WEBVTT - STBYM: Electric Microbe Land 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.920 Hey, everybody, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.040 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.600 going into the vault. This is not a Saturday Vault episode. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:15.320 We're airing it in place of one of our regular 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.520 Stuff to Blow Your Mind episodes this week, just to 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:22.439 cover some time off. This episode originally aired on July nineteen, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.800 and it was called Electric microbe Land. This was suggested 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:28.760 as a as a vault episode by a listener not 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.839 too long ago. Yeah, so yeah again. Originally this one 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.800 was a Summer of ten, but we're giving it to 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:40.320 you again on the very last day of of So 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:47.159 let's have a listen. Enjoy this regifting Welcome Stuff to 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.239 Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radios. How 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:58.360 Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.960 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Can 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.120 we figured we'd start off today talking about our favorite 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:08.400 electricity monsters. Robert, what's your favorite electricity monster? Oh? You know, my, my, my, 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:11.959 just gut instinct answers to go with Blanca from Street Fighter. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.600 You know, he's the green skinned and I was, I was. 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:17.200 I looked into this a little bit. I was never 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.400 sure why he had green skin. Apparently some alleged backstory 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.440 involving chlorophyll um, but I don't know. He ends up 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.360 with he's like a beast creature, a beast man with 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.040 green skin and like bright orange hair, wearing board shorts, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.520 wearing board shorts and just kind of doing this this, 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:40.320 this kind of hulking uh pose bent over, and then 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.920 he can produce electricity. Basically has the powers since he's 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.399 kind kind of a you know, on amlogum of various 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.279 Amazonian things. He has the powers of an electric eagle, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.720 and so he can shock his opponents that way. That's 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.880 a good one. Uh. There there are a few really 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:58.560 good electricity movies. By really good, I mean really bad 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.160 from the nineteen eighties and nine indies. Did you ever 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:04.320 see the Pulse? I don't think I ever did. I 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.440 think there was another horror movie called Pulse, which was 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.720 about something else. So this one was about. Uh It's 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.360 like some family living in a house and like a 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.120 regular suburban neighborhood in California in the nineteen eighties, and 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.799 an evil burst of electricity goes throughout goes out through 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.120 the mains. Uh. I don't remember if there's like an 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.080 evil storm or like an alien arrives or something. But 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.280 for some reason, there's this pulse of of killer electricity 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.520 and it goes into their house and it turns all 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:36.120 the appliances against them, so the TV starts trying to 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.040 kill them and everything, a real maximum over drive scenario, 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.639 but it's like it's sold as like the the malevolence 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.519 is delivered directly through the electrical wires the wrong voltage 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.000 or something. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I was thinking 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.400 about this, like, what are some other examples of electric 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.480 creatures or humanoids? And I mean, obviously I thought of 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.600 of of electric Christopher Lambert from from Mortal Calm that 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.440 another fighting game. Yeah, but but so many, So often 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.000 is the case you see individuals with some sort of 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.760 pyrotechnic mobility, you know, Like one of a film that 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.320 we've talked about before has been the Toby Hooper film, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.520 in which Brad Dorriff played a like a pyromaniac who 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.079 could catch things on fire with his brain. He's got 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.880 like like pyro kinesis, but he doesn't want it. He's 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.840 not like a you know, a villain out there like 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.800 Piro and the X Men just throwing fireballs wherever he wants. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.840 It's more like every he's kind of like the Hulk. 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.600 He's like fire Hulk. Every time he gets upset, he 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.400 starts catching things on fire. But he also like burns 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.360 the heck out of himself too, which wasn't a nice twist. 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.000 And of course Brad Dorriff is wonderful and in that 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:47.600 film there are at least portions of it where he's 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.880 it's it's a rare film or Brad Dorriff is the 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.480 lead and he's sort of playing a regular human in 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.280 some of the scenes. So it's interesting to see. But 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.000 but so often is the case you see fire based 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.320 powers in these characters and creatures as opposed to electric 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:05.720 based powers. And it's kind of weird when you think 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.680 about it, because, as we'll discussing this episode, electricity is 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.320 more tied in with biology than fire. And even from 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.320 the human perspective perspective, you know who among us has 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.880 not harnessed the power of electricity by by walking across 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.160 a carpeted floor in the wintertime and then shocking somebody 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.919 with a touch. You do that on purpose? I have 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.880 in the past done it on purpose. Yes, yeah, but 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.760 it's pretty not announce of guilt on your face. Well, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:34.000 one of one of the things I do like to 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.200 do when it gets cold, when the conditions are just right, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.440 have my son go down a curly slide, build up 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.880 static electricity, and then give me a high five on 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.760 the way down. And at times it has been stiff 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.280 enough to like leave a numbness in my hand when 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.360 you feel it in your wrist, kind of in the bone. Creepy, 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.160 real shocking power. I don't know if there's ever been 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.680 like an actually really scar airy electricity monster movie. The 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.359 other main one I was thinking of is one of 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.880 my favorite cheesy, mid mid career West Craven movies, which 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.000 is Shocker. I think that's from nineteen or so and 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.839 it's gotten Mitch Peleggi or Poleggie, the guy who plays 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.120 Skinner on the X Files. Uh. He plays the villain. 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.640 He's like a serial killer who does some like evil 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.520 black magic ritual to turn himself into electricity after he 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.880 gets killed in the electric chair. That's right. I remember 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:29.440 saying I never saw it, but I remember seeing the 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.359 boxes for it, and he's in an electric chair on 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.120 the You should see it sometime. It's a laugh riot, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.600 and he's, oh, he's just like acting, I mean beat 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.760 galaxies beyond normal levels of acting. Is uh would you 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.000 say it's an electric performance? I would say he is 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:50.200 a live wire. But yeah, so I think you're right 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.560 about the idea that maybe electric monsters should be more 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:59.320 biologically intuitive than pyrokinetic or fire throwing monsters or even 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:03.120 fire breathing wagons, because you know, it shouldn't come as 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.640 any surprise that the use of electricity by living organisms 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.680 predates the technological uses predates you know, Tesla and medicine 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.760 or even Franklin and Galvani and all that. Like, all 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.880 kinds of animals use electricity in various ways. Now they're 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:22.159 they're really noticeable charismatic uses of electricity, like how sharks 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.680 and rays have electric sensory organs known as the ampullae 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.800 of Lorenzini, which they used to sense very faint electric 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.840 currents transmitted through water by potential prey animals. And then 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:37.560 you've got the electrogenic organisms that like generally aquatic organisms 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.400 that emit strong electric currents maybe just stun prey or 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.520 two deploys a defensive weapon. And these would include things 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.320 like electric fish, electric catfish and rays. Yeah. Yeah, the 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.560 electric eel is certainly the electric animal par excellence. Uh, 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:55.920 though it's always worth reminding everyone, and it's not really 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.160 an eel. It has more it's more related to a catfish. Oh, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.039 I don't think I knew that. Well, I didn't know 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.520 they were electric catfish, but I didn't know the eel 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:05.440 was one. Right, Yeah, I mean you look at it 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:07.560 if you' you know, fortunate enough to see one in 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.040 a tank somewhere or in the wild. Uh, you know, 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.400 you're gonna notice that it doesn't really look like an eel. 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.600 It's uh, it's it's it's a very curious looking creature. 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.920 Have you ever seen a de fleshed eel skull? Oh? 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:21.560 I don't know that I have. It is one of them. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.120 Is usually don't leave them on when I go. You should. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.280 You should look up an eel skull. Sometimes it might 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.360 be different for different species, but at least some eel 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.040 skulls are like the most metal thing in nature. It's amazing. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.280 But anyway, we today we wanted to to think about 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:42.280 electric organisms. But instead of focusing on these larger organisms 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.400 that use electricity maybe in a sensory capacity or as 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.120 a weapon of some sort. We wanted to go down 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.560 to zoom in with the microscope and to take a 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.200 look at the world of micro organisms that deal in 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.360 the currency of the Holy fire, the amber, the electricity. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.480 So I just wanted to start by saying by giving 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:03.320 a shout out that I got the idea to do 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.800 this episode after I read a really interesting article a 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:08.960 couple of weeks ago in the New York Times by 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.440 previous stuff to blow your mind. Guest Carl Zimmer, Oh, yes, yeah, 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:14.640 that was a tremendous episode. It was great to chatting 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.400 with him. I'd love to have him back on the show. 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.360 Sometimes we should see about that. If we're getting back 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.320 on the show, then he becomes a friend of the show. 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.000 That's the way it works two appearances. Two appearances make 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.240 you a friend of the show. So just one is previous. Guest. 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:26.920 I almost said friend of the show, but I didn't 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:29.200 want to presume. I think those are the rules. Yes, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.319 uh so, of course. Electricity. You know, it's generally thought 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.920 of as the flow of electrons. You might have other 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.040 ways of defining it. You could maybe define it other 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.160 ways in terms of electrical potential, like a positive or 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.719 negative charge, but Generally, if you've got current, if you've 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.679 got electrons flowing that, you think of that as some 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.560 form of electricity. And there are ways in which the 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:56.840 metabolism of our bodies could be considered electric. For example, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:01.280 what is actually happening when we breathe. I don't know 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.439 if I've ever thought of it quite this way before, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.880 but I was reading an article in New Scientists from 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.520 July which quotes the u c l A microbiologists Kenneth 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:15.079 Nielsen in characterizing the most basic biochemistry of life as 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.559 a flow of electrons. So basically, think about it like this. 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.679 You eat carbon based compounds, you take in that chemical energy, 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.960 and that's gonna be molecules like sugars, and these molecules, 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:31.480 these carbon based compounds like sugars, have excess electrons, and 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.000 then cells in the body break down those compounds and 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.040 they pass on the extra electrons through a series of 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.120 chemical reactions that power the body, and part by making 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.160 a dinascene triphosphate or a t P, which is the 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:49.079 chemical energy transport molecule that that captures the energy obtained 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.280 through the breakdown of food, and then he uses it 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.680 to power things that happen inside ourselves. I've I've sometimes 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.680 seen a TP characterized as an energy storage molecule, but 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.800 that's not quite right. That would be more like fats 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.600 or sugars or something. A TP is like, it's like 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.080 a car for energy, you know, it carries it from 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.480 one place to another in the cell. And apparently the 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.960 flow of electrons is an indispensable part of making that 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.280 a TP that powers our cells. But eventually the extra electrons, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.920 since they're flowing, they've got to go somewhere at the 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.520 end of this chain of chemical reactions. You can't just 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.120 keep building up extra electrons in the body until you 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.760 become a humanliding jar or you become the guy from 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.760 Shocker and you just electrocute people by touching them. So 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.479 you have to pass on the electrons onto a molecule 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.160 that will accept them. And in our case, that molecule 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.839 is oxygen. You breathe in the oxygen, and that oxygen 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.120 we breathe in goes around to the body, to the cells, 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.559 and it accepts those extra electrons that are the waste 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.760 product of our metabolism. Uh and it bonds with carbon molecules, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.640 and then you breathe out this waste product as CEO 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.760 two And to quote from this researcher Kenneth Nielsen, as 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.920 as quoted in in New Scientist, that's the way we 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.400 make all our energy, and it's the same for every 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:07.400 organism on this planet. Electrons must flow in order for 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.480 energy to be gained. This is why when someone suffocates 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.760 another person, they're dead within minutes. You have stopped the 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.040 supply of oxygen, so the electrons can no longer flow. 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.040 So choking somebody is kind of like it's like putting 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.520 a resistor in the electric circuit. That's interesting. I mean, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.040 this is all getting down to the fact that we're 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.319 all essentially bioelectric organisms. Yeah, that's exactly right, and it's 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.319 not just us, Like this is basically the rule for 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.439 all kinds of life forms, from humans to coconut crabs 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.680 to lots of single celled organisms. Pretty much every organism 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.160 needs to create an electron flow by taking in food 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.440 with excess electrons and then running that through a series 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.240 of chemical reactions to extract usable energy for cells, and 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.800 then dumping those electrons out into some kind of electron 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:58.280 accepting waste bucket like oxygen molecules. And this is even 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.760 true for bacteria where from any species, oxygen must be 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.839 present as this terminal receptor for the electrons at the 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.440 end of the metabolic line. But there are some prokaryotic organisms, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:14.480 single celled organisms that can't or don't use oxygen, and 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.800 these are known as anaerobic bacteria, and they live in 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:22.800 places where oxygen doesn't reach or where oxygen is very limited. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.640 And the examples of this might be places like deep 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.960 in the sediment along a river, or buried in a 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.960 sea bed, or even ever a deep underground in oil wells. 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.320 I mean, try to imagine that that far underground, that 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.440 like life is thriving in some way. We've also talked 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:44.960 about them thriving in some human created sewer environments. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.559 all all these environments, especially these environments that are cut 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.800 off from the surface by by mud or sediment or 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.800 even by vast expanses of dead rock. So if the 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.560 electrons have to flow for life to go on, how 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:04.200 do these anaerobic bacteria survive without oxygen molecules to accept 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.640 the excess electrons at the end of the metabolism and 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.160 basically to breathe out. How you know, where do the 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.400 electrons go when they're done? With them. So here's where 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.920 we get to a bacterial discovery story. So in the 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.679 mid nineteen eighties, I think around nine seven, the American 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:25.000 microbiologist Derek Lovely was out pulling up samples of sediment 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.760 from the Potomac River. And one of these samples from 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.439 the Potomac River, it was around Washington, d C. Contained 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.760 one of these weird single celled organisms. It was a 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:41.720 bacterium called geo bacter metalla reducens. And like other bacteria, 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:46.000 this bacterium would begin the electron flow of its metabolism 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:51.199 by consuming organic compounds that had excess electrons. For example, ethanol, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.120 which is alcohol. So there's some ethanol in its environment. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.880 It can eat that, but it would end its metabolism 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:02.280 by passing the excess electrons off into iron oxides, which 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.880 are rust So this is a life form that can 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:10.400 survive by eating grain, alcohol and breathing out rusty iron. Yeah. 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.320 I've read and Lovely some of some of his papers 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.280 that when they're working within the lab, they essentially just 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.040 feeded vinegar. Yeah, that that's that's all it requires. Wow, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.400 So if you have to breathe out into rusty iron, 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.440 would you rather survive by eating only grain alcohol or 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.760 by eating only vinegar. Um. I feel like vinegar from 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.480 for me, vinegar would probably be healthier for you for 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.360 men is my personal choice, but I am I'm not 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.800 a microbe. So just as an interesting side note, in 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.040 this process, the bacteria, Carl Zimmer notes the sent this 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.920 article to bacteria help transform the regular old iron oxides 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.840 the rust particles in their environment into the naturally fair 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.080 magnetic mineral known as magnetite. So that's like, you know, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.880 the strong natural magnetic rock you might find in sediments 0:14:59.920 --> 0:15:03.000 or around the world, and these bacteria helped produce that 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.240 magnetite by by by pushing off these electrons into it, 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.840 which sort of magnetizes it. Now we've been speaking kind 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:14.680 of metaphorically by calling this bacterial process breathing, because it's 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.160 not breathing in the exact same way we do. Like 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.240 the bacteria don't have respiratory systems with lungs and alveola 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.200 and all that. We breathe by sucking in oxygen and 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.040 then transporting it around our bodies to the cells where 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.840 it needs to go, and then breathing out the molecular 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.280 waste products of our metabolism through the same gas exchange 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.000 system in the lungs. But the bacteria don't have lungs. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.480 They don't suck rust particles into the body to allow 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.640 the electrons to attach to them. Uh, and so what's 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.400 going on there? Like according to Carl Zimmer's article, it 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.640 took Lovely and his colleague Dr John Stolts in their 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.840 labs years to figure out how this respiration process was 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.520 taking place. And what they discovered was that instead of 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.240 like sucking in the rust particles and breathing them out, 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:09.520 geobacter exhaled by putting out electric wires. Yeah, this is amazing. 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:14.520 And of course when we're saying wires, we're talking about microfilaments. Yeah, 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.400 but they do, in a way function like electric wires. 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.920 I mean, they're they're conductive. They are long, filamentous kind 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:25.160 of conductive material that is there to transmit a flow 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.720 of electrons between potentials. So you've got to build up 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.080 of electrons as a waste product in the bacterium, and 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.040 then you've got a lower potential thing out there that 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.000 can accept them, like maybe a deposit of iron oxide, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.240 and you pump the electrons out through this wire to 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.920 the iron oxide outside the cell. Yeah, and we're these 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.680 things are tiny too. We're talking about like three nanometers 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.040 in diameter. Yeah, extremely too. Though they can get pretty 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.720 long without Yeah, we can get pretty long in some 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.080 cases some cases. And then we'll get into other species later. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.560 But there are species with with with a filaments. Yeah. 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.280 Uh So, when you're a geobacter and you since the 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.280 presence of iron oxide and your surroundings, basically what it 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.400 seems like you do is you sprout out these microscopic 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.639 little filaments, each one known as a pealis plural peely 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.320 and bacterial peely. Are fascinating in other respects too, because, 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.359 for one thing, they play a role in the bacterial 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.159 process known as horizontal gene transfer. And we've done a 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:32.680 podcast on this before. This is a really interesting phenomenon. Basically, 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.959 bacteria they don't have sex in the way that like 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:42.639 sexually reproducing eukaryotic animals do. Write they reproduce a sexually, 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.800 meaning they make exact copies of themselves in a process 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.719 called binary fission. They split off and create two daughter cells, 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.520 not by mating with other individuals and combining their DNA 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.240 to create an ad mixed offspring. But despite this, despite 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.919 them not having sexual reproduction. Bacteria do engage in something 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.320 kind of like sex, and this is this process of 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:10.320 horizontal gene transfer where bacteria can meet up and share 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.840 genetic material between one another. And this doesn't always work 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.880 out great for us, because, for example, it is one 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.199 of the main methods by which bacteria acquire DNA for 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:24.240 antibiotic resistance. We just did an episode of our other podcast, Invention, 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.520 about the invention of antibiotics and antibiotics are you know, 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.600 a miraculous invention of the twentieth century. But one of 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.040 the big problems with them is that over time, the 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:39.560 diseases that we're fighting get better at overcoming these medicines. Yeah, 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:40.639 I think. I think the way we put it in 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.440 that episode is with with penicillin and another antibiotics, we're 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.399 we're stealing a weapon from the you know, the eons 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:55.000 old war between fungi and bacterium and uh, and we've 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.880 stole the weapon, but the but the war continues on 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.120 and the the the the evolution of their warfare continues. Yeah, 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.120 and in the way we use the fungal weapon sort 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:10.480 of accelerates the arms race, like provoked, it's in a 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.800 Cold War style like provokes the other side to uh 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.080 make go with a with a build up, you know, 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.360 an arms build up, when that seems to be what's 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.359 happening on the bacterial side. Now we stole like a 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:26.040 fungal catapult, but now we're quickly advancing into the age 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.919 of where a fungal tribute SHA would be a more 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.000 appropriate That's right. We have to find those those fungal 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:36.480 tributes or develop them ourselves. I hope we do. But 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.240 for the but for the bacteria to share their own 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.360 tribute shape plans. What one of the things they do 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.760 is this horizontal gene transfer process. Specifically this process known 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.399 as conjugation, where to bacteria meet up and they're like, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.639 let's hook up, and they extend a PEALSS between the 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.160 donor bacterium and the recipient bacterium and this little hair 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.240 like filament hooks them together so they can share plasmids, 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.440 which are little segments of DNA and peely also enhanced 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.920 the virulence of bacteria by helping them bind two cells 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.240 in the host body. And this is the case in 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.440 disease causing strains of bacteria like strepped A caucus or 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.960 an E. Coli. The pelists can kind of hook them 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.320 onto the cells lining your the inside of your throat 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:23.320 or in your gut, or wherever it is they're trying 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.480 to infect. But in the case of Geobacter, the researchers 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.720 who worked with Geobacter originally concluded that the peely we're 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.879 being used for another purpose entirely, and that purpose was 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:40.320 the off routing of electricity into electro receptive molecules in 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:44.280 the environment. So to picture this as again, this is 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.960 going to be a very crude metaphor, but imagine if 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:52.200 you were to breathe instead of by sucking oxygen into 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.720 your lungs and exhaling CEO two, by shooting electric wires 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.640 out of your mouths into the environment, which would then 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.840 attack hatch to the toaster and the TV and pour 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.320 waste electricity out of your lungs into those appliances. Oh, 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.240 that's pretty good. That sounds like a good electric alien 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.639 creature for a future film or a pass film, I 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.560 mean movies done. Yeah, I mean I can imagine Dan 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.840 Ackroyd playing a character that does this, uh, you know, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.879 back in the nineties or so. Oh, you know, they're 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.960 one of those nineties like a kind of grimy computer 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.640 monster movies. What was that one that Jamie Lee Curtis 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.240 was in about like a killer computer virus that like 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.280 just puts gross wires everywhere. Oh yeah, this was I 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.439 think Donald Sutherland was in it. Yeah, it's not a 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:38.679 ship or something. It was really bad. It was like 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:40.560 a sort of it was kind of a take on 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:45.080 the thing, but with this this cybernetic blend of like 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.720 wires and flesh. Uh yeah, yeah, it's like a computer 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:51.919 virus that decides that Earth is that the humans are 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:55.400 a pathogen and virus. I think you're a pathogeny. It's 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.520 called virus. Yeah, And I should notice a As a 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:00.520 follow up to what I was just saying about the 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:05.640 bacterial peely, it's not fully settled whether the Geobacter actually 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:09.200 use peely as their electric wires, or whether they use 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:13.720 peely exclusively. Karl Zimmer's article notes that the Yale physicist 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:19.000 and Nikkil S. Malvankar and colleagues believe that instead the 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:24.960 bacteria use dedicated wires made out of organic compounds called cytochromes, 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.360 but the fact that Geobacter does pump electrons out through 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.760 biological wires of some sort doesn't seem to be in dispute. 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.560 It's just their different ideas about to what extent they're 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.800 using different structures as the wires. All right, on that note, 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:39.320 we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:46.040 right back. Than alright, we're back. So we've been talking 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:51.080 about the idea of electroactive bacteria, bacteria that in some 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:56.720 metaphorical since breathe by releasing excess electrons that are the 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.359 the end product of their metabolism into uh things in 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.840 their environment, like little deposits of iron oxide. And they 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.480 do this by sticking these wires out of their cells 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.399 that that connect to things, and they can pump the 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:15.520