Metal-Eating Bacteria

[profrobert]

Hypothesized for 100 years and now finally proven: bacteria that eat metal.  These little guys eat manganese and poop manganese oxide.  Nature is SO COOL.  Science is SO COOL.

And, dare I say it, they're METAL AS HELL!!!

Comments

[bunny42]

Huh. Is this real? Not Onion-related at all? Talk about fertile territory for unintended consequences. Don't get me wrong, I believe in genetic engineering, but, boy, you never quite know what you could be releasing into an unsuspecting world.

[profrobert]

Yes, this is real. It's also natural, not genetic engineering. These bacteria have always been here; it's just that they were recently discovered. So if they were going to eat the world, they'd have already done so.

[bunny42]

Maybe I said that wrong. I didn't mean to imply that they had engineered this bacteria. Is this just a question of oh, now we know? They don't intend to use the bacteria for anything? What could be the outcome of this discovery?

[profrobert]

That I don't know (article, as you note, doesn't say). It could just be a cool thing that we now know. I don't know that there's a big demand for things that eat manganese and poop manganese oxide. OTOH, who knows? I gather the bacteria oxidize the manganese with the oxygen from carbon dioxide and use the carbon to grow (like trees), so maybe there is some kind of atmosphere-scrubbing they can do. I have no idea if there is enough manganese in the world to make that useful, but I would love for someone to find a practical application for these bacteria, and then have the guy who discovered them accidentally win a Nobel Prize!