Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Organisms growing at unusual (incredible) conditions

Organisms growing at unusual (incredible) conditions

chemoleo - 28-8-2005 at 18:52

Now I know this has no direct outcome other than...well observing interesting organisms itself.

In the past I observed organisms growing in phosphate buffered saline (i.e. 50 mM NaPOi, 100 mM NaCl, pH 7). Mycelia formed, white and fluffy, settling at the bottom, in closed bottles.
I always wondered how this could happen, the amount of CO2 in the bottle atmosphere is absolutley marginal. Where does the carbon come from? How can it grow?

Another, more remarkable case is this:
I've been growing copper sulphate crystals for a while now, and only recently I noticed there were lots of colonies floating on the top of the saturated CuSO4 solution. It clearly was of organic origin, it formed clusters, with satellite colonies hanging about in the vicinity! Now how the heck is this possible? CuSO4 is supposed to be a fungicide, in fact we put it into water baths to keep them sterile.

I was absolutely amazed by it. I now am culturing them in a separate container, lets hope they continue growing; if they do I will have a look at them under a microscope. Pictures to follow at some point.

I find it astonishing what can grow under the most hostile conditions ever. I mean, organisms grow at high NaCl/Na2CO3 (halophiles), but that's different, CuSO4 reacts strongly with sulfhydrils (cysteine) and so on, while NaCl/Na2CO3 doesnt. How did the organism develop resistance against CuSO4 I wonder?

Did anyone else have peculiar instances of microbial growth in the most unexpected conditions?

(now please I don't want to know what grows in your orifices!

)

[Edited on 29-8-2005 by chemoleo]

neutrino - 28-8-2005 at 19:37

IIRC, the Guinness book talks of a bacterium that can live at >500F. Also, I recall a microorganism (bacterium?) that is more resistant to radiation than the human body by about 60,000 times.

chemoleo - 28-8-2005 at 19:40

Yes, i heard about all these, even gave presentations on the radiation resistant one (didnt I make a thread on this?).
Temperature, high salt, radiation, it's all known.
Growing with virtually no nutrient? Hmm.
Growing in CuSO4, which is a known fungicide? Hmm.

The_Davster - 28-8-2005 at 19:41

I had a weird mould/fungus grow on the top of the gelatin solution when experimenting with leduc plants, it appeared in the testtube the 'plant' was grow in after a few months despite saran wrap being tighty over the tube. Also years ago had a mould grow on a KNO3/sugar solution that I had left to evaporate.

Oxydro - 29-8-2005 at 19:41

I had mold grow in a CuSO4 solution I had been playing with trying to plate... I'm not sure, but I think it was also acidified with sulfuric acid. That might have been the next container over, though.

I didn't really think anything of it untill this thread, but I guess it is kind of odd!

Tsjerk - 30-8-2005 at 11:41

I ones had a big amount of mould on a failed wine destillate, it was about 40% alcohol, but some of the wine had came over when it flashboiled..... but mould on 40% alcohol, made me look twice.

[Edited on 30-8-2005 by Tsjerk]

vulture - 31-8-2005 at 09:31

Bacteriums of the Thiobacillus kind can tolerate up to 50g Cu/L and are used for bioleaching...

chloric1 - 31-8-2005 at 20:20

Would like to see any life survive in chlorine gas. It so corrosive though I cannot believe it possible. This stuff eats vinyl for crying out loud!

sparkgap - 1-9-2005 at 01:52

I wouldn't be extremely surprised seeing something flourish in gaseous chlorine as you are.

Now, if that was fluorine gas, words fail to describe how I'd react...

sparky (~_~)

12AX7 - 1-9-2005 at 08:32

Quote:

Originally posted by sparkgap
Now, if that was fluorine gas, words fail to describe how I'd react...

Idunno, this pretty well sums it up:

Tim

unionised - 1-9-2005 at 12:28

Chlorine dissolves in water to give hypochlorite and hypochlorites degrade amides (Hofman's reaction).

All earth's life is based on proteins, which are amides.
It it survives in Cl2 then (altogether now)
"It's life Jim, but not as we know it"!

sparkgap - 2-9-2005 at 06:50

Well you're for the most part right unionised, but for all we know, there might be some archaean (I don't think we'll have any luck in the other five phyla) who doesn't mind chlorine at all.

But my other comment still stands.

sparky (~_~)

unionised - 3-9-2005 at 09:14

Perhaps, in some afar away corner of the universe, some life form somewhere is saying "what! In oxygen! Don't be ridiculous- have you seen what that stuff does to complex organic molecules?"

12AX7 - 3-9-2005 at 12:54

Probably silicon based life, since oxygen and silicon get along as well as they do to form nonfunctional things.

Tim

sparkgap - 4-9-2005 at 21:53

If some life form would have to be silicon based, there's no way oxygen wouldn't have a role. Silicon's catenation ability is sucky compared to carbon. The Group IV elements below silicon are much worse.

BTW, this thread reminds me of the (rather crappy) movie "Evolution", where they poisoned the silicon-based invaders with Head and Shoulders (SeS<sub>2</sub>

sparky (^_^)

Chris The Great - 4-9-2005 at 23:43

Well our silicon-based friends could breath fluroine. SiF4 is a gas at -95.2*C, and sublimes like CO2 as well (it's melting point is -86.8*C). Oxygen would probably have similar results on them as fluorine does on us. This would require a planet rich in fluorine however, and most of them seem to have alot more oxygen than fluorine.

12AX7 - 5-9-2005 at 08:27

Quote:

Originally posted by sparkgap
If some life form would have to be silicon based, there's no way oxygen wouldn't have a role. Silicon's catenation ability is sucky compared to carbon.

True, and oxygen does allow it to chain, but it tends to form chains that don't do anything unless you're on Venus.

Tim

NO MORE OFF TOPIC PLEASE!!

chemoleo - 5-9-2005 at 13:55

This is getting out of hand, not just here but elsewhere too!

Quote:

Did anyone else have peculiar instances of microbial growth in the most unexpected conditions?

That was the question. Not what grows on planet x with a fluorine atmosphere.

Fleaker - 5-9-2005 at 13:59

Chemoleo, did you get results when you tried to culture those? Seems like anything living in those conditions would grow in anything :-)

"I was absolutely amazed by it. I now am culturing them in a separate container, lets hope they continue growing; if they do I will have a look at them under a microscope. Pictures to follow at some point."

Forgive me if you mentioned your results already, I could not find any further info.

chemoleo - 14-9-2005 at 18:33

Well I checked.
The CuSO4 I filtered on 29/08 (using coffee filters) has now turbid micelia at the bottom, which looks a bit like white/grey algae!!
It doesnt even seem that it requires oxygen for growth as it happily grows in a closed container, on the bottom (which is in contrast to what it was like initially, where the white colonies grew on the surface of the solution, as white colonies).

I don't think this would grow on virtually anything, more likely this is some fungus that can persist various salts but can't i.e. grow in a nutrient rich medium, such as rotten apples etc.

Very intriguing!

Unfortuantely it also means I have to boil the CuSO4 before I can continue growing cyrstals

Another example

chemoleo - 12-12-2005 at 11:35

I found that fungus grows well in a saturated solution of (NH4)2Mg(SO4)2 - literally, after 2 weeks, the first colonies were floating on topf of the solution. The respective potassium salt seemed more fungicidal.

Furthermore, and quite surprisingly as well, fungus was found on top of a (NH4)2Ni(SO4)2 solution - and NiSO4 has an evil toxic sticker on its bottle!

BromicAcid - 12-12-2005 at 11:55

I was also under the impression that all nickel salts were toxic to living creatures, being considered carcinogenic and all. However my biochemistry textbook has a periodic table in it, with the elements utilized by living organizms highlighted in a different color, and nickel is indeed highlighted, I asked my teacher about it and although she did not give me any specific examples she mentioned there were organisms that did utilize nickel in their metabolic processes. Another strange one are the animals and microbes that utilize fluorine in their diet.

chemoleo - 12-12-2005 at 12:28

Yes, check this link:
http://www.incowatch.ca/content/4-2%20Toxicology.htm

Ni isn't primarily carcinogenic, exept when inhaled.
Ni is mainly toxic because of its ability ot strongly chelate histidines, in fact this is used to in protein purification, and molecular biology: genes are fused to the codons for 6x His, and this is enough to strongly bind to a Ni-based column. The resultant protein can be eluted with imidazole, which essentially competes off the Ni from the His6.

Also, yes, Ni is required for an enzyme in plants.

Chucklz - 1-6-2006 at 13:11

I've found some mold growing in a bottle Milli-Q water. I just autoclaved it and threw the whole thing out.

Ozone - 6-11-2006 at 20:49

Hi,

I seem to remember some reference (I will relocate as soon as I can) to bacteria (biofilm) occuring in reactor cores, an environment high (i mean in excess of 10^19 n/cm2.s) in radiation, high temperature (at surfaces, in around the cited 300°C, at least), and no food (that I can see, excepting 14C, 35S from neutron activation, maybe).

Damndest thing...

Cheers,

O3

stricnine - 10-11-2006 at 05:31

Check out for acid mine drainage (AMD)

Nerro - 11-11-2006 at 07:29

Freely translated from a Dutch magazine for chemists,

Bacteria that live off radiation,
In a South African goldmine at a depth of 2.8 km a bacterial population was found that gets its energy from radioactive uranium ore. The radiation cleaves watermolecules and forms sulphates from sulfur containing minerals. Bacteria from the species called Firmicutes extract their energy from the reaction between sulphate and hydrogen. The substances excreted by these bacteria sustain a range of other bacteria. These micro organisms were found in water that seeps into the mine through a fissure in the rocks. Comparison of the DNA found in the bacteria hints that they might have been cut off from the outside world for as little as 3 million or as much as 25 million years.

That's pretty cool, that means there are bacteria that can sustain use dosages of radiation and actively use this energy, it's not surprising that such bacteria exist but still! They must have DNA repair mechanisms that are far more effective than ours. It might be interesting to determine these mechanisms, imagine having that DNA incorporated into your own! The potential to live free of cancer would certainly enhance life expectancy enormously!

Ozone - 13-11-2006 at 18:16

No kidding!

On further thought the organism I was referring to was Deinococcus radiodurans; this crazy thing can survive 15,000 *gray*. Is this the microorganism found in the U ore in Africa? Remember, in Oklo (Gabon) there was ore of sufficient quantity and quality, with flowing groundwater. The water served as a nice moderator, and a critical assembly operated transiently for millions of years (in nature!, this probably happened in the Black hills of South Dakota, as well, where I found a mineral with a 235U abundance of significantly less than 0.75% with the whole McMillan-Ableson Neptunium series--and, the 239Pu you would also expect). I'd expect to find these types of extremophiles in loci such has this.

Crazy to think how this is possible. One would have to consider that DNA repair such as this could lead to virtually immortal genomic materials; this might be a problem since the repair is not always perfect. I'm still lost on what these buggers are eating, though (particularly since growing them is complicated).

Please see:

http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/headlines/ast14dec99_1.htm

an EM shot:
http://www.usuhs.mil/pat/deinococcus/index_20.htm

Of course, http://www.microbeworld.org/ is a cool site. AND: http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Deinococcus which has some nice references.

I'm a Chemist, but this is cool stuff! "Conan the bacterium" Yeh!

Cheers,

O3

Nixie - 9-4-2008 at 02:42

Quote:

Originally posted by The_Davster
I had a weird mould/fungus grow on the top of the gelatin solution when experimenting with leduc plants, it appeared in the testtube the 'plant' was grow in after a few months despite saran wrap being tighty over the tube. Also years ago had a mould grow on a KNO3/sugar solution that I had left to evaporate.

I remember making Leduc plants as a kid in the old country. I'd like to do it again, but where do I get potassium ferrocyanide?

ShadowWarrior4444 - 8-5-2008 at 12:57

Quite recently on a whim I decided to attempt a simple (elementary school) culturing technique with one important modification--Sodium Silicate. I took some sucrose, dissolved it in the sodium silicate, and applied to a bit of white bread in a petri dish, I then breathed on it, vigorously. The petri dish was then sealed. After a day or so, growth did occur of one organism only: a peach colored one that grew predominantly along the bottom of the bread, and somewhat away from the bread onto the plastic of the petri dish.

Then something even more interesting happened, the entire dish dried up. No water vapor, nor liquid at all. While keeping the dish closed, I picked it up, and at some point the price of bread and the bacteria/fungus dislodged from the dish and slid down to a side wall, where to my surprise, the edge of the bacteria's colony 'clicked' against the plastic. It was quite hard, and did not chip in the least despite a bit more aggressive testing. The bacteria on the underside of the bread were also quite glassy.

[Edited on 5-8-2008 by ShadowWarrior4444]

Nixie - 8-5-2008 at 13:40

Crystalline bacteria? Are they eating rubber seals?

[Edited on 8-5-2008 by Nixie]

ShadowWarrior4444 - 8-5-2008 at 13:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Nixie
Crystalline bacteria? Are they eating rubber seals?

[Edited on 8-5-2008 by Nixie]

Well, they appear to be dead/dormant at the moment, due to the lack of water. Actually, they most strongly reminded me of the Sand Trout in Dune (Frank Herbert), on account of them seemingly "sequestering" all the water.

jimwig - 9-5-2008 at 13:49

organisms (bacteria, fungi) grow in the hot springs at Yellowstone.

around the fumorols at depth in the sea

is life predicated on carbon use? never gave it too much thought before. guess so.....

ShadowWarrior4444 - 9-5-2008 at 14:21

Quote:

Originally posted by jimwig
organisms (bacteria, fungi) grow in the hot springs at Yellowstone.

around the fumorols at depth in the sea

is life predicated on carbon use? never gave it too much thought before. guess so.....

There are some theories on very early Iron-Sulfur life forms over deep geothermal vents in the ocean, however for the most part terrestrial life is carbon based.

chemoleo - 9-5-2008 at 17:12

Come on, without carbon no life is possible. No conditions we know of here on earth would facilitate complex (I mean complex as in living things) chemistry without carbon. In fact I'd wager strong doubts as to whether any carbon-free life is possibly under *any* conditions!
But perhaps Europa will prove us otherwise, or perhaps ET life in a few hundred years time...

From what I remember,
Deinococcus Radiodurans (I gave a talk about that one once) achieves this radiation resistance by having multiple (not just one, as usual for bacteria) copies of the bacterial genome, and it has a certain mechanism for copying intact pieces of DNA into corrupted DNA , thus constantly fixing and backup-ing the data. I'll have a look in my files and see if I can find the presentation.

Nixie - 9-5-2008 at 21:39

Quote:

Originally posted by chemoleoIn fact I'd wager strong doubts as to whether any carbon-free life is possibly under *any* conditions!

I remember a suggestion that under extremely high pressure silicon-based complex life may be possible (i.e. the hard surface on gas giants that have solid cores). Radioactive decay as energy source. Pretty extreme but hey, you never know. Another one was if complex configurations of nucleons could exist under the extreme gravity of some layers of a neutron star, then you could speculate that life might evolve and its processes would run orders of magnitude faster than molecular life.

[Edit:] There's a discussion about scientists considering silicon life here: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/siliconlife.html

[Edit:] Apparently, even plasma has been seriously considered: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/plasma-based_lif...

[Edited on 9-5-2008 by Nixie]

Saerynide - 9-5-2008 at 23:48

Quote:

Originally posted by chemoleo
I was absolutely amazed by it. I now am culturing them in a separate container, lets hope they continue growing; if they do I will have a look at them under a microscope. Pictures to follow at some point.

Wow, you've got balls to culture them. If in doubt, throw it out

Nixie - 9-5-2008 at 23:59

I'd expect chances some random bacteria are pathogenic are low.

phlogiston - 10-5-2008 at 15:25

Since you gave a presentation on D. radiodurans, you probably know it was discovered by a guy who found them in a spoiled can of food (which is sterilized by irradiating). Other people may have had spoiled cans of food before, but he was clever and asked the right question. Similarly, you may have discovered a previously unkown organism in your CuSO4 tank, which hasn't been discovered any earlier because (1) not many people keep large volumes of CuSO4 around, and (2) nobody had the required curiosity and/or bothered to check whether the stuff floating in their tank was an unusual organism. A mycologist friend's friend discovered a previously unknown fungus in a plant pot in his house on a rainy saturday afternoon, just because he had nothing to do and decided to look at the soil with his microscope, just to kill some time.

My point is, if you do actually manage to culture it, go see someone who can identify it for you and check if it is a known organism. You never know! This type of bacteria might be useful, for instance for recovering metals from ore or cleaning up contamined soil.

sbovisjb1 - 4-6-2008 at 13:35

Thermophile's.... Organisms that grow at high temperatures. Never cease to amaze me where they pop up!

[Edited on 5-6-2008 by sbovisjb1]

Nixie - 4-6-2008 at 13:46

Quote:

Originally posted by sbovisjb1
Thermopile's

Thanks for the good laugh!

"A thermopile is an electronic device that converts thermal energy into electrical energy. It is composed of thermocouples either connected in series or in parallel."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopile

Don't know about them growing in warm places :X

Thermophiles, on the other hand...

[Edited on 4-6-2008 by Nixie]

sbovisjb1 - 4-6-2008 at 16:20

Ooops. That proves that the devil is in the details....

crazyboy - 6-6-2008 at 22:00

Water bears can survive some pretty crazy stuff.

"They can survive temperatures close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151°C (303°F), 1,000 times more radiation than any other animal, nearly a decade without water, and can also survive in a vacuum like that found in space."

[url=]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrada[/url]

[Edited on 6-6-2008 by crazyboy]

[Edited on 6-6-2008 by crazyboy]

Mould

Panache - 29-9-2008 at 17:50

I lifted the lip recently on a 20L bucket about 2/3 full of a slop containing caustic, dextrose, water, silver, silver ions, copper, copper ions, iron, iron ions and heaps of other crap that i had set aside to 'deal with later' after i realised i hadn't managed to extract all the silver from the solution with the dextrose/caustic treatment. It was a turbid black ph~13-14 muck.
So i was shocked to find a very active mould on the surface (isn't silver supposed to be a fungicide). The bucket wasn't sealed but was covered, it was so strange i have not removed it, rather I keep it as show and tell item, visually it appears not to have advanced since i first noticed it some 2 months ago. The bucket had been standing for some 6months. I work in a lab next to a distillery that distills wine so there's plenty of moulds and yeasts around but wine yeasts are a tad more sensitive than anything that grew in this bucket eating i assume the small concentration of dextrose in the solution.

30-09-08_113725.jpg - 36kB

from previous thread

Panache - 29-9-2008 at 17:52

more photos, for some reason i can only attach one at a time

[Edited on 29-9-2008 by Panache]

[Edited on 29-9-2008 by Panache]

[Edited on 29-9-2008 by Panache]

30-09-08_113743.jpg - 35kB

12AX7 - 29-9-2008 at 21:12

Are you sure it's a mold and not gas? (Gas from what I don't know, CO2 will certainly remain in solution...) Does it grow back if you skim it off, possibly adding more dextrose?

Tim

Nixie - 29-9-2008 at 21:19

Strange, this photo reminds me of something but I can't figure out what.

Ramiel - 30-9-2008 at 04:00

I sometimes fry things when cooking, like a party event, and decant and keep the oil for re-use. I was amazed to find an active colony of mould or some such occupying the bottom of a full glass of oil! no doubt where the energy comes from, it just surprised me that it could be anaerobic.

Never again will I save oil for cooking!

12AX7 - 30-9-2008 at 06:34

Maybe it was eating oxidized oil?

Rancid oil is nasty shit...

Tim

Panache - 30-9-2008 at 20:15

Quote:

Originally posted by 12AX7
Are you sure it's a mold and not gas? (Gas from what I don't know, CO2 will certainly remain in solution...) Does it grow back if you skim it off, possibly adding more dextrose?

Tim

I know the photos are tres crappy but didn't think they were that crappy. It's definitely a mould thick wrinkled fuzzy green, funnily silver powder pools around the mould as the solution is so dense it floats, wonder if the mould was responsible for that workup of silver ions.
Today is D-day for the mould's int he bucket though and i will be trying to extarct the remainder of the silver with more dextrose caustic so i'll leave it again and see if they reappear.
How does one identify a mould? If the answer is really long then just post a link to a any decent explanation you know of.
Also since we are in 'bio', what are those biochemistry flasks, that are an Erlenmeyer/conical, however they have a sealed glass tube running out the side of them near the bottom. they must be a bitch to clean. they sure are annoying to stack, however the tube on the side makes a great handle for hurling them at great speeds across the room.

chemoleo - 3-10-2008 at 19:11

Panache, this is certainly interesting.
However, the solution containing dextrose makes it amenable to growth to all sorts of things, regardless the toxic ions that might be present (at undefined concentrations?).

Quote:

How does one identify a mould?

Well like you said, take a small sample of the mold and inoculate more of the same same solution. It should grow.
There are more involved biochemical and genetic methods but this should be the simplest test. Did you try?
To eliminate that it is bacterial growth, addition of an antibiotic such as penicillin, amoxycillin, chloroamphenicol, tetracyclin, etc etc should kill bacterial growth, while leaving fungal growth unimpeded. Mind though that even fungal growth is slowed by these antibiotics.

To identify the species of mold, a quick PCR and sequencing of a key gene should be sufficient. Send me a sample

Since you are likely to not have these facilities, there are books on the morphologies of fungi which I've seen once upon a time (sadly I can't help you there further, I'd be much interested), and these books show the macroscopic and microscopic properties (in pictures) of these fungi. From what I remember, the morphology of the 'fruiting bodies' (spores) are crucial to the identification thereof.

[Edited on 4-10-2008 by chemoleo]

Panache - 5-12-2008 at 04:39

oh my, the new 'batch' of mould is going nuts, i had forgotten about it (it was sitting above my frigde in the warmth and i only rememberred it because i need some clamps i had used on it. the new sample was in a very very caustic silver solution with like 20% dextrose added. there is definitely a quaternary stucture to the mould, i thought it was going to bite me.
photos tomorrow.

UnintentionalChaos - 7-12-2008 at 15:09

I had a sheet of green-gray something or other grow over the surface of the water in a bucket of heavy metal waste I had lying around. It was a while back, but copper, lead, nickel, and manganese (probably as MnO2) were all present is decent amounts. IIRC there was also a good deal of nitrate and chloride floating around. I believe some sucrose ended up in there at one point, which would help explain how anything could possibly live in there. I had a mixture of glycerol and water with @20% iPrOH grow some sort of fungus too, which was very surprising, since there were absolutely no other nutrients present, and it was in a sealed jar.

unionised - 8-12-2008 at 11:36

Quote:

Originally posted by UnintentionalChaos
I I had a mixture of glycerol and water with @20% iPrOH grow some sort of fungus too, which was very surprising, since there were absolutely no other nutrients present.

Oh yes there were.

Panache - 11-12-2008 at 14:26

i am waiting for my data cable for my new phone which has the photos on it. I also forgot that i added several large shakes of Diammonium phosphate to my brew. There appear to be three types of mould, they are really disturbing, to ease my mind about them i have named them George Bush, Dick Cheney and John Howard.(sorry political comment, lol)

oslox241 - 18-10-2009 at 05:53

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus

Black molds growing inside Chernobyl and like that uranium mine organism (going to have to try and track that one down) appears to be utilizing gamma radiation for production of chemical energy. Curious if these are the same molds that were reported to be growing on the MIR space station prior to its destruction.

Then we have some of the crazy thermophilic endospore formers... Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius with 10% of spores remaining viable following heat treatment at 140°C for 15 minutes and a D-value of 4 hours at 120°C.

Bunch of good ones out there. What ever happened with that mold?

Destilled water

BaSnilek - 16-5-2010 at 22:48

When I worked at the Department of bioingeneering in VSCHT Prague, I observed algi or Cyanobacteria growing in sealed bottle of distilled water. Colleague ensured me that they have been growing there for several yaers. Now thats mystery. How could possibly grow anything in distilled water?

My first post :-)

hissingnoise - 17-5-2010 at 04:16

This would seem to say more about the impurities present in the distilled water that it does about the lifeforms growing in it. . .

franklyn - 18-5-2010 at 10:02

Extremophiles is the general term applied to the taxonomy of micro-organisms
that thrive in what is for most , hostile environmental circumstances. There does
not seem to be any inconceivable habitat for these highly specialized species.
There are carpets of bacterial growths at the bottom of frozen surfaced , ice
cold ponds and lakes in otherwise dry valleys in Antarctica which receive virtually
no light for 10 months a year. There are carpets of bacterial growths in highly
acid mineral water of tropical caves which are forever without light. There are
bacteria which thrive in eternally dark submarine geothermal vents at temperatures
of 250 ºC. After the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest the
first inhabitants of the remaining moonscape were bacterial growths in the
mineral water runoff. We know cyano bacteria such as botulism can exist inside
sealed cans. Bacteria can metabolize or affect decomposition of most anything
even petroleum , and produce alcohol and nitrates and other confounding things

Rocket fuel from thin air ( Perchlorate )
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spacedocumentary/story/0,2763,3497...
same story _
http://www.reactivereports.com/10/10_4.html
Reference given:
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2000, 39, 2509.

Bacteria Eat Human Sewage, Produce Rocket Fuel ( Hydrazine )
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1109_051109_...
http://www.jgi.doe.gov/sequencing/why/99199.html

above citations found in this thread _
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=10976#...

.

majortom - 6-6-2010 at 16:18

I know that some extreamophiles use arsenic instead of sulfur in one of their emzynes, heard the same about thallium. some say that we could use arsenic instead of phosphorous in a primitive RNA like chain

JohnWW - 6-6-2010 at 17:05

What other element could thallium, which is deadly poisonous, possibly substitute for in a natural biochemical reaction? Its most stable oxidation state is (I), in which it can substitute for Ag(I) in a wide range of chemical compounds and reactions, but it is much more electronegative than alkali metals; while the (III) state is fairly strongly oxidizing. BTW arsenic, besides being highly poisonous (used in insecticides, wood preservatives, and some rat poisons), is not a satisfactory biochemical substitute for phosphorus(V) (in which it occurs as phosphate in biochemical reactions) because its (V) state is oxidizing unlike that of phosphorus, with the (III) state being most stable.

[Edited on 7-6-10 by JohnWW]

anotheronebitesthedust - 4-7-2010 at 10:28

With bacteria surviving these extreme conditions here on Earth it's hard to imagine that Mars is lifeless. I read somewhere that bacteria almost definitely would have contaminated the Mars rover expeditions. I hope something survived the trip.

Fossilized bacteria were found in a Martian meteorite too:
http://news.discovery.com/space/arctic-bacteria-mars-methane...

majortom - 22-10-2010 at 19:45

Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW

What other element could thallium, which is deadly poisonous, possibly substitute for in a natural biochemical reaction? Its most stable oxidation state is (I), in which it can substitute for Ag(I) in a wide range of chemical compounds and reactions, but it is much more electronegative than alkali metals; while the (III) state is fairly strongly oxidizing. BTW arsenic, besides being highly poisonous (used in insecticides, wood preservatives, and some rat poisons), is not a satisfactory biochemical substitute for phosphorus(V) (in which it occurs as phosphate in biochemical reactions) because its (V) state is oxidizing unlike that of phosphorus, with the (III) state being most stable.

[Edited on 7-6-10 by JohnWW]

Strange oxidation states are known in enzymology.

"Ni-SOD is particularly interesting as it involves nickel(III), an unusual oxidation state for this element."

Toxicity isn't really much of a concern when considering certain low complexity organisms, there have been many enzymes found with very toxic metal cofactors. Among these are Nickle, Manganese, Chromium and Cadmium. (!?!) I also wouldn't to ingest to much selenium, vandium, tungsten or copper either. Toxicity does not seem to be a problem for enzymes in lower organisms, I mean jesus christ, Cadmium?

While I incorrectly remembered the heavy elements I mentioned there are plenty of examples of things just as bad.

The Lost World Found

franklyn - 3-1-2011 at 14:42

No Dinosaurs spotted. Pictures are worth a thousand words. wow !

http://www.neatorama.com/spotlight/2010/12/20/the-worlds-big...
http://www.cracktwo.com/2010/12/conquering-infinite-cave.htm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_Doong_Cave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_Nha-Ke_Bang

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franklyn - 26-11-2012 at 16:15

http://www.livescience.com/13377-extremophiles-world-weirdes...

This is number 3 - Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium

Radiation Proof

Extreme species prove their mettle by withstanding intense amounts of radiation.
For example , the Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium can survive a 15,000 gray
dose of radiation , where 10 grays would kill a human and it takes over 1,000
grays to kill a cockroach. This species , in fact , is exemplary in many ways ,
encompassing also the ability to survive cold , dehydration , vacuum and acid.
The Guinness Book of World Records lists D. radiodurans as the world's toughest
bacterium.

Endoliths are organisms that live inside rocks or other spots thought impermeable
to life , such as the pores between grains of minerals in the crevices of rock strata.
These species have been found over 2 miles ( 3 km ) below the Earth's surface ,
and may live even deeper. Water is scarce at these depths , but some studies
suggest they feed on surrounding iron , potassium , or sulfur. Understandably
their perspective of the world at large is severely limited. Try as one can to
expand their horizon.

http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=6372&a...

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Arcuritech - 26-11-2012 at 18:31

Not as extreme as the post above, but interesting examples none the less: https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=21...