Unique bacteria

Electrogenic bacteria are microorganisms that can naturally generate electricity through extracellular transference of electrons. To date, hundreds of species of electrogenic bacteria have been found, and they are everywhere, from the bottom of a lake to inside our own bodies. However, a particular bacterium of this type has unique characteristics, which have made it a great object of scientific study.Shewanella oneidensis is a bacterium discovered in the lakes of New York.[6] While most life-forms (including us) use oxygen to get energy, S. oneidensis “breathes” metal molecules such as manganese, lead, and iron, among others. For this, many of these bacteria join together and attach to the surface of rocks containing metals. Then, they release long filaments called nanowires, which they use to connect directly to the metal. In that way, the microbes transfer electrons from inside their bodies to metal molecules, and this flow of electrical current is what keeps them alive. Sometimes, S. oneidensis bacteria do the opposite and extract electrons from such metals, so they literally live on electricity.It is presumed that the nanowires of S. oneidensis allow it to conduct electricity over long distances, as well as to supply electrons to other nearby bacteria. The ability of S. oneidensis to generate electricity has aroused the interest of the scientific community. For example, some researchers are studying the potential of the bacterium to treat wastewater. Meanwhile, NASA took samples of these creatures to space to see if they can be used in the construction of future life-support systems.

A truly amazing power would be to control magnetism. Perceiving nearby magnetic fields, manipulating metal objects, and moving just by taking advantage of the Earth’s magnetic field sounds like something great but, unfortunately, far superior to human capabilities. Nevertheless, that does not mean that other living beings cannot do it, and in fact, some bacteria already have these fascinating abilities. Meet magnetotactic bacteria, the living magnets.Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are microorganisms capable of accumulating iron oxide molecules and putting them together to form small “pebbles” called magnetosomes. These magnetic granules are 100,000 times smaller than a grain of rice, and an MTB stores many of them inside. In this way, the little inner magnets allow MTBs to feel the magnetic field of the Earth and thus move toward the South Pole or the North Pole, depending on where there is more food. But that is just the beginning.As MTBs usually live in swamps and similar environments with little oxygen, the microbes must move using their flagella until finding a suitable place. But sometimes, the sediment is too dense to move through in that way, so the MTB uses its magnetosomes to gain thrust with the Earth’s magnetic field.[3] MTBs could also be true superheroes. To eliminate dangerous bacteria from the human body, scientists have learned to fill these microorganisms with magnetosomes and then kill them using something called “magnetic heat.” MTBs could provide such magnetosomes and thus help eliminate infectious viruses in large quantities.

Halomonas titanicae … because ships are delicious
The unsinkable sunk ship won’t be much more than rust scraps at the bottom of the sea in three decades’ time, thanks to a bacteria known as titanicae. The little buggers are eating away at the steel and iron, leaving behind only brass k***s and James Cameron’s visions of steamy handprints.

Wolbachia … because they make butterfly s*x exciting
A bacteria called Wolbachia gets weird when it invades go**ds of butterflies and other insects. As University of California, Santa Cruz microbiologist William Sullivan tells Inverse, the bacteria live within the cells of insects and “hang out in the centrosome.” It does amazing things, he says: “It’s like mitochondria — it’s inherited maternally, and because of that, from its perspective it has no use for males in a population. So it will kill off all the male insects or change a male to a reproductive female. Or make an insect parthenogenetic so she doesn’t have to mate.”

Gloeocapsa magma … because they can spacewalk
Bacteria spent more than a year in the harsh conditions of space and lived, a 2010 experiment that took place on the skin of the International Space Station showed. The photosynthesizing bacteria — which appear to be related to Gloeocapsa cyanobacteria, which live in protective clusters and have the remarkable ability to repair DNA — or something like them could be handy biological companions to future deep space explorers.

Modified bacterium Klebsiella Planticola, total exterminator

photo: listverse.com
The superpower of this bacterium could theoretically allow it to destroy all the plants on Earth, so perhaps a true supervillain has finally appeared on this list. Klebsiella planticola lives on the roots of almost all plants in the world. These insidious creatures are responsible for the decomposition of dead plants, and it is they who cleanse the soil of organic waste.
A German scientist once took a sample of Klebsiella planticola and altered its genetic structure in such a way that, as the plant was processed, the bacteria produced both fertilizer and ethanol. The innovators came up with the idea that a new type of bacteria could be sold for use in both agriculture and industry. The commercial benefit seemed obvious, and therefore, in the early 1990s, it was even planned to conduct field trials of modified microbes.
Fortunately, to test the effectiveness of the new Klebsiella planticola, a team of scientists from the Oregon State University (Oregon State University) first conducted a laboratory experiment. A sample of fertile and seed-enriched soil was divided into 2 parts: in one sample there were ordinary bacteria, and in the second - modified ones. The results showed that the seeds in the soil with natural bacteria developed normally, but all the seeds infected with the modified Klebsiella planticola died after a week.
As it turned out, the modified bacterium produced 17 times more ethanol than the plants could handle.In addition, plants get nutrients from the soil with the help of a fungus, but microscopic organisms with altered DNA have affected the soil in such a way that there are too many worms in it, and they destroyed all the fungus. As a result, the plants died not only from ethanol poisoning, but also from starvation.
The researchers found that, unlike other modified microbes, the modified Klebsiella planticola bacterium can survive for a very long time in almost any soil, and this is a plus, but it also poses a big threat to all plants, which is already a huge minus. That is why the new species was not interested in commercial enterprises. Presumably, if one dared to start field research, these bacteria could destroy all plants on the scale of an entire continent.

Shewanella Oneidensis, electric microbe

Photo: NASA
Electrogenic bacteria are microorganisms that can naturally produce electricity through extracellular electron transfer. To date, scientists have discovered hundreds of species of electrogenic bacteria, and they are found virtually everywhere from the bottom of lakes to even our own innards. However, one particular species of these bacteria has rather unique properties that have made it a very interesting object for scientific research.
Shewanella oneidensis is a bacterium found in New York lakes. To obtain energy, most creatures on our planet, including you and me, use oxygen, but Shewanella oneidensis “breathes” with molecules of metals such as manganese, lead, iron, and several others. To survive, these bacteria usually form groups and attach themselves to the surface of rocks with high concentrations of metals. Then they release long processes (nanofibers) and with their help directly contact the metal. In this way, microbes transfer electrons from their bodies to metal molecules, and the resulting electric current supplies them with the necessary energy. Sometimes Shewanella oneidensis behaves in the opposite way and absorbs electrons from metals, so these bacteria literally live on electricity.
Presumably, the nanofibers of these electrogenic bacteria can conduct electricity over long distances, as well as provide electrons to nearby bacteria that need them.The ability of Shewanella oneidensis to produce electricity has generated a lot of interest in the scientific community. For example, some researchers have begun to study the potential of these bacteria to clean up polluted water bodies. Experts from the NASA space agency have already sent these crumbs into orbit to see if they can be useful to us as an alternative energy source for building future life support systems outside the earth's atmosphere.

Modified E. coli, living computer

Photo: Seth Shipman
People have long been trying to find the best way to store information. Several thousand years ago, we began to share our ideas and stories through cave paintings. Then books and computers appeared, and more recently, scientists have found that it is possible to store information even in diamond crystals, but this is not the limit. The researchers are now working on integrating the data directly into bacteria. Yes, yes, some microbes are able to store texts, videos and images, while becoming a kind of living computers.
As you know, when a bacterium destroys an enemy virus, it retains in its body small fragments of the DNA of its victim. In this way, microbes learn to recognize similar threats in the future. Scientists from Harvard University decided to take advantage of this property of bacteria and grew a colony of 600,000 E. coli specifically for their new experiment. The scientists encoded an image of a human hand and a short video of a galloping horse into the strain's DNA. To activate the protective mechanism of E. coli, scientists passed an electric current through the colony, and these microbes literally absorbed man-made DNA with a hidden message.
To test if their method worked, the scientists sequenced each bacterium's new genetic code, and when they ran the entire sequence through a computer program, it decoded the data and converted it back into graphic files.Incredibly, the resulting images almost completely matched the original data with a difference of a few pixels. So far, all this may seem too complicated, but in fact, modern technologies for genome sequencing make it possible to perform all these manipulations quite simply.
By the way, this is not the first time that E. coli has played the role of a carrier of information. For example, in 2003, American scientists sewed the text of an entire song into bacterial DNA, and in 2011, Canadian writer Christian Bok encoded his poem into the DNA of a single bacterium of Escherichia coli. If you're wondering exactly what potential bacteria have, just think about the fact that 1 gram of DNA can hold 455 exabytes of information (455 billion gigabytes), which is about a quarter of all the data accumulated by humans today. Perhaps in the near future we will be able to use modified E. coli populations as personal microcomputers…