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Glass-Eating Microbes

Posted by Hemos on from the don't-let-them-in-notre-dame dept.

JoeyPea writes "Researchers have found that volcanic glass (super-cooled lava) in the ocean's upper crust is eaten by microbes. The researchers found tiny tubular tunnels bored through the rock. The breakdown of volcanic rock was thought to be a chemical/physical process, but now it obviously has a biological component."

7 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Uses in chip fab? by RadioheadKid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder if these microbes could be used in the silcon chip fabrication process...probably not precise enough or small enough, but there's got to be a good application somewhere.

    KidA

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    1. Re:Uses in chip fab? by Arjuna+Theban · · Score: 2, Informative


      It would probably have no use, since they are way too slow to be used in real processing. There are many ways to etch glass or pyrex (Na doped glass) etc using HF, H3PO4 etc. I can see people trying it out in R&D but hell, I'm not gonna wait for a few years to finish a device.

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  2. There's got to be a good application by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    For those beer bottles with the twist off caps that don't twist off. Many injured hands could be avoided if the beer would just eat it's own way out.

  3. Interesting... by hhe_hee · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wonder if that just applies to oceanic crusts, maybe they're all over the planets crust but no one have checked it.

    This could mean that some number of theories will have to be reviewed. Also I wonder how this will influence for example the carbon cycle, maybe some long-term climate simulations must be remade.

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  4. It doesn't hurt me. by L3WKW4RM · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can eat glass, it doesn't hurt me.

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  5. Potential for future chip failures? by Telecommando · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they can eat glass, then it's possible they could eat silicon chips as well. In fact, they may already be doing it and we just haven't discovered them yet. Someone wrote a SF story years ago about geneticly engineered bacteria attacking silicon but it's too early in the mormning for me to remember much about it.

    Gives a whole new meaning to "computer bug" though, doesn't it?

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    1. Re:Potential for future chip failures? by J.Random+Hacker · · Score: 2

      Actually, the archetypal bug was a moth that shorted out a pair of contacts in an early computer. It didn't eat anything. It was just attracted by the light of the tubes and landed in a bad location. Grace Murray Hopper was working on that machine at the time. IIRC, the unfortunate moth was duely taped into the log book.