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Tag: "sulfur" at biology news

Yellowstone microbes fueled by hydrogen, according to U. of Colorado study

... research at the park,refute the popular idea that sulfur is the main source of energy fortiny organisms living in thermal features. "Itwas a surprise to find hydrogen was the main energy source for microbesin the hot springs," Pace said. "This project is also interesting inthe context of microbiology beca...

The secret lives of whales

...me of these species were remarkably similar to the sulfur loving clams, mussels and tube worms observed around hydrothermal vents. Smith immediately suspected that they might be related. Today, Smith and others have traced the succession of events that lead to these aggregations of animals. They feed these...

Family trees of ancient bacteria reveal evolutionary moves

...ajor shift in the number of organisms metabolizing sulfur and a major shift in carbon cycling. "The question is: Why?" said Blank. "My contribution is the attempt to find evolutionary explanations for these major changes. There were lots of evolutionary movements in Cyanobacteria at this time, and the bact...

Survey finds silver contamination in North Pacific waters

...llutants from the burning of coal are nitrogen and sulfur compounds that contribute to acid rain and smog. Previous studies by Flegal's group have also found high mercury levels in rainfall on the U.S. West Coast, which they linked to contamination from coal burning in Asia. "Unlike mercury, silver is not ...

Aloe vera coating may prolong freshness, safety of fruits and vegetables

...ers add. It could provide a greener alternative to sulfur dioxide and other synthetic food preservatives that are commonly used on produce and increasingly the target of health concerns, they say. Valero and his associates have filed a patent application in Spain for their gel. It could appear in the U.S. ...

India's smoking gun: Dino-killing eruptions

...ave possibly released a climate-altering amount of sulfur gases, says Chenet. An estimate of just how much gas is still being worked out. Chenet is scheduled to present the latest results of the team's work on Wednesday, 10 August, at Earth System Processes 2, a meeting co-convened by the Geological Societ...

Novel protein complex enables survival in hostile environment

...jannaschii tolerates sulfite and even uses it as a sulfur source by expressing an enzyme not seen previously. The enzyme, which is located on the cell membrane, converts toxic sulfite into sulfide, an essential nutrient of M. jannaschii. This enzyme, coenzyme F420-dependent sulfite reductase, or Fsr, "use...

Amazonian terra preta can transform poor soil into fertile

...her levels of plant-available phosphorus, calcium, sulfur and organic matter. The black soil also does not get depleted, as do other soils, after repeated use. "In other words, producing and applying bio-char to soil would not only dramatically improve soil and increase crop production, but also could prov...

GPSDB, the free Gene and Protein Synonyms DataBase

...her levels of plant-available phosphorus, calcium, sulfur and organic matter. The black soil also does not get depleted, as do other soils, after repeated use. "In other words, producing and applying bio-char to soil would not only dramatically improve soil and increase crop production, but also could prov...

Inside rocks, implications for finding life on Mars

...ition of the fossils changed; nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur were removed, leaving carbon and hydrogen. Confocal microscopy uses a focused laser beam to make the organic walls of the fossils fluoresce, allowing them to be viewed in three dimensions. The technique, first used by biologists to study the inner w...

DOE JGI finishes 100th microbial genome

...logy at Penn State University, elaborates. "Green sulfur bacteria, Chlorobi, are extremely important player...ed us to make remarkable progress in understanding sulfur and ferrous iron oxidation, carotenoid and chlorophyll biosynthesis, photosynthetic light harvesting...

Arctic expedition will investigate alien-like glacier

...plumbing system for this spring and where all this sulfur is coming from," Beauchamp said. "This is a very u...analogues sites on Earth," Berinstain said. "These sulfur springs in the Arctic may just put us one step closer to answering that age old question: are we alo...

Methane-belching bugs inspire a new theory of the origin of life on Earth

...selves, perhaps associated with catalytic iron and sulfur minerals, gave rise to the first simple biological molecules. The obstacles to this theory are the large number of steps in the biochemical cycles that have been suggested, and the staggering structural complexity of the only known enzyme complexes t...

Bacterial 'switch gene' regulates how oceans emit sulfur into atmosphere

...etermine whether certain marine plankton convert a sulfur compound to one that rises into the atmosphere, wh...e question of how these plankton are involved with sulfur exchange between the ocean and atmosphere," said Mary Ann Moran, marine microbial ecologist at the U...

Bacteria that use radiated water as food

...ter and formation of sulfate from decomposition of sulfur minerals. Hydrogen gas is highly energetic if it reacts with oxygen or other oxidants like sulfate, as the Hindenburg disaster demonstrated. Firmicutes are able to harvest energy from the reaction of hydrogen and sulfate, allowing other microbes in t...

Otherworldly bacteria discovered two miles down

... be exclusively dependent on geologically produced sulfur and hydrogen and one of the few ecosystems found o...which is known to get energy from the reduction of sulfur compounds. "We also believe that the sulfate used by these creatures is left-over from ancient g...

Electric jolt triggers release of biomolecules, nanoparticles

...electrode. The current caused the bond between the sulfur atoms and the gold platform to break, setting free the tethered molecule. In theory, the researchers said, this technique could be incorporated into a biocompatible implant chip that would release medicine inside a patient on command. Scientists ...

Ocean seep mollusks may share evolutionary history with other deep-sea creatures

...e clams, mussels and sea snails that thrive in the sulfur and methane-rich environments--are on average older than the marine mollusk community as a whole, according to a new report in the 8 September issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. On average, the first appe...

Lead with a poisonous electron shield

...on binds to four ligands, three of which involve a sulfur atom. When lead replaces zinc, it only binds to the three sulfur atoms. The reason for this is the emerging free electron pair of the lead cation. It acts as an elec...

Chemical switch triggers critical cell activities

... between two biological molecules that form when a sulfur atom on one of the molecules binds to an atom that is part of the other molecule. Understanding how the thioester bond switch works is important not only because it explains a critical step in the NEDD8 hand-off from E1 to E2, but also because en...

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