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Mussels With Hydrogen Fuel Cells Found
greenrainbow writes "According to scientists, there are mussels at the bottom of the ocean that are efficiently converting hydrogen into energy in their very own, nature-made hydrogen fuel cells (abstract). The mussels were found near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor and have onboard symbiotic bacteria that convert hydrogen into energy. With this discovery, researchers might be able to clone the hydrogen eating bacteria to create all-natural hydrogen fuel cells to power things other than sea life."
Jeez, we already know how to do hydrogen fuel cells. Come on nature, give us some info we can USE for once.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
for the new generation of mussel cars.
My giant squid shaped, world cruising, shipping menace of a submersible is one step closer to fruition!
Ya I bet the Starfish can do fusion. I mean why else would anyone call it a starfish?
True dat.
We can consume the hydrogen just fine.
Now, if these bacteria found in the mussles could turn seawater into H2 and O2...
To summarize their results with a little more rigor; these deep sea organisms use hydrogen as an electron donor for the fixation of carbon (in the form of dissolved bicarbonate). There is little to suggest at this moment that the scientists have a ready method for using these enzymes to produce electric flow. For example, we have known the complete cycle of electrons in photosynthesis yet no solar panels are enzyme based. So I would be cautious of using the term 'fuel cell' which implies the production of electricity.
Please note that the scientists themselves never made the claim that the clams had a 'hydrogen fuel cell' and the discovery of an organism that uses hydrogen gas as an electron donor is a significant one.
Wonderful! Surely this can power my 300 kW, 8,600 pound SUV at highway speeds!
"Who ate my batteries?"
sharks with frikin' laser beams attatched to their heads.
Then we will have the mussels from Brussels!
The real tricks with the hydrogen fuel cells are getting a reliable source of hydrogen with a low energy input (it's almost always found in compound with other elements) and storing it at high enough volumes to be really useful without using high pressures or exotic, expensive materials.
I rather prefer the cellulose to biodiesel bacteria, algae, and fungi that are being researched. It seems to be a more useful fuel, and cellulose seems a lot more readily available than loose hydrogen. Biobutanol from cellulose is being researched in Japan, and butanol is a fairly straightforward replacement for at least part of a diesel's fuel. There's a fungus found in a rainforest that converts sugar or cellulose into a number of hydrocarbons and can be urged to make more based on exposure to antibiotic compounds. There's talk of work to genetically engineer something to do this, which likely would be a bacterium like e. coli engineered to produce the same compounds from the same feedstocks. In fact, e. coli is already being used in research to convert cellulose into diesel and kerosene.
Jeez, we already know how to do hydrogen fuel cells. Come on nature, give us some info we can USE for once.
Perhaps nature is irritated that we have not done much with hot fusion yet. ;-)
"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need"
The Rolling Stones
If you thought that American and Chinese universities were the only ones who pump up their press releases with nonsense to attract more attention, the Max Planck Gesselschaft offers up evidence to the contrary.
The real news here: they've discovered a novel mechanism for chemosynthesis, which is how organisms can make energy from chemicals rather than photosynthesis. It's already been observed with other hydrogen compounds like hydrogen sulfide and methane, but it hadn't been observed for pure hydrogen until now.
It's probably not useful for powering cars. There's nothing surprising or novel about the ability to extract energy from pure hydrogen or hydrogen compounds; it's surprising and novel that you can power a living organism that way. The hard part has always been obtaining and transporting high-energy hydrogen compounds in the first place (though fuel cells can always use some improvement).
Of course you never know what insights are going to come from any novel mechanism you discover, but the article doesn't go into applications and there's no reason to imagine it would be good for cars. The keyword for this study is microbiology, not engineering, and that's is just a way to try to make it sound more immediately applicable than it is.
I suppose it's asking too much for press release writers to stick to the actual facts, which are interesting enough in this case, rather than unfounded speculation.
TFA mentions nothing about cloning. Do we lack a growth medium that works for this bacteria or is that just a throw away line in the summary?
Return of the mussel car
Isn't that just called mitosis?
It was found that bovines turn grass into methane almost as well as rice paddies. It's harvesting the gas that is a real pain in the...
You get the idea.
... and I can party all night long!
other than sea life... Like robots maybe? I think slow motion mussels would have been a boring movie though.
Quick, kill them and take their advanced technological devices!!!!
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Bacteria that do hydrogen oxidation as a method for driving their metabolism have been known for decades. The novel thing in this paper is that they've found a symbiont, where a eukaryote (in this case a mussel) coexists with hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria, whereas previously the known hydrothermal vent symbionts contained bacteria with sulfur-based compounds or methane metabolic cycles. Unfortunately there appears to be nothing new about hydrogen metabolism, and nothing particularly useful for humans who want to harness hydrogen metabolism, in this.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
If I back the muscles I have to know, Does white wine conduct electricity?
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
"Jeez, we already know how to do hydrogen fuel cells. Come on nature, give us some info we can USE for once."
Anyone else thinking "Mussel Matrix" where we ranch massive genetically engineered shellfish to milk for sweet, sweet energy while keeping them content with a computer-generated experience of a happy universe?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Cold Fusion? Who would want that?
Python would be much better. Or maybe PHP. Hell, I'll even take plain ol' JavaScript, but CF?
As if turning corn/sugar cane into ethanol wasn't enough, now mussels will become fuel.
What's next, pizza fuel??
You mean like we currently do with Horseshoe crabs, catching them in huge masses, draining their blood and then returning them to the sea?
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
welcome our hydrogen powered mussle overlords.
but it sure as fuck wont start my car
whats next, Solar powered plants produce energy in nature???
Star power!
Because it's the leading actor, duh.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
is supercavitating sonoluminescence close enough?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
That some plant on some planet totally does the cold fusion thing in its own roots some magical hippie how.
Jeez, we already know how to do hydrogen fuel cells. Come on nature, give us some info we can USE for once.
And at what temperature do human-made fuel cells work?
And what's the size of the smallest fuel cells we can make?
Seems kinda scary! All these mussels emitting Dihydrogen Monoxide - we all know how dangerous that is.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
care to explain?
I'm uneducated on this, find it intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Pistol Shrimp are possibly nuclear: http://www.iwantat.com/blog/2011/03/pistol-shrimp-packing-a-nuclear-reacting-punch-and-how-to-draw-snoopy/
"It takes special breed of high speed camera to slow down time and capture the action of a Pistol Shrimps attack on itâ(TM)s prey. By using itâ(TM)s claw as a sonic weapon it stuns it prey with a tremendous sonic blast by creating a shock wave that can stun or kill in one strike without ever having to touch itâ(TM)s prey. As itâ(TM)s name for which it is called cocks itâ(TM)s claw like a pistol just before an attack at the right moment snaps it shut at such high speed it causes an IMPLOSION of a bubble that collapses upon itself so fast it creates a nuclear fusion instantaneously for a very small brief of time. With temperatures reaching near our own suns temperature at 4,700 ÂC (Degrees) or 8,492 ÂF. (Fahrenheit)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence#Biological_sonoluminescence
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab
Their blood contains amebocytes, which play a role similar to white blood cells for vertebrates in defending the organism against pathogens. Amebocytes from the blood of L. polyphemus are used to make Limulus amebocyte lysate, which is used for the detection of bacterial endotoxins.
SEA STAR!