New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity | Hacker News Reader

New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity

quantamagazine.org

422 pointsaethertap43 comments

If I'm not mistaken it's not like just-now new, but of course still fascinating and relatively new. Just from a quick search:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25894-meet-the-electr...

Part of the article is about a 2015 discovery showing that at least some organisms appearing to directly ingest electrons are actually emitting enzymes that grab an electron and a proton from the environment, then consuming the resulting hydrogen (search for Spormann).

The article also mentions that there is evidence for direct electron transfer, but it is yet unpublished.

Can we get an experiment done immediately to see if they will survive off of the electricity inside a vacuum?

Why?

Seriously. What's the potential gain? Layman asking.

No respiration. You cut the current metabolism pathway down to absorbing electrons.

It would be revolutionary.

> No respiration. > revolutionary.

Well your red blood cells, some retina and renal cells, and most cancerous cells also either thrive (or at least do much better) on fermentation aka non-respiration..

Experiment control. Eliminate other factors other than the electrons.

Imagine if we created an organism that could live in the vacuum of space as comfortable as being on the surface of a planet. It would revolutionize our ideas of space exploration and colonization.

Also, I imagine there's some skepticism here. If they lived in a vacuum that means there was nothing else they could live off and they truly are eating electricity. We also live in the age of "viral scholarship" where a lot of shoddy science gets paraded around for status seeking universities and researchers. Remember how skeptics of the FTL claim from those Italians were shot down on these forums and reddit? Skeptics shouldn't be automatically punished. If anything, we need skepticism more than ever.

How would they repair themselves and reproduce without access to nutrients?

I see what you did there! Potential! Ahahaha!

Yes I... totally did that on purpose...

> Thus far, whenever scientists search for these electron eaters in the right locations — places that have lots of minerals but not a lot of oxygen — they find them.

Sounds like they expect them to need some oxygen or other gasses.

Haha, not even close. Besides the obvious low pressure issues with surviving in a vacuum that cause the membrane to become permeable, "electricity" doesn't replace all metabolism for these organisms.

They still need a source of the common and rare elements required for life (CNOP + several metal cations), a pool of hydrogen, carbon electron donors, and water. Basically on par with stuff that most microbes are going to use.

The metallic reduction reaction that the first species discussed uses: https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Dissimilatory_metal...

And for the second, which absorbs Hydrogen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenotroph

This is a cool area of research, but everyone seems to have fundamentally overestimated what it means to the lay person.

They use electricity as their energy source, but they still need a source of matter from which to synthesize their biomass. Just like plants derive energy from light, but they still need to take up water and CO2 to synthesize glucose with that energy.

Separating the concept of an energy source from a source of biomass is difficult for us humans because everything we eat supplies both in roughly equal measure, but there are many examples of organisms that use different sources for their energy and their biomass.

That seems an unreasonably high bar though. I mean, photosynthesizing life "lives off the sun", but nobody challenges it by putting a tomato plant into a vacuum :p

If these microbes eat hydrogen then would they not equally be present and more common upon say a rusty electrode as more hydrogen produced via chemical reactions with the water.

So I wonder if we have yet to find there niche environment

Electron direct ingestion gives them an survival edge in harsh environment, but that does not represent at the same time a clear advantage in the normal environment, full of bacteria-eating organisms.

Very true and in such environments they may well be out competed, though with microbe it ends up feeding into a food chain and with that thought, I wonder what the food chain for these microbe are and if they have anything that feeds of them. Or is this a whole new level of microbe or are we just rediscovering something that naturally occurs and was more prevalent in the past due to competition being less evolved. SO may be that we are with that creating the perfect conditions and in a way that gives them momentum to accumulate to something noticeable and that may well explain why slow growing, may well be low survival rate and only in such rich environments for them that they thrive of any note.

So still much to learn but at least we have a direction to look at as now we are aware of them. After all we do seek out new life and try to understand them, which is great.

So what if life hasn't evolved yet to feed off of our power lines, but the potential for it to happen is there?

Extremophiles have evolved and live around volcanic vents, so I wouldn't put it past nature.

I think they would need free electrons as the result of a chemical reaction, not just a voltage? For an organism to make use of a high voltage, it would need to physically connect to a lower voltage and allow current to flow, which is not possible for a microorganism that small given that the high voltage lines are isolated by several feet.

Cool concept for a GMO electro-snake though.

Yah, I think they feed off ions, not voltage.

There are similarities, but they are not the same.

Trees evolving the ability to grow taller left large forests of dead lignin (tree trunks) lying around with no natural bacteria to decompose it. It's similar to our modern landfills and plastic patches in the ocean. Eventually life finds a way to use it.

I don't remember much from my biology class but I seem to remember nearly all life utilizes some ATP cycle. Plants get it from the sun, animals from food, etc. I'm curious to know if this electic life is still ATP based and just utilizes free electrons to create it.

A recent episode of Limitless (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5146006/) had this as a subplot.

Although it wasn't really explained or explored.

I really wanted that series to be as good as the movie. Has it picked up lately?

Unfortunatley not. The season ending was very disappointing.

I thought it was great near the end, but it never really resolved anything, too many hanging plots.

For me is better than the movie...

Not really, it's canceled.

Ok good riddance then. Maybe a second movie will come out.

I thought the same thing! I loved this series. So annoying it got canceled.

my breakfast this morning basically consisted of electrons

They have electrolytes!

Layman here...Is it possible life could likely live in the emptiness space as well then?

pika pika

Perhaps you meant pica? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder) ;)

While this entire thread is probably not considered relevant, "pika pika" or "pika-pi" are common quotes from Pikachu[1], arguably the most popular Pokemon.

The grandparent's comment is "relevant" because a pikachu is an Electric-type Pokemon. It can attract/store large quantities of electrons, and also repel/release large quantities of electrons.

While pikachus do eat other food, fruits/Poke-food/etc, it is unclear if they need a source of electrons to sustain themselves. They may just pull the needed electrons out of the their surroundings. However, I seem to recall an episode where Pikachu was sick due to a prolonged lack of access to a large current source.

[1] http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pikachu_(Pok%C3%A9mon...

I knew what he meant. I was pointing out a similar sounding phenomenon which includes the consumption of "metal (metallophagia); stones (lithophagia) or earth (geophagia);". It was just a play on words, which I had hoped the ";)" would reflect

pikaaaaaaa

Probably not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu

Another item to add to the list of things/ideas explored by Star Trek before being discovered/invented.

A somewhat related and interesting read: http://www.physicscentral.com/buzz/blog/index.cfm?postid=792...

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