Scientists have discovered a microorganism that lives in the mud at the bottom of the sea or river, with one end sticking out of the mud to breathe oxygen and the other end rooted in the mud a few centimeters deep to suck up nutrients, and then lives by the way the cables in its body are electrified to transfer energy.
Researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark (Aarhus Universitet) first discovered this peculiar creature a decade ago, which metabolizes through electricity inside the mud. This recent study found that only a few cells in this organism are responsible for breathing, and most of the rest of the cells do not need oxygen and are only responsible for processing Food and nutrients.
Scientists named this creature “cable bacteria” (cable bacteria). They are only the width of a single cell, the cells are lined up in front and back in a line, up to a few centimeters. In the outside of these cells wrapped in a coat, buried inside the “cable” responsible for the transmission of electric current.
The researchers placed the cable bacteria in a small, transparent chamber under a microscope. The middle of the chamber was filled with sludge without oxygen, and the sides of the chamber were filled with oxygen.
From inside the microscope, some single-celled bacteria gathered in the area with oxygen to form a wall, “and I saw one end of the cable bacteria go through this wall and probe into the area with oxygen.” Stefano Scilipoti, one of the researchers, said.
Scilipoti added that they found that the behavior of the cable bacteria caused the wall to deform slightly, and from the extent of the wall’s deformation, they could calculate the amount of oxygen needed by the cable bacteria.
“Less than 10 percent of the cells in the cable bacteria take up oxygen, but their efficiency in taking up oxygen is among the most efficient ever seen in biology. This is a mechanism unique to them because only some of their cells are in contact with oxygen and others are responsible for processing food nutrients and exchanging energy in the body by way of electrical currents.” Silipotti said.
The study was published Feb. 10 in the journal Science Advances.
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