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chemoleo
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Organisms growing at unusual (incredible) conditions
Now I know this has no direct outcome other than...well observing interesting organisms itself.
In the past I observed organisms growing in phosphate buffered saline (i.e. 50 mM NaPOi, 100 mM NaCl, pH 7). Mycelia formed, white and fluffy,
settling at the bottom, in closed bottles.
I always wondered how this could happen, the amount of CO2 in the bottle atmosphere is absolutley marginal. Where does the carbon come from? How can
it grow?
Another, more remarkable case is this:
I've been growing copper sulphate crystals for a while now, and only recently I noticed there were lots of colonies floating on the top of the
saturated CuSO4 solution. It clearly was of organic origin, it formed clusters, with satellite colonies hanging about in the vicinity! Now how the
heck is this possible? CuSO4 is supposed to be a fungicide, in fact we put it into water baths to keep them sterile.
I was absolutely amazed by it. I now am culturing them in a separate container, lets hope they continue growing; if they do I will have a look at them
under a microscope. Pictures to follow at some point.
I find it astonishing what can grow under the most hostile conditions ever. I mean, organisms grow at high NaCl/Na2CO3 (halophiles), but that's
different, CuSO4 reacts strongly with sulfhydrils (cysteine) and so on, while NaCl/Na2CO3 doesnt. How did the organism develop resistance against
CuSO4 I wonder?
Did anyone else have peculiar instances of microbial growth in the most unexpected conditions?
(now please I don't want to know what grows in your orifices!  )
[Edited on 29-8-2005 by chemoleo]
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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neutrino
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IIRC, the Guinness book talks of a bacterium that can live at >500F. Also, I recall a microorganism (bacterium?) that is more resistant to
radiation than the human body by about 60,000 times. 
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chemoleo
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Yes, i heard about all these, even gave presentations on the radiation resistant one (didnt I make a thread on this?).
Temperature, high salt, radiation, it's all known.
Growing with virtually no nutrient? Hmm.
Growing in CuSO4, which is a known fungicide? Hmm.
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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The_Davster
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I had a weird mould/fungus grow on the top of the gelatin solution when experimenting with leduc plants, it appeared in the testtube the
'plant' was grow in after a few months despite saran wrap being tighty over the tube. Also years ago had a mould grow on a KNO3/sugar
solution that I had left to evaporate.
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Oxydro
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I had mold grow in a CuSO4 solution I had been playing with trying to plate... I'm not sure, but I think it was also acidified with sulfuric
acid. That might have been the next container over, though.
I didn't really think anything of it untill this thread, but I guess it is kind of odd!
"Our interest's on the dangerous side of things" -- Browning
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Tsjerk
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I ones had a big amount of mould on a failed wine destillate, it was about 40% alcohol, but some of the wine had came over when it flashboiled.....
but mould on 40% alcohol, made me look twice.
[Edited on 30-8-2005 by Tsjerk]
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vulture
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Bacteriums of the Thiobacillus kind can tolerate up to 50g Cu/L and are used for bioleaching...
One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
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chloric1
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Would like to see any life survive in chlorine gas. It so corrosive though I cannot believe it possible. This stuff eats vinyl for crying out
loud!
Fellow molecular manipulator
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sparkgap
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I wouldn't be extremely surprised seeing something flourish in gaseous chlorine as you are.
Now, if that was fluorine gas, words fail to describe how I'd react...
sparky (~_~)
"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."
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12AX7
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| Quote: | Originally posted by sparkgap
Now, if that was fluorine gas, words fail to describe how I'd react...
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Idunno, this pretty well sums it up:
Tim
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unionised
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Chlorine dissolves in water to give hypochlorite and hypochlorites degrade amides (Hofman's reaction).
All earth's life is based on proteins, which are amides.
It it survives in Cl2 then (altogether now)
"It's life Jim, but not as we know it"!
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sparkgap
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Well you're for the most part right unionised, but for all we know, there might be some archaean (I don't think we'll have any luck in
the other five phyla) who doesn't mind chlorine at all.  But my other comment
still stands. 
sparky (~_~)
"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."
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unionised
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Perhaps, in some afar away corner of the universe, some life form somewhere is saying "what! In oxygen! Don't be ridiculous- have you seen
what that stuff does to complex organic molecules?"
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12AX7
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Probably silicon based life, since oxygen and silicon get along as well as they do to form nonfunctional things. 
Tim
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sparkgap
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If some life form would have to be silicon based, there's no way oxygen wouldn't have a role. Silicon's catenation ability is sucky
compared to carbon. The Group IV elements below silicon are much worse.
BTW, this thread reminds me of the (rather crappy) movie "Evolution", where they poisoned the silicon-based invaders with Head and
Shoulders (SeS<sub>2</sub>.
sparky (^_^)
"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."
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Chris The Great
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Well our silicon-based friends could breath fluroine. SiF4 is a gas at -95.2*C, and sublimes like CO2 as well (it's melting point is -86.8*C).
Oxygen would probably have similar results on them as fluorine does on us. This would require a planet rich in fluorine however, and most of them
seem to have alot more oxygen than fluorine.
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12AX7
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| Quote: | Originally posted by sparkgap
If some life form would have to be silicon based, there's no way oxygen wouldn't have a role. Silicon's catenation ability is sucky
compared to carbon. |
True, and oxygen does allow it to chain, but it tends to form chains that don't do anything unless you're on Venus.
Tim
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chemoleo
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NO MORE OFF TOPIC PLEASE!!
This is getting out of hand, not just here but elsewhere too!
| Quote: | | Did anyone else have peculiar instances of microbial growth in the most unexpected conditions? |
That was the question. Not what grows on planet x with a fluorine atmosphere.
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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Fleaker
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Chemoleo, did you get results when you tried to culture those? Seems like anything living in those conditions would grow in anything :-)
"I was absolutely amazed by it. I now am culturing them in a separate container, lets hope they continue growing; if they do I will have a look
at them under a microscope. Pictures to follow at some point."
Forgive me if you mentioned your results already, I could not find any further info.
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chemoleo
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Well I checked.
The CuSO4 I filtered on 29/08 (using coffee filters) has now turbid micelia at the bottom, which looks a bit like white/grey algae!!
It doesnt even seem that it requires oxygen for growth as it happily grows in a closed container, on the bottom (which is in contrast to what it was
like initially, where the white colonies grew on the surface of the solution, as white colonies).
I don't think this would grow on virtually anything, more likely this is some fungus that can persist various salts but can't i.e. grow in a
nutrient rich medium, such as rotten apples etc.
Very intriguing!
Unfortuantely it also means I have to boil the CuSO4 before I can continue growing cyrstals 
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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chemoleo
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Another example
I found that fungus grows well in a saturated solution of (NH4)2Mg(SO4)2 - literally, after 2 weeks, the first colonies were floating on topf of the
solution. The respective potassium salt seemed more fungicidal.
Furthermore, and quite surprisingly as well, fungus was found on top of a (NH4)2Ni(SO4)2 solution - and NiSO4 has an evil toxic sticker on its bottle!
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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BromicAcid
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I was also under the impression that all nickel salts were toxic to living creatures, being considered carcinogenic and all. However my biochemistry
textbook has a periodic table in it, with the elements utilized by living organizms highlighted in a different color, and nickel is indeed
highlighted, I asked my teacher about it and although she did not give me any specific examples she mentioned there were organisms that did utilize
nickel in their metabolic processes. Another strange one are the animals and microbes that utilize fluorine in their diet.
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chemoleo
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Yes, check this link:
http://www.incowatch.ca/content/4-2%20Toxicology.htm
Ni isn't primarily carcinogenic, exept when inhaled.
Ni is mainly toxic because of its ability ot strongly chelate histidines, in fact this is used to in protein purification, and molecular biology:
genes are fused to the codons for 6x His, and this is enough to strongly bind to a Ni-based column. The resultant protein can be eluted with
imidazole, which essentially competes off the Ni from the His6.
Also, yes, Ni is required for an enzyme in plants.
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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Chucklz
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I've found some mold growing in a bottle Milli-Q water. I just autoclaved it and threw the whole thing out.
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Ozone
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Hi,
I seem to remember some reference (I will relocate as soon as I can) to bacteria (biofilm) occuring in reactor cores, an environment high (i mean in
excess of 10^19 n/cm2.s) in radiation, high temperature (at surfaces, in around the cited 300°C, at least), and no food (that I can see, excepting
14C, 35S from neutron activation, maybe).
Damndest thing...
Cheers,
O3
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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