Geobacter

[Benjamin]

I was watching a show on tv recently. I can't remember the name of the show, but it was broken up into segments that focused on one item per segment. One short segment showed these large circles in the ground of a lightly forested region somewhere in Canada (it looked slightly mountainous), some of which (I think) were up to a mile in diameter. The announcer said that these circles were caused by Geobacter, a species of bacteria that creates electricity. I searched for photos of this phenomenon on the web but found no photos of Geobacter circles in the ground.

I did a search for them on the forum and found nothing, but there are six articles about them on SOTT.

Forming new circuits? Meet the electric life forms that live on pure energy

Electric life forms nourished on pure energy

Electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) shows electric charge propagating along microbial nanowires

Researchers create lamps powered by plants and bacteria to help Peruvian communities

University of Massachusetts scientists create electricity out of thin air

Electricity 'out of thin air' developed by scientist

In my online searches, I came across this short 3:59 minute video from 2018.

@0:13

This is Geobacter growing on an electrode. It's been on there for over twelve years. And all that time it's been making electricity. You can power small electronics that way- a calculator, a watch. You don't need batteries.

@1:28

We found that Geobacter produces wires. They're made out of protein but they function very much like a metallic wire that we use as our wiring in our electronics.

It eats rust- iron oxide. It uses it's electrically conductive wires to put the electrons onto that rust.

It can also use the wires to electrically communicate with other microbes.

@2:08

We'll find a lot of Geobacters in rice paddies and other environments where microorganisms use those electrons to convert carbon dioxide into methane gas, which is an important greenhouse gas. So, there may be ways to prevent that and not make free methane gas that is just released. If we could capture it, it's great. It's natural gas. So we could use that for cooking, for heating, eventually, probably, for automobiles.

I find this is an interesting comment. Geobacter live in mud without oxygen and can be found in extreme conditions like on the ocean floor. I thought of the proposed outgassing that could explain the anomaly in the South Pacific and wondered if this conversion could be a cause.

@2:34

We're really interested in the wires the Geobacter makes because we have a real emerging problem worldwide in electronic waste. Geobacter wires are the ideal component for disposable electronics. (*Geobacter wires are so small they can only be seen through electron and atomic force microscopes.*) It's a renewable, sustainable material with no toxic components. So, we can make sensors that can be implanted and the body won't reject them 'cause they're a natural protein material. We can couple Geobacter wires with the living microbe. So we can have a living system that powers itself.

I thought of Elon Musk's Neuralink with this revelation, if it works.

 

[Breo]

Fascinating! Thank you for sharing, also the articles on SOTT.