CyrusGrey
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Bacteria in the stratosphere, how?
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Recently I was reading some very interesting articles on newly discovered bacteria
found in the stratosphere:
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/421CC27DDF3039A76...
http://www.livemint.com/2009/03/16225513/Indian-scientists-f...
http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/Mar16_2009.htm
Now, I have read about extremophiles before, but this is really extreme! How does
something obtain nutrients and reproduce when it is just being blown around? I'm also
wondering how these organisms resist radiation like that? Does anyone think that they
are actually extraterrestrial as was mentioned?
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chemrox
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Maybe they make a thermodynamic living off gas molecules.
"When you let the dumbasses vote you end up with populism followed by autocracy and getting back is a bitch." Plato (sort of)
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Sedit
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Extraterrestrial, doubtful, we have found bacteria living in nuclear reactors for god sake. There is so much diversity with bacteria I doubt that we
will ever find a place where they cant live given the right time to evolve to its enviroment. Keep in mind mutation is a function of generation and
many bacteria have a new generation every 20 minutes. I think given the likelyhood that because of so little to feed off of up there you will find
that these may just 'feed' off the radiation that you think should kill them. Its just a hunch but if the site your speaking of(Which i havent read
yet sorry) talks of ET orgins Im a little skeptical weather or not these even exist.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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CyrusGrey
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The articles are from:
The Press Trust of India
An affiliate of the Wall Street Journal
and from the people that did the project:
The Indian Space Research Organization
respectively.
So they are fairly respectable sources. To be fair there were only a couple comments
discussing extraterrestrial origins.
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Mr. Wizard
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They are probably blown off the surface of the ocean as sea mist, carried aloft and slowly fall back to earth, or become nuclei for raindrops or ice
crystals.
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hissingnoise
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mr. Wizard
carried aloft and slowly fall back to earth |
Curious, though, that the Indians find bacteria up there on what could be their first sojurn into space.
NASA and the Russians miss them for years and Indians find them straight away?
Hmmm. . . carried aloft???
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Sedit
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Thats something I was considering also hissing but the way I see it even if they did manage to contaminate things the bacterias resistance to UV is
still a good find. I find it a bit odd though that these bacteria have been known since a 2001 mission yet no other agency has anything to report on
and all Iv seen so far is small reports on the subject. I would really like to see some updates to this because where there is bacteria there is more
often then not some form of small ecosystem to follow. What that could be is well beyond me but it is a possibility.
| Quote: | To be fair there were only a couple comments
discussing extraterrestrial origins. |
True, I dont understand the even mention of ET origins considering this bacteria shares 98% of its DNA with its land based family so ET is pretty much
out of the question.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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hissingnoise
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Intergalactic bacterial "dark matter" sustained by "dark energy". . .who knows?
Space microscopes may be under construction as we speak!
[Edited on 20-3-2009 by hissingnoise]
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franklyn
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I have my doubts , but it's worth sharing
http://news.sky.com/story/1143906/alien-bugs-discovered-in-e...
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10321227/Alien-life...
" researchers insist they swabbed the balloon with alcohol before launch and took other precautions to prevent contamination "
My take , what about during ascent or descent. Something so small requires little static charge to stick to a dielectric like a ballon.
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bfesser
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It does sound like they're over eager to jump to the conclusion that they're personally hoping for. I'm looking forward to the published work,
though.
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Tsjerk
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In my experience an ethanol wipe is not going to do it, only autoclaving (30 minutes at 120 degrees) kills everything, and even that won't help
against spores and some thermophiles.
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mayko
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Some related reading:
Sattier, B., Puxbaum, H., & Psenner, R. (2001). Bacterial growth in supercooled cloud droplets. Geophysical Research Letters, 28(2), 239–242.
Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2000GL011684
Bowers, R. M., Lauber, C. L., Wiedinmyer, C., Hamady, M., Hallar, A. G., Fall, R., … Fierer, N. (2009). Characterization of airborne microbial
communities at a high-elevation site and their potential to act as atmospheric ice nuclei. Applied and environmental microbiology, 75(15), 5121–30.
doi:10.1128/AEM.00447-09
DeLeon-Rodriguez, N., Lathem, T. L., Rodriguez-R, L. M., Barazesh, J. M., Anderson, B. E., Beyersdorf, A. J., … Konstantinidis, K. T. (2013).
Microbiome of the upper troposphere: species composition and prevalence, effects of tropical storms, and atmospheric implications. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(7), 2575–80. doi:10.1073/pnas.1212089110
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
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pneumatician
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Bacteria??? 
https://books.google.com/books?id=S1z_LwAACAAJ&dq=The+Co...
the universe is a petri dish tight of life EVERYWHERE
[Edited on 5-2-2016 by pneumatician]
[Edited on 5-2-2016 by pneumatician]
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mayko
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related:
"Global Ramifications of Dust and Sandstorm Microbiota."
| Quote: | | Dust and sandstorm events inject substantial quantities of foreign microorganisms into global ecosystems, with the ability to impact distant
environments. The majority of these microorganisms originate from deserts and drylands where the soil is laden with highly stress-resistant microbes
capable of thriving under extreme environmental conditions, and a substantial portion of them survive long journeys through the atmosphere. This
large-scale transmission of highly resilient alien microbial contaminants raises concerns with regards to the invasion of sensitive and/or pristine
sink environments, and to human health - concerns exacerbated by increases in the rate of desertification. Further increases in the transport of
dust-associated microbiota could extend the spread of foreign microbes to new ecosystems, increase their load in present sink environments, disrupt
ecosystem balance, and potentially introduce new pathogens. Our present understanding of these microorganisms, their phylogenic affiliations and
functional significance, is insufficient to determine their impact. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of available data regarding
dust and sandstorm microbiota and their potential ramifications on human and ecosystem health. We conclude by discussing current gaps in dust and
sandstorm microbiota research, and the need for collaborative studies involving high-resolution meta-omic approaches in conjunction with extensive
ecological time-series studies to advance the field towards an improved and sufficient understanding of these invisible atmospheric travelers and
their global ramifications. |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29961874
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
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MJ101
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@mayko: You beat me to the punch. 
I've heard tell that the Sahara desert (and other deserts as well) have a micro-fine sand that can act as a transport for bacteria.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
https://massivesci.com/articles/sahara-dust-florida-bacteria...
Just a couple of examples.
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mayko
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cool; this also came out today... a good day for airborne biota, apparaently
| Quote: |
It is commonly believed that ballooning works because the silk catches on the wind, dragging the spider with it. But that doesn’t entirely make
sense, especially since spiders only balloon during light winds. (...) But Erica Morley and Daniel Robert have an explanation. The duo, who work at
the University of Bristol, has shown that spiders can sense the Earth’s electric field, and use it to launch themselves into the air.
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The upper reaches of the atmosphere have a positive charge, and the planet’s surface has a negative one. Even on sunny days with cloudless skies,
the air carries a voltage of around 100 volts for every meter above the ground. In foggy or stormy conditions, that gradient might increase to tens of
thousands of volts per meter.
Ballooning spiders operate within this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies, it typically picks up a negative charge. This
repels the similar negative charges on the surfaces on which the spiders sit, creating enough force to lift them into the air.
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| Quote: |
First, they showed that spiders can detect electric fields. They put the arachnids on vertical strips of cardboard in the center of a plastic box, and
then generated electric fields between the floor and ceiling of similar strengths to what the spiders would experience outdoors. These fields ruffled
tiny sensory hairs on the spiders’ feet, known as trichobothria. “It’s like when you rub a balloon and hold it up to your hairs,” Morley says.
In response, the spiders performed a set of movements called tiptoeing—they stood on the ends of their legs and stuck their abdomens in the air.
“That behavior is only ever seen before ballooning,” says Morley. Many of the spiders actually managed to take off, despite being in closed boxes
with no airflow within them. And when Morley turned off the electric fields inside the boxes, the ballooning spiders dropped.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/the-elec...
al-khemie is not a terrorist organization
"Chemicals, chemicals... I need chemicals!" - George Hayduke
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