To 'breathe' in an environment without oxygen, bacteria in the ground beneath our feet depend upon a single family of proteins to transfer excess electrons, produced during the 'burning' of nutrients, to electric hairs called nanowires projecting from their surface.
This family of proteins in essence acts as plugs that power these nanowires to create a natural electrical grid deep inside the Earth, which enables many types of microbes to survive and support life, said co-senior authors of the new study Nikhil Malvankar, associate professor of Yale's Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Department and Microbial Sciences Institute, and Carlos Salgueiro, Full Professor at NOVA-FCT.
Understanding the details of this nanowire charging is important for the potential development of new energy sources and new biomaterials and its impact on the environment. Malvankar and Salgueiro note that microbes absorb 80% of methane in the ocean, a major contributor to global warming, emitted from ocean floors. However, microbes on Earth's surface account for 50% of methane emissions into the atmosphere.
A hair-like protein hidden inside bacteria serves as a sort of on-off switch for nature's 'electric grid,' a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ...
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