison of my belly button biome with that of fellow science writer Carl Zimmer will have to wait for another day. Still, Zimmer has already been having some fun with his results, finding among other things that his belly button hosts Georgenia bacteria, previously found in Asian soils.
Results like this reflect our ignorance of microbial diversity, Hulcr suggests: the inhabitants of our navels seem weird because biologists haven't sampled sufficiently extensively to document the full diversity of microbial life in a variety of habitats. He likens reactions to the first round of belly button results to the astonishment of the first European explorers seeing African big game - which today seem commonplace. "Now you're expecting rhino and elephants," Hulcr says.
Also, identifying bacteria to species is difficult. Noah Fierer's team at the University of Colorado, Boulder, classified them into "operational taxonomic units" having 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequences that differed by 3 per cent or less. Apply this standard to mammals, Hulcr explains, and dogs and cats would be lumped together. It means that a "match" between a belly button strain and a species known from the deep ocean, for instance, may actually represent two microbes separated by several million years of divergent evolution.
Although the total number of strains recorded was large, the results so far indicate that a small group of about 40 species accounts for around 80 per cent of the bacterial populations of our belly buttons. "It is tempting to think of the abundant species as the good, core biome of bacteria and the rare ones as transients, struggling to take hold, sometimes at our expense," says Rob Dunn, author of The Wild Life of Our Bodies, and head of the lab in which Hulcr works.
Confirming that theory will require studies on a new scientific frontier: belly button ecology.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/06/peter-aldhous-san-francisco-bu.html
Friday, April 22, 2011
Gigantic New SuperOrganism with 'Social Intelligence' is Devouring the Titanic
April 17, 2011
In 2000, Roy Cullimore, a microbial ecologist and Charles Pellegrino, scientist and author of Ghosts of the Titanic discovered that the Titanic --which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 97 years ago -- was being devoured by a monster microbial industrial complex of extremophiles as alien we might expect to find on Jupiter's ocean-bound Europa. What they discovered is the largest, strangest cooperative microorganism on Earth.
Scientists believe that this strange super-organism is using a common microbial language that could be either chemical or electrical -a phenomenon called "quorum sensing" by which whole communities "sense" each other's presence and activities aiding and abetting the organization, cooperation, and growth.
The microbes are consuming the wreck's metal, creating mats of rust bigger than a dozen four-story brownstones that are creeping slowly along the hull harvesting iron from the rivets and burrowing into layers of steel plating. The creatures also leave behind "rusticles," 30-foot icicle-like deposits of rust dangling from the sides of the ship's bow. Structurally, rusticles contain channels to allow water to flow through, and they seem to be built up in a ring structure similar to the growth rings of a tree. They are very delicate and can easily disintegrate into fine powder on even the slightest touch.
These live mats and rusticles form a communicating super-organism funneling iron-rich fluids, sulfur, and electrical charges through the collective of archea, fungi, and bacteria that thrives in the icy dark, low oxygen waters. Using DNA technology, researchers discovered that the rusticles were formed by a combination of 27 different strains of bacteria. Among the bacteria feasting on the Titanic, there was a brand new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
In June 2003, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration sponsored an 11-day research cruise to the wreck site aboard the Russian Research Vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. The vessel is equipped with two three-person submersibles (Mir I and Mir II) capable of diving to depths of 6,000 meters; the depth of the Titanic is 3,800 meters (12,467 feet).
OE planned four Mir dives to the Titanic to assess the wreck site in its current condition, and provide an opportunity to conduct scientific observations for ongoing research. Scientists from the United States and Canada were invited to participate in the expedition.
Larry Murphy, chief of the Submerged Resources Center, National Park Service, was on hand to provide archaeology assistance and advice. His expertise on metallic shipwrecks and site formation processes from the USS Arizona Memorial directly complements NOAA’s guidelines on Titanic. Dr. George Bass, known as the “father of maritime archaeology” from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), also joined the trip to offer archaeological expertise.
More than 24 hrs of annotated, on-site video data were acquired and catalogued, used to construct a photo mosaic of the wreck site, provide a context for site characteristics, and form a better understanding of site formation processes. The stern section of Titanic, which has largely been ignored in the past because it is in a jumbled state, was specifically analyzed.
The second objective of the expedition addressed microbial communities, the rusticles, that consume Titanic’s iron and cling to the wreck like rusty icicles. These features have been observed throughout the years. Ongoing qualitative analyses contribute to the scientific research regarding the ship’s degradation. Roy Cullimore and Lori Johnston from Droycon Bioconcepts, Inc. (DBI) of Canada organized the microbiological and rusticle observations.
A view of the bathtub in Capt. Smiths bathroom. Rusticles are observed growing over most of the pipes and fixtures in the room. Image courtesy of Lori Johnston, RMS Titanic Expedition 2003, NOAA-OE.
A 2003 expedition sent two Mir submersibles to survey the microbes that are infesting the ship and to determine their rate of growth. In 1998, four steel test platforms were placed in various locations near and on the wreck to assess the growth of rusticles on steel in different stages of fatigue. This expedition visited these platforms, and the video imagery revealed that all four showed strong evidence of rusticle growth. The longest rusticle extended 2.5 inches from the steel coupon.
One of the experiments conducted on this expedition was to see if a common species of surface-dwelling bacteria could survive exposure to the conditions at the Titanic site. In 1998, five species were sent to the site and survived for 18 hrs with losses of no more than one order of magnitude of cells. This year, the experiment was limited to one species of bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) with replication made possible using the BART reader system. This data showed that survivors from the dive (without any protection from the conditions at the site) were impacted to a varying degree, from no reduction of cell activity to less than one order of magnitude of reduction. One of the replicates showed three orders of magnitude reduction in cell activity.
Further observations were made on the deterioration of the bow and stern sections of Titanic. From these observations it appears that the stern section of the ship is deteriorating at a faster rate than the bow section, and has been calculated to be about 40 yrs ahead of the forward section. This was determined due to the state of the steel at the stern, which was severely embrittled and distorted, providing better "habitat" for rusticle formation. Also, because food was stored on Titanic primarily in the stern section of the ship, it supplied the initial nutrients for rusticle growth. Lastly, surfaces within the hull that had been torn apart served as a staging ground for rusticle growth.
See more: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/04/gigantic-new-superorganism-with-social-intelligence-is-devouring-the-titanic-todays-most-popular.html
In 2000, Roy Cullimore, a microbial ecologist and Charles Pellegrino, scientist and author of Ghosts of the Titanic discovered that the Titanic --which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 97 years ago -- was being devoured by a monster microbial industrial complex of extremophiles as alien we might expect to find on Jupiter's ocean-bound Europa. What they discovered is the largest, strangest cooperative microorganism on Earth.
Scientists believe that this strange super-organism is using a common microbial language that could be either chemical or electrical -a phenomenon called "quorum sensing" by which whole communities "sense" each other's presence and activities aiding and abetting the organization, cooperation, and growth.
The microbes are consuming the wreck's metal, creating mats of rust bigger than a dozen four-story brownstones that are creeping slowly along the hull harvesting iron from the rivets and burrowing into layers of steel plating. The creatures also leave behind "rusticles," 30-foot icicle-like deposits of rust dangling from the sides of the ship's bow. Structurally, rusticles contain channels to allow water to flow through, and they seem to be built up in a ring structure similar to the growth rings of a tree. They are very delicate and can easily disintegrate into fine powder on even the slightest touch.
These live mats and rusticles form a communicating super-organism funneling iron-rich fluids, sulfur, and electrical charges through the collective of archea, fungi, and bacteria that thrives in the icy dark, low oxygen waters. Using DNA technology, researchers discovered that the rusticles were formed by a combination of 27 different strains of bacteria. Among the bacteria feasting on the Titanic, there was a brand new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
In June 2003, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration sponsored an 11-day research cruise to the wreck site aboard the Russian Research Vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. The vessel is equipped with two three-person submersibles (Mir I and Mir II) capable of diving to depths of 6,000 meters; the depth of the Titanic is 3,800 meters (12,467 feet).
OE planned four Mir dives to the Titanic to assess the wreck site in its current condition, and provide an opportunity to conduct scientific observations for ongoing research. Scientists from the United States and Canada were invited to participate in the expedition.
Larry Murphy, chief of the Submerged Resources Center, National Park Service, was on hand to provide archaeology assistance and advice. His expertise on metallic shipwrecks and site formation processes from the USS Arizona Memorial directly complements NOAA’s guidelines on Titanic. Dr. George Bass, known as the “father of maritime archaeology” from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), also joined the trip to offer archaeological expertise.
More than 24 hrs of annotated, on-site video data were acquired and catalogued, used to construct a photo mosaic of the wreck site, provide a context for site characteristics, and form a better understanding of site formation processes. The stern section of Titanic, which has largely been ignored in the past because it is in a jumbled state, was specifically analyzed.
The second objective of the expedition addressed microbial communities, the rusticles, that consume Titanic’s iron and cling to the wreck like rusty icicles. These features have been observed throughout the years. Ongoing qualitative analyses contribute to the scientific research regarding the ship’s degradation. Roy Cullimore and Lori Johnston from Droycon Bioconcepts, Inc. (DBI) of Canada organized the microbiological and rusticle observations.
A view of the bathtub in Capt. Smiths bathroom. Rusticles are observed growing over most of the pipes and fixtures in the room. Image courtesy of Lori Johnston, RMS Titanic Expedition 2003, NOAA-OE.
A 2003 expedition sent two Mir submersibles to survey the microbes that are infesting the ship and to determine their rate of growth. In 1998, four steel test platforms were placed in various locations near and on the wreck to assess the growth of rusticles on steel in different stages of fatigue. This expedition visited these platforms, and the video imagery revealed that all four showed strong evidence of rusticle growth. The longest rusticle extended 2.5 inches from the steel coupon.
One of the experiments conducted on this expedition was to see if a common species of surface-dwelling bacteria could survive exposure to the conditions at the Titanic site. In 1998, five species were sent to the site and survived for 18 hrs with losses of no more than one order of magnitude of cells. This year, the experiment was limited to one species of bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) with replication made possible using the BART reader system. This data showed that survivors from the dive (without any protection from the conditions at the site) were impacted to a varying degree, from no reduction of cell activity to less than one order of magnitude of reduction. One of the replicates showed three orders of magnitude reduction in cell activity.
Further observations were made on the deterioration of the bow and stern sections of Titanic. From these observations it appears that the stern section of the ship is deteriorating at a faster rate than the bow section, and has been calculated to be about 40 yrs ahead of the forward section. This was determined due to the state of the steel at the stern, which was severely embrittled and distorted, providing better "habitat" for rusticle formation. Also, because food was stored on Titanic primarily in the stern section of the ship, it supplied the initial nutrients for rusticle growth. Lastly, surfaces within the hull that had been torn apart served as a staging ground for rusticle growth.
See more: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/04/gigantic-new-superorganism-with-social-intelligence-is-devouring-the-titanic-todays-most-popular.html
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
New species of bacteria found in Titanic 'rusticles'
A never-before-seen microbe has been found in the wreck of RMS Titanic.
The Halomonas titanicae bacterium was found in "rusticles", the porous and delicate icicle-like structures that form on rusting iron.
Various bacteria and fungi live within the delicate structures - first identified on the Titanic - actually feeding off the rusting metal.
The find is described in the journal International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Samples of rusticles from Titanic were gathered in 1991 by the Mir 2 robotic submersible.
The rusticles are delicate, poorly-understood homes for many bacteria
Researchers from Dalhousie University and the Ontario Science Centre in Canada and the University of Seville in Spain isolated the H. titanicae bacteria from those samples.
They sequenced the microbes' DNA before discovering that they constituted a new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
The bacteria are of particular interest because they may shed light on the mechanism by which rusticles form, and thus on the general "recycling" that such microbes carry out on submerged metal structures.
That, the authors point out, has relevance also to the protection of offshore oil and gas pipelines, and the safe disposal at sea of ships and oil rigs.
The Halomonas titanicae bacterium was found in "rusticles", the porous and delicate icicle-like structures that form on rusting iron.
Various bacteria and fungi live within the delicate structures - first identified on the Titanic - actually feeding off the rusting metal.
The find is described in the journal International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Samples of rusticles from Titanic were gathered in 1991 by the Mir 2 robotic submersible.
The rusticles are delicate, poorly-understood homes for many bacteria
Researchers from Dalhousie University and the Ontario Science Centre in Canada and the University of Seville in Spain isolated the H. titanicae bacteria from those samples.
They sequenced the microbes' DNA before discovering that they constituted a new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
The bacteria are of particular interest because they may shed light on the mechanism by which rusticles form, and thus on the general "recycling" that such microbes carry out on submerged metal structures.
That, the authors point out, has relevance also to the protection of offshore oil and gas pipelines, and the safe disposal at sea of ships and oil rigs.
New species of bacteria found in Titanic 'rusticles'
A never-before-seen microbe has been found in the wreck of RMS Titanic.
The Halomonas titanicae bacterium was found in "rusticles", the porous and delicate icicle-like structures that form on rusting iron.
Various bacteria and fungi live within the delicate structures - first identified on the Titanic - actually feeding off the rusting metal.
The find is described in the journal International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Samples of rusticles from Titanic were gathered in 1991 by the Mir 2 robotic submersible.
The rusticles are delicate, poorly-understood homes for many bacteria
Researchers from Dalhousie University and the Ontario Science Centre in Canada and the University of Seville in Spain isolated the H. titanicae bacteria from those samples.
They sequenced the microbes' DNA before discovering that they constituted a new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
The bacteria are of particular interest because they may shed light on the mechanism by which rusticles form, and thus on the general "recycling" that such microbes carry out on submerged metal structures.
That, the authors point out, has relevance also to the protection of offshore oil and gas pipelines, and the safe disposal at sea of ships and oil rigs.
The Halomonas titanicae bacterium was found in "rusticles", the porous and delicate icicle-like structures that form on rusting iron.
Various bacteria and fungi live within the delicate structures - first identified on the Titanic - actually feeding off the rusting metal.
The find is described in the journal International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
Samples of rusticles from Titanic were gathered in 1991 by the Mir 2 robotic submersible.
The rusticles are delicate, poorly-understood homes for many bacteria
Researchers from Dalhousie University and the Ontario Science Centre in Canada and the University of Seville in Spain isolated the H. titanicae bacteria from those samples.
They sequenced the microbes' DNA before discovering that they constituted a new member of the salt-loving Halomonas genus.
The bacteria are of particular interest because they may shed light on the mechanism by which rusticles form, and thus on the general "recycling" that such microbes carry out on submerged metal structures.
That, the authors point out, has relevance also to the protection of offshore oil and gas pipelines, and the safe disposal at sea of ships and oil rigs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)