WEBVTT - Electric Microbe Land 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:14.080 I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.279 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.599 I'm Joe McCormick. Can we figured we'd start off today 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.760 talking about our favorite electricity monsters. Robert, what's your favorite 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.440 electricity monster? Oh? You know, my, my, my, just gut 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.960 instinct answers to go with Blanca from Street Fighter. You know, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.280 he's the green skinned and I was, I was. I 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:33.880 looked into this a little bit. I was never sure 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:38.400 why he had green skin. Apparently some alleged backstory involving 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.040 chlorophyll um, but I don't know. It ends up with 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.160 he's like a beast creature, a beast man with green 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.880 skin and like bright orange hair, wearing board shorts, wearing 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.040 board shorts and just kind of doing this this, this 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:57.000 kind of hulking, uh pose bent over, and then he 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.560 can produce electricity. Basically has the powers since he's kind 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.200 of been kind of a you know, a mildum of 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.720 various Amazonian things. He has the powers of an electric eagle, 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.160 and so he can shock his opponents that way. That's 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.360 a good one. Uh. There there are a few really 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.000 good electricity movies. By really good, I mean really bad 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.080 from the nineteen eighties and nineties. Did you ever see 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.959 the Pulse? I don't think I ever did. I think 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.480 there was another horror movie called Pulse, which was about 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.360 something else. So this one was about. Uh, it's like 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.200 some family living in a house and like a regular 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.920 suburban neighborhood in California in the nineteen eighties, and an 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.440 evil burst of electricity goes throughout goes out through the mains. Uh. 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.840 I don't remember if there's like an evil storm or 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.240 like an alien arrives or something. But for some reason, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.360 there's this pulse of of killer electricity and it goes 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.440 into their house and it turns all the appliances against them, 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.520 so the TV starts trying to kill him and everything, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.840 a real maximum over drive scenario. But it's like it's 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.400 sold as like the the malevolence is delivered to actually 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.720 through the electrical wires the wrong voltage or something. Yeah, 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.040 I guess. So, yeah, I was thinking about this, like, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.679 what are some other examples of electric creatures or humanoids? 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.440 And I mean, obviously I thought of of of electric 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:19.000 Christopher Lambert from from Mortal Kombat another fighting game. Yeah, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.440 but but so many, so often is the case you 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.760 see individuals with some sort of pyrotechnic mobility, you know. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.239 Like one of a film that we've talked about before 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.320 has been the Toby Hooper film, in which Brad Dorriff 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.800 played a like a pyromaniac who could catch things on 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.920 fire with his brain. He's got like like pyro kinesis, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.560 but he doesn't want it. He's not like a you know, 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.440 a villain out there like Piro and the X Men, 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.280 just throwing fireballs wherever he wants. It's more like every 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.240 he's kind of like the Hulk. He's like fire Hulk. 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.600 Every time he gets upset, he starts catching things on fire. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.280 But he also like burns the heck out of himself too, 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:59.720 which wasn't a nice twist. And of course Brad Dorriff 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.520 is wonderful and in that film there are at least 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.040 portions of it where he's it's it's a rare film 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.040 or Brad Dorriff is the lead and he's sort of 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.920 playing a regular human in some of the scenes. So 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.480 it's interesting to see. But but so often is the 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.400 case you see fire based powers in these characters and 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.320 creatures as opposed to electric based powers. And it's kind 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.520 of weird when you think about it, because, as we'll 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:28.680 discussing this episode, electricity is more tied in with biology 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.679 than fire. And even from the human perspective perspective, you 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.000 know who among us has not harnessed the power of 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.640 electricity by by walking across a carpeted floor in the 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.520 wintertime and then shocking somebody with a touch. You do 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.240 that on purpose? I have in the past done it 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.560 on purpose. Yes, yeah, but it's pretty not announce of 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.720 guilt on your face. Well, one of one of the 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.240 things I do like to do when it gets cold, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.200 when the conditions are just right, have my son go 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.240 down a curly slide, build up static electricity and then 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.000 give me a high. I've on the way down, and 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.280 at times it has been stiff enough to like leave 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.120 a numbness in my hands, like when you feel it 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.840 in your wrist kind of in the bone. That's creepy, 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.520 real shocking power. I don't know if there's ever been 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:19.360 like an actually really scary electricity monster movie. The other 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:20.880 main one I was thinking of is one of my 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.919 favorite cheesy mid mid career West Craven movies, which is shocker. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.800 I think that's from nineteen or so, and it's got 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.839 Mitch Poleggi or Poleggi, the guy who plays Skinner on 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.919 the X Files. Uh, he plays the villain. He's like 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.920 a serial killer who does some like evil black magic 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:42.440 ritual to turn himself into electricity after he gets killed 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.640 in the electric chair. That's right. I remember saying I 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.520 never saw it, but I remember seeing the boxes for it, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.000 and he's in an electric chair on the You should 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.080 see it sometime. It's a laugh riot and he's Oh, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.760 he's just like acting, I mean, beat galaxies beyond normal 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.640 levels of acting is uh. Would you say it's an 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.320 electric performance? I would say he is a live wire. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.560 But yeah, So I think you're right about the idea 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:12.800 that maybe electric monsters should be more biologically intuitive than 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.880 pyrokinetic or fire throwing monsters or even fire breathing dragons, 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.560 because you know, it shouldn't come as any surprise that 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.920 the use of electricity by living organisms predates the technological 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.120 uses predates you know, Tesla and medicine or even Franklin 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.080 and Galvani and all that, Like all kinds of animals 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.040 use electricity in various ways. Now they're the really noticeable 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.640 charismatic uses of electricity, like how sharks and rays have 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:43.240 electro sensory organs known as the ampullae of Lorenzini, which 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.560 they used to sense very faint electric currents transmitted through 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.760 water by potential prey animals. And then you've got the 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:55.320 electrogenic organisms that like generally aquatic organisms that emit strong 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.760 electric currents, maybe too stun prey or two deploys a 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.880 defensive weapon. And these would include things like electric fish, 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.800 electric catfish, and raise. Yeah. Yeah, the electric eel is 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.440 certainly the electric animal par excellence. Uh, though it's always 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.400 worth reminding everyone, and it's not really an eel. It 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.719 has more it's more related to a catfish. Oh, I 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:17.599 don't think I knew that. Well, I didn't know they 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.040 were electric catfish, but I didn't know the eel was one, right, Yeah, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:22.880 I mean you look at it, if you you know, 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.920 fortunate enough to see one in a tank somewhere or 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.280 in the wild, Uh, you know you're gonna notice that 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.320 it doesn't really look like an eel. It's uh, it's 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:33.440 it's it's a very curious looking creature. Have you ever 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.800 seen a de fleshed eel skull. Oh, I don't know 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.440 that I have it is one of them. Is usually 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.560 don't leave them on when I go sushi. You should. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.720 You should look up an eel skull. Sometimes it might 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.800 be different for different species, but at least some eel 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.480 skulls are like the most metal thing in nature. It's amazing. 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.719 But anyway, we today we wanted to to think about 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:58.719 electric organisms. But instead of focusing on these larger organisms 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.680 that use electricity, may be in a sensory capacity or 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.080 as a weapon of some sort, we wanted to go 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.880 down to zoom in with the microscope and to take 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.360 a look at the world of micro organisms that deal 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.760 in the currency of the Holy fire, the amber, the electricity. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:17.920 So I just wanted to start by saying by giving 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:19.760 a shout out that I got the idea to do 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.240 this episode after I read a really interesting article a 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.400 couple of weeks ago in the New York Times by 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.880 previous Stuff to blow your mind. Guest Carl Zimmer, Oh, yes, yeah, 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.080 that was a tremendous episode. It was great to chatting 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:32.840 with him. I'd love to have him back on the show. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.600 Sometimes we should see about that if we get him 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.400 back on the show, then he becomes a friend of 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.760 the show. That's the way it works two appearances. Two 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:40.640 appearances make you a friend of the show, so just 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.880 one is previous guest. I almost said friend of the show, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:44.920 but I didn't want to presume. I think those are 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:49.080 the rules. Yes, uh so, of course electricity. You know, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.800 it's generally thought of as the flow of electrons. You 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:54.880 might have other ways of defining it. You could maybe 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.920 define it other ways in terms of electrical potential, like 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:00.800 a positive or negative charge. But generally you've got current. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.320 If you've got electrons flowing that, you think of that 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:07.480 as some form of electricity. And there are ways in 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:12.120 which the metabolism of our bodies could be considered electric. 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:17.440 For example, what is actually happening when we breathe. I 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.320 don't know if I've ever thought of it quite this 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.560 way before, but I was reading an article in New 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.600 Scientists from July which quotes the U c l A 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:30.360 microbiologists Kenneth Nielsen in characterizing the most basic biochemistry of 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:34.560 life as a flow of electrons. So basically, think about 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.079 it like this. You eat carbon based compounds, you take 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.360 in that chemical energy, and that's gonna be molecules like sugars, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.440 and these molecules, these carbon based compounds like sugars, have 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:50.120 excess electrons, and then cells in the body break down 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.000 those compounds and they pass on the extra electrons through 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.720 a series of chemical reactions that power the body, and 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.839 part by making a dinascene triphosphate or a t P, 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:04.520 which is the chemical energy transport molecule that that captures 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.120 the energy obtained through the breakdown of food and then 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.400 uses it to power things that happen inside ourselves. I've 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:15.000 I've sometimes seen a TP characterized as an energy storage molecule, 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:16.800 but that's not quite right. That would be more like 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.959 fats or sugars or something. A TP is like it's 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.360 like a car for energy, you know, it carries it 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.720 from one place to another in the cell. And apparently 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.319 the flow of electrons is an indispensable part of making 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.360 that a TP that powers our cells. But eventually the 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.120 extra electrons, since they're flowing, they've got to go somewhere 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.520 at the end of this chain of chemical reactions. You 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.080 can't just keep building up extra electrons in the body 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.800 until you become a humanliding jar or you become the 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.840 guy from Shocker, and you just electrocute people by touching them. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.320 So you have to pass on the electrons onto a 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.040 molecule that will accept them. And in our case, that 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.640 molecule is oxygen. You breathe in the oxygen, and that 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.079 oxygen we breathe in goes around to the body, to 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.480 the cells, and it accepts those extra electrons that are 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.040 the waste product of our metabolism. Uh, and it bonds 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.920 with carbon molecules and then you breathe out this waste 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.120 product as CEO two. And to quote from this researcher 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.920 Kenneth Nielsen, as as quoted in in New Scientists, that's 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:18.960 the way we make all our energy, and it's the 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.120 same for every organism on this planet. Electrons must flow 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.679 in order for energy to be gained. This is why 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.520 when someone suffocates another person, they're dead within minutes. You 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.480 have stopped the supply of oxygen, so the electrons can 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.679 no longer flow. So choking somebody is kind of like 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.720 it's like putting a resistor in the electric circuit. That's interesting. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:41.120 I mean this is all getting down to the fact 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.120 that we're all essentially bioelectric organisms. Yeah, that's exactly right, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.200 and it's not just us like this is basically the 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.880 rule for all kinds of life forms, from humans to 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.280 coconut crabs to lots of single celled organisms. Pretty much 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:59.000 every organism needs to create an electron flow by taking 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.200 in food with that excess electrons and then running that 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.560 through a series of chemical reactions to extract usable energy 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.240 for cells, and then dumping those electrons out into some 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:14.160 kind of electron accepting waste bucket like oxygen molecules. And 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.000 this is even true for bacteria, where for many species 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.480 oxygen must be present as this terminal receptor for the 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.480 electrons at the end of the metabolic line. But there 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.720 are some prokaryotic organisms, single celled organisms that can't or 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.319 don't use oxygen, and these are known as anaerobic bacteria, 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.560 and they live in places where oxygen doesn't reach or 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.319 where oxygen is very limited. And the examples of this 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.080 might be places like deep in the sediment along a river, 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.000 or buried in a sea bed, or even ever a 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.439 deep underground in oil wells. I mean, try to imagine 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.360 that that far underground, that like life is thriving in 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.079 some way. We've also talked about them thriving in some 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.839 human created sewer environments. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, all all 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.520 these environments, especially these environments that are cut off from 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.640 the surface by by mud or sediment or even by 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.160 vast expanses of dead rock. So if the electrons have 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.400 to flow for life to go on, how do these 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:21.440 anaerobic bacteria survive without oxygen molecules to accept the excess 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.959 electrons at the end of the metabolism and basically to 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.240 breathe out. How you know, where do the electrons go 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.160 when they're done with them? So here's where we get 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.440 to a bacterial discovery story. So in the mid nineteen eighties, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.120 I think around nineteen seven, the American microbiologist Derek Lovely 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.720 was out pulling up samples of sediment from the Potomac River. 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.160 And one of these samples from the Potomac River, it 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.280 was around Washington, d C contained one of these weird 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.520 single celled organisms. It was a bacterium called geo bacter 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:59.880 Metalla reducens. And like other bacteria, this bacterium would be 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.960 again the electron flow of its metabolism by consuming organic 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.600 compounds that have excess electrons, for example, ethanol, which is alcohol. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.320 So there's some ethanol in its environment, it can eat that, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.720 but it would end its metabolism by passing the excess 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.040 electrons off into iron oxides, which are rust. So this 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.000 is a life form that can survive by eating grain 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.319 alcohol and breathing out rusty iron. Yeah. I've read and 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.560 lovely um some some of his papers that when they're 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.160 working within the lab they essentially just feeded vinegar. Yeah, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:37.160 that's that's all it requires. Wow. So if you have 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.080 to breathe out into rusty iron, would you rather survive 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.760 by eating only grain alcohol or by eating only vinegar? Um? 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.559 I feel like vinegar from for me, vinegar would probably 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.680 be healthier for you. For me, that's my personal choice. 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.960 But I am I'm not a microbe. So just as 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.480 an interesting side note, in this process, the bacteria Karl 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:04.040 Zimmern the Sinness article. The bacteria help transform the regular 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.160 old iron oxides, the rust particles in their environment into 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.240 the naturally fair magnetic mineral known as magnetite. So that's like, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.400 you know, the strong natural magnetic rock you might find 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.240 in sediments around the world, and these bacteria helped produce 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:23.680 that magnetite by by by pushing off these electrons into it, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.280 which sort of magnetizes it. Now we've been speaking kind 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:31.120 of metaphorically by calling this bacterial process breathing, because it's 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.600 not breathing in the exact same way we do. Like, 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.680 the bacteria don't have respiratory systems with lungs and alveola 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.640 and all that. We breathe by sucking in oxygen and 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.520 then transporting it around our bodies to the cells where 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.280 it needs to go, and then breathing out the molecular 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.720 waste products of our metabolism through the same gas exchange 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.440 system in the lungs. But the bacteria don't have lungs, 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.920 They don't suck rust particles into the body to allow 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.080 the electrons to attach to them. Uh, and so what's 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:04.880 going on there? Like according to Carl Zimmer's article, it 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.080 took Lovely and his colleague Dr. John Stoltz in their 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:12.280 labs years to figure out how this respiration process was 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.080 taking place. And what they discovered was that instead of 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.680 like sucking in the rust particles and breathing them out, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:25.960 Geobacter exhaled by putting out electric wires. Yeah, this is amazing. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.680 And of course, when we're saying wires we're talking about 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.640 micro filaments. Yeah, but they do, in a way function 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.200 like electric wires. I mean, they're they're conductive. They are long, 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:41.040 filamentous kind of conductive material that is there to transmit 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.640 a flow of electrons between potentials. So you've got to 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.400 build up of electrons as a waste product in the bacterium, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.360 and then you've got a lower potential thing out there 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.440 that can accept them, like maybe a deposit of iron oxide, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.680 and you pump the electrons out through this wire to 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.360 the iron oxide outside the cell. Yeah, and we're these 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.120 things are tiny too. We're talking about like three nanometers 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:09.320 in diameter. Yeah, extremely too. Though they can get pretty long. Yeah, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.920 we can get pretty long in some cases. And then 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.360 we'll get into other species later. But there are species 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:20.040 with with with larger filaments. Yeah. Uh So, when you're 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.280 a geobacter and you since the presence of iron oxide 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.360 and your surroundings, basically what it seems like you do 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.600 is you sprout out these microscopic little filaments, each one 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.200 known as a pealis plural peely and bacterial peely are 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.240 fascinating in other respects too, because, for one thing, they 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.640 play a role in the bacterial process known as horizontal 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.800 gene transfer, and we've done a podcast on this before. 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.920 This is a really interesting phenomenon. Basically, bacteria, they don't 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.960 have sex in the way that like sexually reproducing eukaryotic 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.760 animals do. Write they reproduce a sexually, meaning they make 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.560 act copies of themselves in a process called binary fission. 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.280 They split off and create two daughter cells, not by 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.520 mating with other individuals and combining their DNA to create 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.080 an ad mixed offspring. But despite this, despite them not 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:19.040 having sexual reproduction, bacteria do engage in something kind of 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.800 like sex, and this is this process of horizontal gene 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.880 transfer where bacteria can meet up and share genetic material 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.680 between one another. And this doesn't always work out great 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:32.480 for us, because, for example, it is one of the 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:37.159 main methods by which bacteria acquire d NA for antibiotic resistance. 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.680 We just did an episode of our other podcast, Invention, 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.960 about the invention of antibiotics, and antibiotics are a you know, 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.040 a miraculous invention of the twentieth century, but one of 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.479 the big problems with them is that over time, the 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:56.000 diseases that we're fighting get better at overcoming these medicines. Yeah, 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:57.119 I think. I think the way we put it in 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.639 that episode is with with penicilla and and other antibiotics, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.840 we're stealing a weapon from the you know, the eons 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:10.720 old war between a fungi and bacterium and uh, and 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.520 when we've stole the weapon, but the but the war 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.040 continues on and the the the the evolution of their 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:21.240 warfare continues, and in the way we use the fungal 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:26.520 weapon sort of accelerates the arms race, like provoked. It's 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.280 in a Cold war style, like provokes the other side 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.320 to uh make go with a with a build up, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.480 you know, an arms build up, when that seems to 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.119 be what's happening on the bacterial side. Now we stole 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:42.000 like a fungal catapult. But now we're quickly advancing into 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.080 the age of where a fungal tribute SHA would be 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.800 a more appropriate that's right. We have to find those 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.920 those fungal tributes or develop them ourselves. I hope we do. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.440 But for the but for the bacteria to share their 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.320 own tribute shape plans. What one of the things they 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:03.200 do is this horizontal transfer process. Specifically this process known 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.840 as conjugation, where to bacteria meet up and they're like, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.080 let's hook up, and they extend a peliss between the 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.600 donor bacterium and the recipient bacterium, and this little hair 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.680 like filament hooks them together so they can share. Plasmids, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.800 which are little segments of DNA, and peely also enhance 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.360 the virulence of bacteria by helping them bind two cells 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.679 in the host body. And this is the case in 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:31.640 disease causing strains of bacteria like Streptococcus or an e. Coli. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.600 The plist can kind of hook them onto the cells 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.480 lining your the inside of your throat or in your gut, 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.919 or wherever it is they're trying to infect. But in 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.080 the case of Geobacter, the researchers who worked with Geobacter 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.200 originally concluded that the peely we're being used for another 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:52.720 purpose entirely, and that purpose was the off routing of 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:58.600 electricity into electro receptive molecules in the environment. So to 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.000 picture this as a again this is going to be 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.000 a very crude metaphor, but imagine if you were to 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:09.280 breathe instead of by sucking oxygen into your lungs and 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.680 exhaling CEO two, by shooting electric wires out of your 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.040 mouths into the environment, which would then attach to the 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.119 toaster and the TV and pour waste electricity out of 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.440 your lungs into those appliances. Oh that's pretty good. That 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:27.800 sounds like a good electric alien creature for a future 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.119 film or a past film. I mean done. Yeah, I 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.840 mean I can imagine Dan Ackroyd playing a character that 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.399 does this. Uh, you know, back in the nineties or so. Oh, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.240 you know they're one of those nineties like a kind 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.960 of grimy computer monster movies. What was that one that 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.720 Jamie Lee Curtis was in about like a killer computer 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.160 virus that like just puts gross wires everywhere. Oh yeah, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.400 this was I think Donald Sutherland was in it. Yeah, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.520 it's not a ship or something. It was really bad. 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:56.560 It was like a sort of it was kind of 0:20:56.560 --> 0:21:00.000 a take on the thing, but with this this cybernetic 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.600 blend of like wires and flesh. Uh. Yeah, it's like 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.840 a computer virus that decides that Earth is that the 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.520 humans are a pathogen and the virus, I think pathogeny. 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.480 It's called virus. Yeah. And I should note as a 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:16.560 as a follow up to what I was just saying 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.760 about the bacterial peely, it's not fully settled whether the 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.200 geobacter actually use peely as their electric wires, or whether 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.240 they use peely exclusively. Karl Zimmer's article notes that the 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:34.360 Yale physicist and Nikkil S. Malvankar and colleagues believe that 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:39.240 instead the bacteria use dedicated wires made out of organic 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:43.640 compounds called cytochromes. But the fact that Geobacter does pump 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.480 electrons out through biological wires of some sort doesn't seem 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.359 to be in dispute. It's just there are different ideas 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.200 about to what extent they're using different structures as the wires. 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:54.879 All right, on that note, we're going to take a 0:21:54.920 --> 0:22:01.240 quick break, but we'll be right back. All right, we're back. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.600 So we've been talking about the idea of electroactive bacteria, 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:11.720 bacteria that in some metaphorical since, breathe by releasing excess 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.760 electrons that are the the end product of their metabolism 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.960 into things in their environment, like little deposits of iron oxide. 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.720 And they do this by sticking these wires out of 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.720 their cells that connect to things, and they can pump 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:32.000 the electricity out through those wires. But it doesn't stop there, 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.320 because researchers have also discovered that in some cases, the 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:40.240 electric wires put out by metal reducing bacteria like Geobacter 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.600 would not just go out into iron oxide in the 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.920 environment or into other metals in the environment, but sometimes 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.560 these wires would go out and connect to other species 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.960 of electroactive bacteria. And so the same way that Geobacter 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:01.760 metaphorically breathes by putting out electron low, some species of 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:06.919 bacteria can metaphorically eat by taking in electron flow, and 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.200 this energy intake allows the bacteria to convert carbon dioxide 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:15.040 into methane, kind of like how plants use direct energy 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.280 from the sunlight to power the chemical reaction that turns 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.760