Microbes // Current

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27 days ago

THE WAR ON PLASTIC: Student Discovers Plastic-Eating Microbe

Daniel had a thought it seems even the most esteemed microbiology PhD's hadn't considered. Plastic, one of the most... more

atomiclegion
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Amber preserves ancient termite AND the microbes in stomach!

"In what is now the Hukawng Valley in Myanmar, the resin fossilized and was buried until it was chipped out of an amber mine.... more

DeliaTheArtist
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Antarctic Microbes Waiting to be Identified

Life proliferates in frozen areas, we all know that. But these microbes are 1.5 million years old. Which begs the question:... more

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1.5 million year old Antarctic microbe community discovered

A living time capsule of sorts has been found buried under hundreds of feet of Antarctic ice -a colony of microbes that have been sealed off from the rest of the world for more than 1.5 million years.

The finding, detailed in the April 17 issue of the journal Science, could serve as a model for how life might survive on icy planets elsewhere in the galaxy.

The microbes, which live without light or oxygen, were detected in meltwater flowing out from Taylor Glacier, one of the outlet glaciers of the vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the otherwise ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys.

The Dry Valleys are considered one of Earth's most extreme deserts, devoid of animals and complex plants.

Scientists took water samples from Blood Falls, a curious blood-red waterfall-like feature that sporadically flows from the edge of Taylor Glacier.

Analyses revealed that the glacier water held microorganisms that use sulfur compounds to extract iron in the bedrock below the glacier (this iron also accounts for the rusty hue of the water).

"When I started running the chemical analysis on [the samples], there was no oxygen. That was when this got really interesting, it was a real 'eureka' moment," said researcher Jill Mikucki, who conducted the research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, while a graduate student at Montana State University and a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. She currently works at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

The researchers can't drill down to the pool that is home to the microbes because the ice is too thick and too far back from the edge of the glacier, but they think the pool is less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) across and was formed about 1.5 million to 2 million years ago.

Genetic tests suggest that the microbes are similar to ones found in marine environments today, which the researchers think are a remnant of a larger population of microbes that once lived in a fjord or sea that was cut off when sea levels fell and left the pool behind. The pool was eventually capped off by the flowing glacier.

"It's a bit like finding a forest that nobody has seen for 1.5 million years," said study team member Ann Pearson of Harvard. "Intriguingly, the species living there are similar to contemporary organisms, and yet quite different - a result, no doubt, of having lived in such an inhospitable environment for so long."

end of excerpt.A living time capsule of sorts has been found buried under hundreds of feet of Antarctic ice -a colony of microbes that have been... more

JanforGore
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6 months ago

Plants that consume microbes in the air!

Microbes living with several readily available houseplants help remove sickening pollutants from the air. This valuable... more

Datura420
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7 months ago

Top ten new organisms of 2008

The world's smallest snake, a prehistoric ant and microbes that may be 120,000 years old: These are just a few of the species... more

goldenways
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8 months ago

Microbes drove Earth's mineral evolution

A comprehensive history of Earth's mineral wealth concludes that without life, many raw materials wouldn't exist.... more

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10 months ago

Microbes in dirt provide electricity for African villagers

Providing electricity to people in countries where either the grid is not reliable, or nonexistent and unlikely ever to be built, can make a huge difference in people’s quality of life in very practical ways. We’ve written before about companies such as D.Light Design which have solar-powered replacements for kerosene lanterns , and efforts to bring small-scale solar panels to off-grid villages in Laos. Hand cranked cell phone chargers, radios and flashlights are other proven options that have received attention.

Microbial Fuel Cells Provide Enough Power for Small Devices
One option which is being investigated in a pilot project by Cambridge, Massachusetts company Lebônê Solutions is using microbial fuel cells to provide electricity to villagers in Tanzania. While the power produced by microbial fuel cells isn’t great, it does provide enough electricity for the small DC powered devices that the villagers want to run, Lebônê co-founder Hugo Van Vuuren told Technology Review. Compared to other renewable energy options such as solar panels or small-scale wind turbines they are also less expensive to produce and easier to set up.

A What Type of Fuel Cell?
Lebônê gives us a very basic rundown on how microbial fuel cells work:

These inexpensive fuel cells run on animal and plant waste and naturally occurring soil microbes, and are framed around a flexible substrate (wood, steel, etc) that can vary by geographic availability. This is truly electricity right out of the ground. These fuel cells are used to charge a battery or cheap supercapacitor, which in turn will be used to power a high-efficiency efficient LED or PLED lamp.

And Technology Review gives us a bit more detail:

To make the fuel cell, the team put graphite cloth--the anode--in the bottom of a bucket along with chicken wire--the cathode--and microbe-laden waste, either mud, cow manure, or residue from coffee crops. A layer of sand acts as an ion barrier while salt water helps the protons travel more easily. The team adds a power management board (the only device that the villagers will most likely have to import, says [Lebônê co-founder Aviva] Presser) to regulate the power and send it to a battery. Such a fuel cell can run a cheap, efficient light-emitting diode (LED) for four to five hours per evening. "We're hoping the entire system will be around $10 when we're ready," says Presser.

Namibia Next Up For Fuel Cell Trial
After Tanzania, Lebônê’s second trial, funded by a $200,000 grant from the World Bank, will be an 18-month pilot project in Namibia where the the firm will couple their fuel cell design with the the next generation of LEDs. Providing electricity to people in countries where either the grid is not reliable, or nonexistent and unlikely ever to be built,... more