Yersinia Pestis

the Guardian

Volcanic microbe eats CO2 ‘astonishingly quickly’, say scientists

Discovery of carbon-capturing organism in hot springs could lead to efficient way of absorbing climate-heating gas

A microbe discovered in a volcanic hot spring gobbles up carbon dioxide “astonishingly quickly”, according to the scientists who found it.

The researchers hope to utilise microbes that have naturally evolved to absorb CO2 as an efficient way of removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Ending the burning of fossil fuels is critical in ending the climate crisis, but most scientists agree CO2 will also need to be sucked from the air to limit future damage.

The new microbe, a cyanobacteria, was discovered in September in volcanic seeps near the Italian island of Vulcano, where the water contains high levels of CO2. The researchers said the bug turned CO2 into biomass faster than any other known cyanobacteria.

In February the team also explored hot springs in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, US, where levels of CO2 are even higher. Those results are now being analysed. The researchers said all their data on microbes would be published and made available to other scientists as a database that pairs DNA sequences with banked samples of the bacteria.

Dr Braden Tierney, at Weill Cornell Medical College and Harvard Medical School, said: “Our lead collaborator at Harvard isolated this organism that grew astonishingly quickly, compared to other cyanobacteria.”

“The project takes advantage of 3.6bn years of microbial evolution,” he said. “The nice thing about microbes is that they are self-assembling machines. You don’t have that with a lot of the chemical approaches [to CO2 capture].”

The new microbe had another unusual property, Tierney said: it sinks in water, which could help collect the CO2 it absorbs.

But the microbe was not a silver bullet, Tierney said. “There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to climate change and carbon capture. There will be circumstances where the tree is going to outperform microbes or fungi. But there will also be circumstances where you really want a fast-growing aquatic microbe that sinks,” he said. That might include large, carbon-capturing ponds, he said. The microbe might also be able to produce a useful bioplastic.

i complain alot when it comes to uni and my course, but not gonna lie, here on my final year i've started to fall in love with it again, the way the fascination started when i was younger and learning new things was exciting.

throughout learning it always felt like i was not built for it, that I just cannot for the life of me focus and dedicate myself on anything. and i was just doubting myself and i should change courses or drop out because I was not meant to do this. and now on my second last semester, things kinda clicked. It may be hard for me to understand and learn, but it's worth it. To see the universe in all of its beauty, its ugliness, its complexity, its charm; it's a struggle but I'll endure it for you.

and I find myself really hoping I get to continue down in the stream of sciences and contribute to something for nature and for humanity as well, or at least deepen my understanding of how this universe works and widen my view of how intricate and special this world we live in actually is, how caring it is, how every single thing is worth something, and nothing from nature is ever truly useless

source

Chlorociboria cup fungi and Hemitrichia decipiens slime mold by Alison Pollack

Bacterial Morphology Chart. Poster of full color micrographs depicting basic bacterial shapes and arrangements. x

motivating myself to write my paper about fungi by talking about fungi:

in Tokyo in 2010, scientists wanted to test the limits of 'brainless' organisms, especially their decision making skills, so they made a little obstacle course in a Petri dish and sent a slime mold to navigate it. they set it up with light and oats, the oats acting as goals and the lights acting as deterrents. the oats were placed in such a way that represented the major train stations in Tokyo. in LESS THAN TWO DAYS, the slime mold had perfectly navigated the obstacle course and hit all the oat stations. when the scientists compared the Petri dish patterns to the city, they noticed that the slime mold had perfectly replicated the train lines of Tokyo. in the most efficient way possible. a task which took humans FIVE YEARS to plan, design and build. slime molds do not have nervous systems, brains, or (as it was previously believed) the ability to form complex thoughts. however, these molds were able to design this system quicker and more efficiently than humans ver have. they were even able to create a path for the shortest route through an IKEA.

the whole concept that organisms other than humans are unable to make decisions or solve complex problems is incredibly outdated and should have been disproven years ago when the Great Chain of Being was first challenged, but these ideas have stuck around for hundreds of years and are only now beginning to be opposed. for years, people thought that organisms like octopi could be tested on in labs because they were unable to feel pain or form thoughts, but only now is it being discovered that octopi have huge brains and are capable of numerous skills, they can recognize people and miss them, and they have the same or even better understanding of the world around them than humans. every other organisms' intelligence has been measured against humans for so long, that the idea that other creatures may have a different way of processing information is something completely unheard of.

in conclusion: brainless fungi and molds are redefining what humans believe to be 'intelligence' by exhibiting amazing navigation of obstacle courses, problem-solving and decision-making skills.

Was watching an online Mycology lecture, blacked out and came to with this on my screen

*Cryptomycota is a phylum of the Fungi family, but honestly not explaining that kinda makes this post funnier

hi- quick question since I know you're someone who's written several papers- Do you know if you/other people who have written scientific papers are okay with emails about questions about those papers?

I'm someone who studies hyenas- amateurishly -and papers about extinct species of hyenas are really interesting to me but I can't exactly digest them very well because I don't understand the words being used. Like, what in heavens names is a 'metaconid' what does this mean!!!!!

In general authors are happy to receive such questions, but might not have enough time to give you the answer you are looking for. Still, always worth reaching out.

A metaconid is a part of a molar. But I understand this is just an example among of the general issue you are trying to illustrate. What I have learned from years of reading unfamiliar jargon, and listening to podcasts like The Tetrapod Zoology Podcast that use jargon with reckless abandon, is that in general either (a) the words that are encoded in jargon aren't *that* important to understand the grand themes of what is being discussed, or (b) their meaning can be deduced based on context cues. When I come across one that is key but really cannot be deduced, I will google it, and often Wiktionary or similar will have an answer.

The more you read, the more familiar you will get with the jargon, and the less you will need to google or ask. So, I encourage you to read broadly, and chase those interests!

Monday december 13

hello my lovelies! sorry for being so absent, the ib has been crushing me haha (laughing to avoid crying) so I have not been able to be active on social media. you know, the future doctor agenda is not quite fun if you ignored biology for three years so I hope you understand <3

school ends in 2 days (thank the gods) so I need to doooo a lot of things.

🎧 - indiana (hombres g)

📚 - chemistry textbook

THINGS I NEED TO DO FOR TOMORROW

finish my presentation of gender roles for spanish

study for my chem final

send emails to my glopol teacher

prepare my microbiology lab