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Extreme Bugs Found In Slag Dump
lonefox_illuminus writes "The world's most alkaline lifeforms are living in contaminated water in the U.S. These microbial little fellas are able to exist in an environment as harsh and toxic as caustic soda."
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the scientists are looking in the wrong places. I recommend the follow short list for locating the most toxic life forms:
1) capitol hill
2) the law firm of "Boies, Schiller & Flexner"
Slag Dump
Extreme Bugs
Alkaline Lifeform
Caustic Soda
Contaminated Water
Harsh and Toxic
Microbial Little
The most extreme posters have been found to live in caustic environments such as "Slashdot". They thrive in flames, insults, gross-out posts, and even first posts. They are known in the scientific world as "posterus slashdotterus". They are a dangerous species and should be handled with care. If you meet on, please call your local police authority immediately.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
... congress are breeding, are they going to put a stop to it?
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
Extremophile bacteria are found in all sorts of extreme places. Some can live in jet fuel (they corrode the tanks and require antibiotics in jet fuel). Others live in the acidic high-temperature hotsprings in Yellowstone. And entire ecosystems thrive around the 600 degree F "black smokers" in deep-sea thermal vents.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
They have neither brain nor backbone.
So they are politicians.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
"Extreme Bugs Found In Slag Dump"
I've written code that could be described like that after it crashed and took everything else with it...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
we must make sure that the slag dump is a protected environment. Any work in cleaning up the dump could result in the extinction of entire species of bacteria.
Perhaps we could set up other toxic slag dump wildlife preserves in other places throughout the world.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
I don't know much about these kinds of bugs but I used to live in an area that was close to an old copper mine. The community tried all kinds of things to deal with the slag, including planting sunflowers (a.k.a. Jerusalem Artichokes) in it. IANABiologist, does anyone know if these things could actually be used to clean up slag? The article didn't really go in depth.
Living in extreme environments is one thing, but completely different respiration systems is another thing entirely. This article reminds me of one I saw here. Apparently, some microbes discovered utilize iron as opposed to oxygen in order to sustain themselves. That's quite an accomplishment.
It goes to show that life can live anywhere it wants. The depth of the oceans, and the acidic worlds of a slag dump.
The slag dump in the story is not highly acidic, it's highly alkalinic. Acidic would be a ph lower than 7. Alkalinic is a ph higher than 7. The dump in the story was measured to be 12.8. If I remember correctly, highly acidic is a ph less than 3, and highly alkalinic is a ph greater than 10, thus the interest in these microbes that thrive in an environment that approaches a ph of 13.
Beware blue cats moving at
All your BASE are belong to us!
I for one welcome our new Alkaline Lifeform overlords!
There is no evidence that these bacteria evolved at all. This is just another case of scientific zealots bending the facts to fit their evolution-dogma. The scientific preisthood refuse to publish any paper that openly discusses the merits of creationist theory.
Imagine an alkaline petri dish filled with a beowolf-cluster of cells!
Poll, what should the scientific name of these bacteria be?
() Coyboydacea Neilii
() Cowboyacca Neileria
() Cowboydium Neiliarum
() Cowboyira Neilacillus
() Cowboyus Neilidifera
Natalite Portman, petrified and alkalined!
Alkaline lifeforms are dying!
(1) Adapt to an alkaline enviornment.
(2) ???
(3) PROFIT!
Press release:
It would have been IMPOSSIBLE for these bacteria to have adapted to this toxic sludge-pool with without the missappropriation of SCO's intellectual property. SCO's native habitat is toxic sludge-pools and only SCO possesses the genes required to thrive in this enviornment.
In Soviet Russia alkaline sludge-pools adapt to YOU!
Bacteria can survive corrosive alkaline envionments, they can survive 600 degree temperatures, they can survive intense radiation, they can survive powerful acids, they can survive toxic heavy metals, but they couldn't survive the SLASHDOT EFFECT!
Photo: bacteria living in an alkaline enviornment
(Link intentionally broken)
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Although life can exist in these environments, did it actually arise in these environments or did it evolve from non-extreme ones? In the case that life could spontaneously evolve in these harsh conditions (harsh to me - perhaps not Cowboy Neal), then I would expect life everywhere in the universe. However, on the other hand, if they have to originate in 'nicer' climes and then evolve, then our search becomes more difficult.
It's just that I find it difficult to believe that the components that make up life could actually form in these extreme heat/pH conditions.
Just my cowardly 2 cents...
The plants function as a contaminant sink - they are capable of absorbing trace amounts of elements/minerals from the soil. If you harvest the biomass, then you collect some of the pollutants along with it.
It has been done in gold mine tailings with alfalfa: http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/research/highlig hts_archive/alfalfa.html
Although, I don't know if this is effective enough to warrant much commercial development. It works in small amounts, but I seriously doubt it is used for much other than to fob off the greenies.
A greenie website for more info: http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/bioscience-archive/ vol45/green.clean.html
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti