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from the So-they-feed-off-Jumpin'-Jack-Flash? dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Scientists at Caltech and Occidental College have discovered a methane-fueled symbiosis between worms and bacteria at the bottom of the sea, shedding new light on the ecology of deep-sea environments.
They found that bacteria belonging to the Methylococcaceae family have been hitching a ride on the feathery plumes that act as the respiratory organs of Laminatubus and Bispira worms. Methylococcaceae are methanotrophs, meaning that they harvest carbon and energy from methane, a molecule composed of carbon and hydrogen.
The worms, which are a few inches long, have been found in great numbers near deep-sea methane seeps, vents in the ocean floor where hydrocarbon-rich fluids ooze out into the ocean, although it was unclear why the worms favored the vents. As it turns out, the worms slowly digest the hitchhiking bacteria and thus absorb the carbon and energy that the bacteria harvest from the methane.
[...] "These worms have long been associated with seeps, but everyone just assumed they were filter-feeding on bacteria. Instead, we find that they are teaming up with a microbe to use chemical energy to feed in a way we hadn't considered," says Victoria Orphan, James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology and co-corresponding author of a paper on the worms that was published by Science Advances on April 3.
Orphan and her colleagues made the discovery during research cruises to study methane vents off the coast of Southern California and Costa Rica.
Journal Reference: Shana K. Goffredi et al. Methanotrophic bacterial symbionts fuel dense populations of deep-sea feather duster worms (Sabellida, Annelida) and extend the spatial influence of methane seepage, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay8562
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday April 08 2020, @12:50PM
I know NASA has experimented with hydrogen-eating bacteria for fast food production in space, and there's even some startup that's running with the technology to produce protein and carbohydrate "flours", as well as an alternative to palm oil.
All great to see - if we can efficiently produce such staples from bacteria it has the potential to both reduce our agricultural impact, as well as providing much greater food security - if a blight wipes out 90% of your wheat crop you've got a real problem on your hands until the next season's crop has a chance to mature. If it wipes out 90% of your "flour" bacteria... it may take a few days to grow the survivors back to their original numbers.
And of course, both efficiency and reliability are even more important in space.
But I wonder if perhaps using some of these methane-eaters would be an even more valuable asset for a Mars colony that's already producing methane to fuel the rockets back to Earth. Being able to turn rocket fuel into food on demand would seem to be an incredible asset toward establishing a minimum baseline self-sufficiency. Sure, you could produce hydrogen some other way, possibly even from the methane - but more steps means more things that can go wrong. Dissolving rocket fuel directly into your food vats is about as simple as it gets. And if you've got twice as many methane synthesis machines to fuel both the rockets and the farms, then you've got far more redundancy and flexibility.
Of course algae farms remove your need for an energy source as well, and with luck could even be grown in little more than transparent "balloons" on the surface, though solar concentrators and light-pipes could allow for dense indoor farms as well. But production is going to drop precipitously during the potentially months-long dust storms, so an alternative could be incredibly valuable. Even if it comes down to deciding between starving and missing the next return flight window because you ate too much of your fuel stockpile - I'd much rather have that option than NOT have it.