Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 121C Heat

shobadobs writes "A story in the Independent reports that a microorganism appropriately referred to as 'Strain 121' has been found capable of thriving, with its colony size doubling, at a heat of 121 degrees Celsius, eight degrees more than the previously recorded maximum temperature that an organism can survive. This deep-sea volcanic vent creature was found on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and it feeds off of iron." Luckily it's only a microorganism. At first glance I thought scientists might have discovered a real-life rust monster.

Comments

Depth vs. Temperature?

[Fesh]

I would guess that the only place these bugs could exist would be where the pressure is high enough to keep water liquid at a temperature that is 20 degrees C above boiling (at sea level)... Is the temperature a prerequisite for their metabolic processes?

What about hot bugs?

[tiled_rainbows]

I read about this in the paper on the way to work. And the article ended, yet again, saying "this is encouraging for people who still hope to find life on Mars". I understand that extremophile microbes demonstrate that our conception of a life-supporting environment has heretofore been a little narrow, but recent discoveries keep turning up organisms that live in hot, high-pressure envirtonments, kind of the exact opposite of the conditions on Mars. So how does this help the Martian life lobby? Given these recent findings, wouldn't we be better off looking for monocellular life somewhere like Venus, say?

Re:What about hot bugs?

[juhaz]

There are plenty of things that survice on temperatures below zero degrees celsius, even some bigger ones (like few fish). Nothing that is this far from the average, but then again conditions where you could find that kind of organisms on Earth are very rare, probably even more so than these deep-sea thermal vent critters.

And if they can survive in one extreme, it gives a reason to believe other is also possible. Though in reality temperature of Mars is closer to 121C than conditions on Venus - average Martian temperature is -63C, difference of ~200, average on Venus is 457C, difference of over three hundred degree celsius. Surface temperature of Venus is hotter than Mercury!

And even if there would be life on Venus, how the heck do you plan on finding it there? Ever present almost total cloud cover will make finding a landing place nigh impossible, and even if that could somehow be achieved no hardware of ours would survive the winds, somewhat corrosive atmosphere and infernal temperatures. In short, you can describe the place rather accurately with one word: Hell.

Only possible in the deep sea

[asciimonster]

Since this is, I presume, a water-based organism, it can only survive such high temperatures deep down in the ocean. At sealevel, the water inside the organism will boil and make the thing explode. Also I wonder how it can keep it's aminoacids and DNA intact. At 120 degrees C there is enough energy to break the Hydrogen bonds which give the proteines and DNA it's stability...

Could somebody give me some indications on the pressures sown there?

Iron Eating Bacteria

[BigBadBus]

Hi, Iron eating bugs/bacteria aren't exactly new. They can be found eating away the wreck of the Titanic for instance (where 20% of the ship's steel has been consumed)

How High?

[LordLucless]

If this little blighter is thriving at 121C, how high can it actually survive. The article mentions that temperatures in this guy's home top out at about 400C. How much heat can these guys actually take before cooking?

Of course....

[CowsAnonymous]

There is an animal that can probably live past all these creatures in extreme conditions, and that's the Waterbear

From this article... The waterbear can revert to an "instant coffee"-dry state which resists storage in liquid nitrogen, contact with mineral acids, organic solvents, radioactive radiation and boiling water. After this kind of brute "scientific" scrutiny the miraculous creature is still able to return to normal life--it needs only a small droplet of water!

Lucky?

[RealSalmon]

Luckily it's only a microorganism.

Whew! It's only a microorganism . . . they're only responsible for more deaths than everything else on the planet combined.

Remember . . . it's usually the little stuff that gets you.

It was really only one joke

[donscarletti]

I believe there was only one joke actually by Yakov Smirnoff, that was:

In America you can always find a party, in Soviet Russia party can always find you

an extremely witty joke by almost everyone's standards, making a great pun with the word "party" to create truly a beautiful and lasting joke.

The classic joke was later reused in the cartoon Family Guy as the Yakoff Smirnoff setting of the autodrive system. The voice made comments like "you are coming to a fork in road, in soviet russia, road fork you!" and "in soviet russia, car drive you" to succesfully create riotous amusement by the shear lameness of the repitition.

Unfortunantly lameness and repititon are also the chosen methods of expression on another media: the internet. This continuation of the running joke has made the memory of that great joke lost in a sea of "in soviet russia, opteron makes beowolf cluster out of you!" travesties.

But it seems in this corrupt world, anything innocent and beautiful will eventally be raped by those who have nothing to do but distroy purity.