Part of the article is about a 2015 discovery showing that at least some organisms appearing to directly ingest electrons are actually emitting enzymes that grab an electron and a proton from the environment, then consuming the resulting hydrogen (search for Spormann).
The article also mentions that there is evidence for direct electron transfer, but it is yet unpublished.
Haha, not even close. Besides the obvious low pressure issues with surviving in a vacuum that cause the membrane to become permeable, "electricity" doesn't replace all metabolism for these organisms.
They still need a source of the common and rare elements required for life (CNOP + several metal cations), a pool of hydrogen, carbon electron donors, and water. Basically on par with stuff that most microbes are going to use.
They use electricity as their energy source, but they still need a source of matter from which to synthesize their biomass. Just like plants derive energy from light, but they still need to take up water and CO2 to synthesize glucose with that energy.
Separating the concept of an energy source from a source of biomass is difficult for us humans because everything we eat supplies both in roughly equal measure, but there are many examples of organisms that use different sources for their energy and their biomass.
That seems an unreasonably high bar though. I mean, photosynthesizing life "lives off the sun", but nobody challenges it by putting a tomato plant into a vacuum :p
> Thus far, whenever scientists search for these electron eaters in the right locations — places that have lots of minerals but not a lot of oxygen — they find them.
Sounds like they expect them to need some oxygen or other gasses.
Well your red blood cells, some retina and renal cells, and most cancerous cells also either thrive (or at least do much better) on fermentation aka non-respiration..
Imagine if we created an organism that could live in the vacuum of space as comfortable as being on the surface of a planet. It would revolutionize our ideas of space exploration and colonization.
Also, I imagine there's some skepticism here. If they lived in a vacuum that means there was nothing else they could live off and they truly are eating electricity. We also live in the age of "viral scholarship" where a lot of shoddy science gets paraded around for status seeking universities and researchers. Remember how skeptics of the FTL claim from those Italians were shot down on these forums and reddit? Skeptics shouldn't be automatically punished. If anything, we need skepticism more than ever.
If these microbes eat hydrogen then would they not equally be present and more common upon say a rusty electrode as more hydrogen produced via chemical reactions with the water.
So I wonder if we have yet to find there niche environment
Electron direct ingestion gives them an survival edge in harsh environment, but that does not represent at the same time a clear advantage in the normal environment, full of bacteria-eating organisms.
Very true and in such environments they may well be out competed, though with microbe it ends up feeding into a food chain and with that thought, I wonder what the food chain for these microbe are and if they have anything that feeds of them. Or is this a whole new level of microbe or are we just rediscovering something that naturally occurs and was more prevalent in the past due to competition being less evolved. SO may be that we are with that creating the perfect conditions and in a way that gives them momentum to accumulate to something noticeable and that may well explain why slow growing, may well be low survival rate and only in such rich environments for them that they thrive of any note.
So still much to learn but at least we have a direction to look at as now we are aware of them. After all we do seek out new life and try to understand them, which is great.
I think they would need free electrons as the result of a chemical reaction, not just a voltage? For an organism to make use of a high voltage, it would need to physically connect to a lower voltage and allow current to flow, which is not possible for a microorganism that small given that the high voltage lines are isolated by several feet.
Trees evolving the ability to grow taller left large forests of dead lignin (tree trunks) lying around with no natural bacteria to decompose it. It's similar to our modern landfills and plastic patches in the ocean. Eventually life finds a way to use it.
I don't remember much from my biology class but I seem to remember nearly all life utilizes some ATP cycle. Plants get it from the sun, animals from food, etc. I'm curious to know if this electic life is still ATP based and just utilizes free electrons to create it.
While this entire thread is probably not considered relevant, "pika pika" or "pika-pi" are common quotes from Pikachu[1], arguably the most popular Pokemon.
The grandparent's comment is "relevant" because a pikachu is an Electric-type Pokemon. It can attract/store large quantities of electrons, and also repel/release large quantities of electrons.
While pikachus do eat other food, fruits/Poke-food/etc, it is unclear if they need a source of electrons to sustain themselves. They may just pull the needed electrons out of the their surroundings. However, I seem to recall an episode where Pikachu was sick due to a prolonged lack of access to a large current source.
I knew what he meant. I was pointing out a similar sounding phenomenon which includes the consumption of "metal (metallophagia); stones (lithophagia) or earth (geophagia);". It was just a play on words, which I had hoped the ";)" would reflect
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25894-meet-the-electr...