#Water and Bacteria

[microbes-in-hats]

Daphnia pulex (Water flea)

Photo credit: Paul Hebert

Source: Functional Genomics Thickens the Biological Plot. Gewin V, PLoS Biology Vol. 3/6/2005, e219. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030219

[chipped-chimera]

Finally got a fancy(tm) pic of my aquarium - think I figured out the solution to awful photos is just I have to do them at night because the hugeass window in my room directly adjacent ruins everything. Going to try and take a pic like this weekly to track growth!

Anyway it's looking close? Closeish? to being cycled so the question is: WHAT COLOUR SHRIMP

[gorgynei]

i do not understand how evolution got us to these complex ass systems sometimes. like on paper yes i see the evolutionary tree. but photosynthesis? how did the bacteria know how to do that... how are individual cells smart enough to figure the chemistry of that out. how did we get here why is everything so complicated .

[thoughtportal]

A group of bacteria has proved adept at destroying the ultratough carbon-fluorine bonds that give “forever chemicals” their name. This finding boosts hopes that microbes might someday help remove these notoriously pervasive pollutants from the environment.

Nearly 15,000 chemicals commonly found in everyday consumer products such as pizza boxes, rain jackets and sunscreens are recognized as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs. These chemicals can enter the body via drinking water or sludge-fertilized crops, and they have already infiltrated the blood of almost every person in the U.S. Scientists have linked even low levels of chronic PFAS exposure to myriad health effects such as kidney cancer, thyroid disease and ulcerative colitis.

Current methods to destroy PFASs require extreme heat or pressure, and they work safely only on filtered-out waste. Researchers have long wondered whether bacteria could break down the chemicals in natural environments, providing a cheaper and more scalable approach. But carbon-­fluorine bonds occur mainly in humanmade materials, and PFASs have not existed long enough for bacteria to have specifically evolved the ability to digest them. The new study—though not the first to identify a microbe that destroys carbon-fluorine bonds—provides a step forward, says William Dichtel, a chemist at Northwestern University who studies energy-efficient ways to chemically degrade PFASs.

To identify a promising set of bacteria, the study’s authors screened several microbe communities living in wastewater. Four strains from the Acetobacterium genus stood out, the team reported in Science Advances. Each strain produced an enzyme that can digest caffeate—a naturally occurring plant compound that roughly resembles some PFASs. This enzyme replaced certain fluorine atoms in the PFASs with hydrogen atoms; then a “transporter protein” ferried the fluoride ion by-products out of the single-celled microbes, protecting them from damage. Over three weeks most of the strains split the targeted PFAS molecules into smaller fragments that could be degraded more easily via traditional chemical means.

By directly targeting carbon-fluorine bonds, the Acetobacterium bacteria partially digested perfluoroalkyls, a type of PFAS that very few microbes can break down. Even so, these Acetobacterium strains could work only on perfluoroalkyl molecules that contain carbon-carbon double bonds adjacent to the car­bon-fluorine ones. These “unsaturated” perfluoroalkyl compounds serve as building blocks for most larger PFASs; they are produced by chemical manufacturers and also emerge when PFASs are destroyed via incineration.

Scientists had previously demonstrated that a microbe called Acidimicrobium sp. strain A6 could break down carbon-fluorine bonds and completely degrade two of the most ubiquitous perfluoroalkyls. This microbe grows slowly, however, and requires finicky environmental conditions to function. And researchers do not yet fully understand how this bacterial strain does the job.

The Acetobacterium lines target a separate group of PFASs, and the team hopes to engineer the microbes to either improve their efficiency or expand their reach—potentially to more perfluoroalkyls. Lead study author Yujie Men of the University of California, Riverside, imagines the microbes would perform best in combination with other approaches to degrade PFASs. The range of chemical structures in these compounds means “a single lab cannot solve this problem.”

Any future commercial use of the microbes would face numerous hurdles, including breakdown speed and replicability outside of the lab, but Men looks forward to seeing how far her team can push the technique. “We’re paving the road as we go,” she says with a laugh.

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

Love the fact that everyone's acting surprised that the We-Dump-Shit-In-The-Water country has had an outbreak of There's-Shit-In-The-Water disease.

[hamelinsnightmare]

CiderTalk'84

🤖 💉 🤖 💉 🤖 💉 🤖 💉

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

done for the day thank you!!!

[brawley1492]

I wonder?

Are there "bacteria" on the Sun?

and

What would their purpose be?

By the way,

Bacteria can survive in sulphuric acid and "heavy water" in nuclear power stations and extreme heat conditions ... bacteria facts

[lameow-l]

this was literally the only question i was curious about, thanks for asking that for me paimon

like fontainain people married other nationalities yeah?? how did they have kids if they were oceanids.. anddd umm if they could fuck normal humans wouldn’t that make the oceanid in springvale falling in love with a boy from mond a bit problematic lol especially since it’s no longer a fairytale but an actual thing that happened and we witnessed it last patch??

so it’s not the case and new oceanids are just turned into humans but wait!! so celestia allows that?? it keeps constantly happening but they’re not stopping it.. ok sure but also

i wonder how many generations of fontaine people will it take for them to realize that they have to sexually mate to create children now

[opens-up-4-nobody]

hey um not to be parasociall but how did the meeting with your advisor go???? also would it be possible for you to switch advisors/program or something so you can change your research interests if that's the issue? Im a doctoral student as well so I get how tricky that stuff can be depending on your program.... Anyway I hope things better for you xoxo

Lol, ur fine! It went alright

[microbes-in-hats]

Tardigrade/Water Bear Species: Acutuncus antarcticus

There are approximately 1,300 known species under the phylum Tardigrada. They are found almost anywhere, including mountaintops, tropical rainforests, the deep sea, and the Antarctic. They are extremophiles, capable of surviving a few minutes at both 151°C (304°F) and −272°C (−458°F; 1 K) and a few days at −200°C (−328°F; 73 K).

This particular Antarctic species has been found to be able to survive for 30 years at −20°C (−4°F). (Tsujimoto et al. 2016 Cryobiology)

Photo credit: Megumu Tsujimoto/NIPR

[sol-consort]

taking a turian to a waterpark on the worst first date ever

[biology-geology-beaches-india]

TSRNOSS, page 157.

[mulderscully]

took monday off because it's the 14th (!? holy shit) anniversary of my mom's death and i dont even know what to do with 2 days off anymore

[transwolvie]

But okay legitimately I saw people dunking on France abt the Seine cleanup and how much it cost and the breaking news abt it still failing those tests for feces.... and they STILL made the poor Olympians swim in it?? It's got doodie in it!

[elbiotipo]

Ragua is supposed to be "shark-like" but she doesn't resemble a great white or most well known predator sharks, she's rather like a cat-shark:

I like this one (Scyliorhinus retifer, it's also flourescent!), but there's a lot of sharks to draw inspiration for. Moreover, her coloration is bright and colorful, like a tropical reef or a parrot (fits, since she can easily imitate sound). I migth also give her some feather-like structures for a more alien appearance. The sharp teeth, triangle fins and rough skin are a must, though.

I am being a very, very bad biologist by assuming such a convergent evolution here, of course. On the other hand, this is supposed to be a retro space opera setting like Star Wars, and lots of aliens are a must (I'm SO INCREDIBLY tired of human-only sci-fi, or sci-fi with only four or five different species, I want all sorts of creatures). I might throw some lines about panspermia, especially if I go with the lore that there's an aether interestellar ecology that might disperse life across worlds. That does raise some awkward questions, but it works for the setting.