Have We Found Alien Life? Electricity eating microbes

Moderator Posts : 7032 Join date : 2013-04-30

popsci.com wrote:: Have We Found Alien Life?
Microbes that eat and breathe electricity have forced scientists to reimagine how life works—on this planet and others

Life, Nealson is explaining, all comes down to energy. From the mightiest blue whale to the most humble microbe, every organism depends on moving and manipulating electrons; it’s the fuel that living matter uses to survive, grow, and reproduce. The bacteria at USC depend on energy, too, but they obtain it in a fundamentally different fashion. They don’t breathe in the sense that you and I do. In the most extreme cases, they don’t consume any conventional food, either. Instead, they power themselves in the most elemental way: by eating and breathing electricity. Nealson gestures at his lab. That’s what they are doing right there, right now.

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cool