A team of the Netherlands Institute of Sea Research and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel have discovered a microbial battery in the North Sea off the Coast at Oostende. "By producing electricity, these bacteria extract energy from the sea floor," says prof. Filip Meysman. "It is the first time that such a biological battery has been found in nature. Perhaps, in ten years, a smart phone will be powered by tiny conductive bacterial wires." These bacteria seem to be common all over the world.
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Living Battery Discovered in North Sea
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(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:30AM
Where's the link to the article the quote comes from?
Also: capital p for Prof, "bacteria" not "bacterias" (one of which is quoted, which is why I wanted to see the article)
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:37AM
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:15AM
Blasted colonials!
(Score: 4, Informative) by nightsky30 on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:33AM
First I've heard of this! I thought it was just bacteria. Though perhaps it was like fish(singular), fish(plural), and fishes(multiple types of fish).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:13AM
Looking at the Wiktionary page for "bacteria", I find that in the US this word has two meanings:
1. Plural (singluar: bacterium), several microbes
2. Singular (plural: bacterias), meaning a certain type of bacteria.
So it's obviously similar to "people", which may be plural (the people in this room are waiting, except for one person) or a singular noun (the people of France is only one of several peoples in Europe).
So from this I conclude that "bacterias are generating electricity" is correct if there are at least two types of bacteria doing this, while "bacteria are generating electricity" is already correct if there are at least two individual bacteria doing that, no matter whether they are of the same type or not.
Disclaimer: I'm not a native English speaker, the above is all derived from (my understanding of) the Wiktionary article.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday April 02 2014, @11:01AM
As a native English speaker I would advise that I've never heard "people is" used in that way. "The people of France is" sounds like an error to my ears. I'd say "The people of France are only one of several peoples in Europe."
Google offers "my people live in West Virginia" despite listing that sense as singular, so I guess it's one of those exceptions that we all love.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:26AM
Source: http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/ full/ismej201441a.html [nature.com] and http://www.xpats.com/bacteria-found-north-sea-prod uce-electricity [xpats.com]
(Score: 2) by Koen on Wednesday April 02 2014, @01:41PM
I translated the quote from Dutch, the source is here:
http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/992/Wetenschap/articl e/detail/1837346/2014/04/01/Levende-batterij-ontde kt-in-de-Noordzee.dhtml [demorgen.be].
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Koen on Wednesday April 02 2014, @01:49PM
And the website of the team which made the discovery (the link was removed from my submission by the editor) is here:
http://www.microbial-electricity.eu/ [microbial-electricity.eu].
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday April 03 2014, @04:18AM
They probably thought it was tentacle porn.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:32AM
Perhaps, in ten years, we'll be riding hover boards. Please for the love of all things bacon, stop making stuff up about the future.
(Score: 3, Funny) by melikamp on Wednesday April 02 2014, @07:41AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by nightsky30 on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:28AM
Perhaps, in ten years, we'll have computers that aren't running Windows XP, or Windows anything at all.
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday April 02 2014, @08:35AM
Hahah, I still support Windows NT 4.0 server, some of which aren't even running the latest service pack.!
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:11AM
I still have a PC which intentionally fails to boot Windows 95 so it drops back to the DOS prompt. It's sole purpose is to drive a CNC mill through the parallel port.
(Score: 2) by randmcnatt on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:25AM
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:23AM
To your sig:
Not even that. Otto Lilienthal did fly and land before them. The Wright brothers did the first successful motor flight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @05:21PM
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:40AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @09:56AM
I'm a bit confused. They make a discovery of a bacteria that acts like a battery (or produces a battery, still not clear to me)
But they can claim it's a common worldwide bacteria?
Did everyone know this bacteria exists but only now someone thinks about putting a voltmeter on it or ...?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:03AM
What they claim is the discovery in nature of a bacteria that transports electrons over its cells. The new thing about that is the fact that this electron transport happens over a "long distance" in the microbial world. And by doing so they are not a battery, but they act like the wire in a battery, thus making the sediment function like a battery (eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniell_cell [wikipedia.org])
(Score: 1) by dr zim on Wednesday April 02 2014, @10:55AM
So now instead of my mobile device being infected by virus, it will be a bacterial infection. Is that cool or what?
(Score: 1) by CoolHand on Wednesday April 02 2014, @12:02PM
Don't our bodies produce electricity? I seem to remember from science class that there are electicrical signals passed through our bodies. That is what brain monitors that use "electrodes" planted on the head monitor. Ergo, musn't our bodies chemically convert foodstuff into electricity?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 03 2014, @03:10AM
Very true, but is again a scale thing. These bacteria don't use electrical signals within their cells, the filament made of thousands of different bacteria cells, harvests electrons deep within the sediment and conducts these electrons all the way to the top.
When our body converts stuff it is based on the same principle, where the goal is to as much electrons as possible from a foodsource. To gain the most energy (simply said), electrons are stripped from the source (one half-reaction) and then those electrons are "dumped" on oxygen. But this process happens in one cell of the human body. The bacteria strip the electrons deep within the sediment (where a lot of food source is available, but no oxygen is available) and then bring them all the way up to the oxygen to gain the most energy.
Or that's how I understand the article ;-)