Virus bacteria.....hmmmm

[Chumbly]

Sounds like a something that could be useful .. like a certain lifeform on cymbaline :lol:


http://www.blastr.com/2015-1-22/scientists-discover-bacteria-survives-solely-eating-electricity

 

[Reynard]

If they feed solely on electricity, how do they acquire material for their material form? I know the Kronos could convert energy to matter but bacteria?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Sucks the energy out of you.

 

[alex_greene]

If they feed solely on electricity, how do they acquire material for their material form? I know the Kronos could convert energy to matter but bacteria?

They use the electricity the same way as other autotrophs use light: as an energy supply to fix an ambient substrate into nutrients, this being their way of using the energy they are consuming.

 

[Epicenter]

They use the electricity the same way as other autotrophs use light: as an energy supply to fix an ambient substrate into nutrients, this being their way of using the energy they are consuming.

I think that was the point - if they're using "ambient substrate" they're not surviving purely on electricity. They also require this ambient substrate (whatever it might be) to survive.

 

[alex_greene]

They use the electricity the same way as other autotrophs use light: as an energy supply to fix an ambient substrate into nutrients, this being their way of using the energy they are consuming.

I think that was the point - if they're using "ambient substrate" they're not surviving purely on electricity. They also require this ambient substrate (whatever it might be) to survive.

So do photosynthetic organisms, I might point out.

There is a difference between the energy source and the substrate. The substrate is the environmental substance which forms the nutrients and structural elements - cell membranes, lignin and cellulose for plants and so on - but the energy source (light, electricity) is that which is consumed by the autotrophs. Since none of them can literally live on light or electricity, they use the energy from the source to convert, or "fix," the local substrate into the thing they can assimilate.

Without that energy source, not all the substrate in the world can help the organism, because it cannot fix the substrate without that energy. It needs that energy source to live.

 

[Epicenter]

So do photosynthetic organisms, I might point out.

You're certainly correct.

But I've never heard that photosynthetic organisms survive on sunlight alone, either.

 

[Galadrion]

Indeed. Try growing plants without water, for instance. Even cacti don't like that.