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Strange Bacteria Sustains Itself Without Sunlight

Hahnsoo writes "A colony of bacteria found 2.8 kilometers below the Earth's surface in a South African gold mine is able to sustain itself without energy from the Sun. While sub-surface colonies of microorganisms utilizing sulfur (mostly near deep sea hydrothermal vents) is not new, this particular colony is unusual. The colony does it by relying on radioactive uranium to split water into hydrogen gas. Thus, instead of solar energy and photosynthesis, this species relies on radioactive materials and sulfur/hydrogen to facilitate its energy needs. There is some speculation about life on other planets in the article as well."

23 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Funny

    What is this sunlight you speak of?

    We manage to sustain ourselves using colonies of microorganisms utilising twinkie bars and coke (mostly near mom's fridge).
    We rely on radiation from our CRT monitors and heat from mom's washing machine to act as a catalyst converting the food bars into into methane gas. Thus instead of having a nice basement, its a desolate wasteland where noone would dare to tread.

    There is some speculation about how life evolved inside such places (or should that be devolved).

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
    1. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      There is also some speculation about how these organisms manage to reproduce when they do not engage in any type of mating or sexual reproduction.

    2. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by rucs_hack · · Score: 5, Funny

      I beleive sexual reproduction is acheived through bumping into each other at star trek conventions.

    3. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's easy. They actually reproduce by "seeding" themselves through intar-web tubes, into what is known as a "bit-torrent."

    4. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by araemo · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I beleive sexual reproduction is acheived through bumping into each other at star trek conventions."

      Sadly, more true than many would realize...

    5. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by CarpetShark · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think you mean by dragging outsiders to conventions, whereupon their bodies are possessed by the hive mind, thus increasing our numbers ;)

    6. Re:Strange slashdotter sustained without sunlight by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 4, Funny

      It reproduces via mitosis. Eventually the parent organism becomes so large that it must split into two organisms or else risk splitting it's pants.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  2. So now we have by cofaboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    So now we have completely different lifeforms available does that mean we have to go and kill them?

    --
    In the end, It's all bovine dung you know
    1. Re:So now we have by gbobeck · · Score: 5, Funny
      So now we have completely different lifeforms available does that mean we have to go and kill them?

      If Steve Irwin were still alive, he would capture it, thoroughly describe it to the viewers at home, shove his thumb up it's butt, and then say "Crikey, its a naughty boy!"
      --
      Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
    2. Re:So now we have by bobscealy · · Score: 3, Funny

      More importantly - how are we supposed to threaten them with nukes? I mean would they be weapons or foreign aid?

  3. prior art by macadamia_harold · · Score: 5, Funny

    A colony of bacteria found 2.8 kilometers below the Earth's surface in a South African gold mine is able to sustain itself without energy from the Sun.

    Why is this news? Clearly you've never been to a Linux User's Group meeting.

  4. Well by bhebing · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's life Jim, but not as we know it!

  5. Re:Fuel source? by nickovs · · Score: 3, Funny

    It may not be totally green...

    OK, before someone else says it, it's not green at all because living without sunlight it has no chlorophyll!

    --
    If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
  6. Re:Fuel source? by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe it's Cobalt green with radioactive Cobalt-60. :-P

  7. This is strange? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Funny

    I go away for a couple of weeks and my fridge grows green slime without any aid from sunlight at all.

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:This is strange? by z0idberg · · Score: 4, Funny

      Thats because theres a light in there.

      And don't try to tell me it goes off when you close the door, cause I open it real fast sometimes and it is definately always on.

  8. Re:I'm not convinced by extraterrestrial argument by tgd · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thing is , I think life evolved in a fairly benevolent enviroment

    Yeah, and I think Shakira would have a great time spending a weekend naked with me, but I kind of suspect it might not be true....

  9. Re:Forgive my ignorance by cluckshot · · Score: 4, Funny

    First let me say that I am going to let anyone who want look up whatever they want. I will leave enough key words around to do the job.

    The concept of life doing nuclear reactions is not new. In 1799 Joseph Priestly doing a study on hens discovered that they emitted as egg shells and waste about 2 to 4 grams of Calcium not taken in by their diet. The process at the time was called "Transmutation of Elements." Subsequently it has been found that bean sprouts transmutate several elements including manganese into iron. (The top of the fusion energy set). This has been studied by the US Army and by the French Nuclear researchers. It is real. There are two Nobel prizes in the 1970's related to this.

    Nuclear reactors typically the type of the US Navy get problems with bacterial growth in their main cooling loops that cause blockage and cause the requirement for repairs.

    For those who are doing a bit of thinking.... (I know its really hard sometimes.) The process is now pretty well known and mapped out. The mitochondria of cells can and do Fusion reactions as well as some Fission reactions. In the hens if the making of potassium into calcium was their only reaction, they would heat up like a really big nuclear reactor. Fortunately for us all, the hens also do ENDOTHERMIC (heat absorbing) atomic reactions as well. The upshot of this shows up in a lot of places. It explains the differences in content of geologic sediments from their parent rocks. It explains a lot of other things as well. Life is very much a factor in the atomic mixture we find on a planet. What is more it completely messes up our cosmology. Yes you can get fusion without the nuclear containments of a star. In fact that isn't even needed at all in the whole universe.

    Curiously there has not been found any major geologic structure on earth that doesn't contain life. It probably penetrates to the core. I would suspect from this that the assumptions about life are all wrong. It is probably true that the entire universe is alive at every location to some degree. In terms of the science called Chemistry it also says that what we view atomic fission and fusion reactions as merely a spectrum of the chemical reaction series with Chemistry at the low end, Fission higher and Fusion still higher. There is also no prospect that this is the top of reactions.

    The purpose of this posting is to stimulate people into looking into the realities of our world rather than having them accept what they are spoon fed in school. (Your teacher and your textbooks might just be WRONG!) At the present there are several advancing sciences with working technologies that are pushing back the walls in energy and gravity research. Real breakthroughs have occured and they violate the "Rules" that are accepted. If your search engine is working, you might find some curious with reproducable experimental apparatus on the Anti-Gravity front out of Brazil using thermionic currents and mu metal. (Achieved -1.25 G! and the apparatus and methods are published!) There are published at least 4 technologies that generate energy without fuel and they all can be reproduced. --- Wake up! Science is a baby not a grown up art.

    --
    Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
  10. Re:Please... by owlstead · · Score: 3, Funny

    "The big bang created hydrogen and a little helium; we have stars to thank for everything else."

    As long as they don't expect us to thank each and every one of them personally...

  11. Only one factor by beamin · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do they have oil?

  12. Re:Please... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Funny

    As Carl Sagan said, "We are all made of starstuff.".

    As the worm said, "We are all made of Saganstuff."

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  13. Imagine a ..... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Funny

    .... grendel cluster of them.

    Finally, we have something to pit against Beowolf.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  14. Re:I'm not convinced by extraterrestrial argument by multipartmixed · · Score: 4, Funny

    He is posting from a VIC-20 in a monospace font, and occasionally presses "Enter" at the end of the line, as he was conditioned to do when he learned to type on an Underwood.

    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?