Is It Possible To Photosynthesize In The Dark?

Рет қаралды 44,956

10 ай бұрын

Our master of microscopes is always looking for rare ciliates that live in areas low in oxygen. But when he puts those samples under a growth light, his tubes quickly turn the color of the green sulfur bacteria that thrive in those anaerobic conditions.
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SOURCES:
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/surviv...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
phys.org/news/2013-06-infrare...
arxiv.org/pdf/1304.6127.pdf
www.researchgate.net/profile/...
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.c...
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Пікірлер: 120

@SuperAdnan117 10 ай бұрын

It nay not be creative to name purple/green sulfur bacteria the same way, but it is convenient.

@vylbird8014 10 ай бұрын

Most scientific names are equally uncreative, but in Latin or Greek. Chlorosome just means "green body" in greek. Chloroplast is "leafy green."

@tomholroyd7519 10 ай бұрын

This is exactly the proof that photosynthesis is possible around Red Dwarf stars

@mzaite 10 ай бұрын

Sulphur Photosyntheses was here way before us, and it will probably be one of the last things left at the end if the solar system. Just not on earth cause our fate is to burn.

@sirsanti8408 10 ай бұрын

I don’t think it was ever thought to be impossible?

@esr1412 10 ай бұрын

I was about to say the same. I heard there were some detractors because they emit most on the infrared spectrum, but here we are, on Earth, doing the same thing.

@HenriFaust 9 ай бұрын

Photosynthesis is also possible in the pitch-black Chernobyl reactor building using melanin. It even may be possible to "photosynthesize" off of cosmic rays.

@februarysnows5528 9 ай бұрын

It's absolutely possible because when the universe underwent cool down period to now we know of, from the big bang, there were at least hundred of million light years that met at exact "life thriving" condition temperature before it went cold. So at that moment onwards, not-needed-water lives would have formed (or might be there were already a water environment existed) and stuck around the cosmo. Water was just a medium, another opportunity for them to thrive in different condition. Our universe could already exist all kind of lives in the past, and many of them "float around" in asteroids for example just waiting for the right condition to thrive in different forms, just like "we" were fortunate enough to land on earth. So, if we ever met "alien", we are actually come from the same big "cosmo" family

@fernbedek6302 10 ай бұрын

Seems like a strong counterpoint to that claim that red dwarf stars couldn’t support photosynthesis.

@brianedwards7142 10 ай бұрын

Water is pretty opaque in the IR spectrum. They wouldn't be able to wander much.

@DavidKutzler 10 ай бұрын

I wonder if the existence of photosynthetic bacteria that use infrared light on Earth increases the odds of finding life on planets around red dwarf suns.

@Nerdule 10 ай бұрын

Holy cow, what a coincidence! Just yesterday was just reading through a paper on ArXiv and my mind was absolutely blown when I followed a citation and came across this same 2005 paper. The idea of a photosynthetic organism that runs off of thermal radiation is insane to me!

@bakawaki 10 ай бұрын

The color contrast between the bacteria is so pretty

@gigglysamentz2021 10 ай бұрын

Photosynthesis from infrared is absolutely mindblowing. The molecules absorbing the radition must be huge!

@MicroSaner 10 ай бұрын

Nice video as always ❤

@HellOnWheel 10 ай бұрын

Thanks for the great prank idea. I'm going to replace my co-worker's coffee with 2 billion tardigrades. Boy will they be surprised!

@OnTheRogersJourney 10 ай бұрын

Poor tardigrades.

@laurafandino9783 10 ай бұрын

This channel is so underrated

@RJFerret 10 ай бұрын

Deep, it's just perspective. I love it's just photosynthesizing light, just beyond our visible spectrum. Reminds me of the patterns in UV on flowers insects see that we don't.

@Ziorac 10 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly. If you think about it, there's no reason why photosynthesis would be limited to the light we just happen to be able to see.... Energy is energy.

@wafikiri_ 10 ай бұрын

Life adapts to whatever regular resources available, as it does to whatever regular threats and inconveniences.

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

@@Ziorac Energy may be energy, but the amount of energy carried matters a lot. Too low and it can't bump particles around (so lower energy than microwaves is unlikely to be enough). Too high and it'll break up your DNA, RNA and proteins, which is what makes what we casually just call 'radiation' i.e. high energy particles dangerous.

@Tuberuser187 10 ай бұрын

@@ArawnOfAnnwn I wonder as we explore more of Earth, the Solar system and maybe one day bodies in other solar systems if we could see things like specific conditions attenuating more harmful radiation into useful forms, maybe even wilder things like Diatoms that create a little shell of something around themselves to do the same.

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

@@Tuberuser187 You don't need to leave Earth to see that. We've already found some fungi species living in highly radioactive places like Chernobyl. And they don't seem to be merely surviving to eke out an existence there, but actually thriving in it.

@marsh_prootogn 10 ай бұрын

I love that speck of purple sulfur bacteria going "SPeEeEeEeeeeen" around 7:40

@kimpc3864 10 ай бұрын

I couldn't pay attention anymore. Little dude is having fun, viva la revolucion!!

@marsh_prootogn 10 ай бұрын

@@kimpc3864 it really said "reject clump, become speen"

@LuisAldamiz 10 ай бұрын

Infrared (heat) is light... sorta... Never thought of it before however. It makes total sense. I wish we could synthesize vitamin D from the heater as well... it'd make our life much easier.

@gtbkts 10 ай бұрын

Same

@sirsanti8408 10 ай бұрын

I mean it’s just lower energy photons

@LuisAldamiz 10 ай бұрын

@@sirsanti8408 - True but sitll facepalm! for me.

@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 10 ай бұрын

it just makes me think that while these bacteria must be way less effective/much slower at their jobs... theyd be an efficient source of proteins and medication given enough gene altering

@timsullivan4566 10 ай бұрын

Rather than attempt to grow plants in the dark... ...I decided to just learn how to eat air. 😄

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

This just reminded me of some French dude I heard of a decade or so ago who was touting the future of cars being based on, not batteries, but compressed air! Unsurprisingly I never heard of him or his compressed air cars ever again, so I guess it was all just a load of hot air. 😅

@timsullivan4566 10 ай бұрын

@@ArawnOfAnnwn On a related topic, I've read online that researchers are trying to use gene splicing to grow a fuel-free automobile, but I'll believe it when I see it! (or when I read about it on the net😉)

@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 10 ай бұрын

@@ArawnOfAnnwn wasnt it musk?

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

@@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120 No. It was some old guy I'd never heard of before or since. Definitely not Musk. Edit: So I looked it up, and it seems the guys' name is Guy Nègre and his company is Motor Development International (MDI). He himself died in 2016 however.

@capnbeenieweenie5603 10 ай бұрын

I wonder if similar little guys live down deep in Jupiter or Saturnian moons.

@hauntedmasc 10 ай бұрын

Life isn't easy just because you've buried yourself away from something vaguely threatening.

@InquirywithHelena 10 ай бұрын

As an artist, these colour harmonies blow my mind!

@sciencenerd7639 10 ай бұрын

Thank you, this is a great topic

@BionicleFreek99 10 ай бұрын

This channel is so calm, oh my god. Also it feels like i'm watching Spore.

@Xiatle 10 ай бұрын

Your sound design is just astonishing!

@storyspren 10 ай бұрын

7:40 onward on the left side look at that spinny little guy go :D

@donmear6654 10 ай бұрын

Haha I was gonna comment the same thing. I had to rewind cause I got completely distracted by its little dance

@Oxide294 10 ай бұрын

7:39 You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round

@praveenb9048 10 ай бұрын

Thermosynthesis?

@heavymetalbassist5 10 ай бұрын

Thanks Hank!

@pheart2381 10 ай бұрын

I was watching Children of Fire Mountain yesterday and wondering whether cooking your dinner in the hot springs would introduce bacteria,so this was fascinating.

@edweinb 10 ай бұрын

Just goes to show that no matter how high entropy is (infrared light), it can always be driven even higher. Green sulfur bacteria extracting energy from what should be the noise.

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

I mean 'absolute hot' is a thing, known as the Planck temperature. Though the value of it is 1.416784(16) × 10 power 32 K, so...😅

@sylviahacker6695 10 ай бұрын

Amazing!

@Haplo-san 10 ай бұрын

This made me wonder if these can use low energy infrared photons to produce energy, is it possible to use even lower energy photons like microwaves or even FM radio waves. xD

@ArawnOfAnnwn 10 ай бұрын

First Law of Thermodynamics - energy isn't produced, it's transformed. Yes microwaves and radio waves carry energy. Very little.

@thamiordragonheart8682 10 ай бұрын

I think there's some lower limit here because a pigment molecule is going to have a hard time absorbing light that has a wavelength significantly longer than the size of the molecule or complex doing the absorbing. I think the limit is somewhere around half a wavelength, which would make anything larger than infrared really hard for a cell to absorb.

@dforrest4503 10 ай бұрын

Wow! That’s amazing to be able to photosynthesize infrared light (heat)!

@agnelomascarenhas8990 10 ай бұрын

Not convinced. If bacteria could synthesize using thermal IR say 1200K ~ 0.1 eV they could compete with visible region photosynthetic organisms. H2S as electron donor could be a restriction.

@DrMoritzMH 10 ай бұрын

Absolutely fascinating food source!

@reluctantlydancing 10 ай бұрын

Me, at the opening- "...it's 98 degrees here in Texas"

@mzaite 10 ай бұрын

Infrared Radiation! It’s still technically Photons, but man, that’s like an order of Magnitude less energy than Green visible light! But in a vent, I suppose it’s about quantity of Photons over Quality. It never goes dark, and it never gets cloudy.

@ottoflouer1750 10 ай бұрын

Exactly its a steady stream of photons and at their scale its in infinite quantities

@kyokoyumi 10 ай бұрын

Me: *Listens to him talk about being cozy and snuggling up when it was 40 degrees today* Also me: *Becomes hydrothermal vent*

@agnelomascarenhas8990 10 ай бұрын

The relationship between cyanobacteria photosynthesis and green sulphur bacteria, purple sulphur bacteria and purple non sulphur bacteria is needed. I understand that our mitochondria are derived from purple non sulphur bacteria.

@danielscott7666 10 ай бұрын

Wow I just found out about the conversion of energy without light at thermal vents 3nor 4 days ago!

@ivanfedak4517 10 ай бұрын

Awsome❤️

@jimzielinski946 10 ай бұрын

This is the first time i ever heard of a bacterium having an organelle within it. I never imagined that that was possible. Im wondering if there are any other examples of bacteria containing organelles. Is a bacterium that contains an organelle really a bacterium? Amazing.

@vylbird8014 10 ай бұрын

They have plenty of organelles. Just not membrane-bound ones, like a nucleus or ER. They still have ribosomes.

@jimzielinski946 10 ай бұрын

@@vylbird8014 that is so cool! I never learned that in either hs or college bio class. Thanks.

@anonymizationoverload9831 10 ай бұрын

@@jimzielinski946 I mean, ribosomes are pretty important, since their job is to read DNA/RNA and make proteins out of those instructions. It'd make sense that bacteria have them. I think flagella are also considered organelles, so those flagellates are indeed automatically bacteria with organelles :)

@jeffreybright6354 10 ай бұрын

@jimzielinski946 that's literally the textbook definition of the difference between prokaryote and eukaryotes... lacking a nucleus and membrane bound organelles. It was definitely taught to you at some point because that's always in the first 3 chapters of any biology course

@skyrat3816 10 ай бұрын

Can't but to ask why would the green sulphur need to be shielded from oxygen and does the purple-green use the oxygen? Only thing I can think of is that the oxygen by-product is poisonous just like booze is to yeast during fermentation.

@williamc-zr1kc 10 ай бұрын

When green sulphur bacteria was a child it stood on the sidelines watching the other children play...😢

@DustyHoney 10 ай бұрын

I’ve found algae growing in complete darkness. Inside our water storage tanks, that have never been opened since installation, we often get large swaths of algae with the water.

@fintux 10 ай бұрын

One of the several reasons why I think it is stupid to assume life outside Earth would only be occurring in the kind of places where humans thrive.

@Tuberuser187 10 ай бұрын

Knowing very little of biology but a bit more about physics my answer was "yes" though I didn't know it would be infrared.

@evilsharkey8954 10 ай бұрын

Those purple bacteria are huge!

@danielmadar9938 10 ай бұрын

Crazy 😮

@missseaweed2462 10 ай бұрын

Holy heck, life finds a way.

@chir0pter 10 ай бұрын

Aren't the 'vacuoles' in the purple sulfur bacteria just reserves of elemental sulfur, which can store energy for them they can then regain via sulfur oxidation? Not "gas bladders" as you say?

@RealBradMiller 10 ай бұрын

Lol, all of the sudden I recognize the voice. 😂

@mafarmerga 10 ай бұрын

Are those Phacus living in low oxygen environments?

@willmendoza8498 10 ай бұрын

Huh. It's deceptively simple. I now kinda feel bad it never occurred to me. Good job, tiny organisms!

@michaelpcoffee 10 ай бұрын

By definition; photosynthesis requires light.

@stephanieparker1250 10 ай бұрын

Please sell a microcosmos hoodie.. that zips up the front. I’ll be your best friend for ever and ever! 🎉

@gfdgfdgfff 10 ай бұрын

whats the music at 1:50 called

@adpirtle 10 ай бұрын

Colorful bacteria buddies!

@fraaggl 10 ай бұрын

nature ALWAYS finds a way...

@aalhard 10 ай бұрын

YAY🎉 PURPLE 💜

@TedToal_TedToal 10 ай бұрын

This seems to have implications for extraterrestrial life. Red dwarfs emit not much visible light but a lot of infrared. I heard it said this makes life unlikely on a planet around a red dwarf.

@yottakm3764 2 ай бұрын

I hate it when good channels close :(

@HenriFaust 9 ай бұрын

Radiotroph video, when?

@corbeaudejugement 10 ай бұрын

i had to rewatch 7:40 multiple times because of the little spinny guy in the corner.

@miquellluch1928 10 ай бұрын

Man if you are capable of founding so much joy on vents that go on and off, the day you discover the "dark side" of Uranus you will die of euphoria. Knowing that, I have to say that your comments are a little bit self-centered...

@hellokittysays6333 10 ай бұрын

How did you know I was eyeballing your microscope?

@ryanaustin-11 10 ай бұрын

So how did they get there? Must have took millions of years huh?

@user-hd6xt9if6c 10 ай бұрын

i saw some bug(0.1cm size) created from dirt

@michealwestfall8544 10 ай бұрын

Life is coolest when it's inefficient.

@petevenuti7355 10 ай бұрын

What bacteria converts SO4 into HS or elemental sulphur (not the other way around)?

@kailawkamo1568 10 ай бұрын

You're probably thinking of sulfur-reducing bacteria like Desulfotomaculum nigrificans which convert amino acids like cysteine into hydrogen sulfide (H2S)

@petevenuti7355 10 ай бұрын

@@kailawkamo1568 no but it's good to have a name to go with the smell 🤢

@petevenuti7355 10 ай бұрын

@@kailawkamo1568 I just never heard of anything that digests sulfates or sulfuric acid to sulphur or hydrogen sulfide, if such an organism existed it with have good synergism with these guys. Energetically speaking I'm not even sure it's possible

@sciencenerd7639 10 ай бұрын

Hello

@brittanyroberson556 9 ай бұрын

What would putting your hand in fifty billion tardigrades feel like 🤔?

@thombaz 9 ай бұрын

I am just learning latin, but I am pretty sure thats not how you say Chlorobiaceae.

@hgracern 10 ай бұрын

I adore these vids but can we be certain that Color exists..idk. Rods n cones maybe make purple n green. 🎉

@robinredbeard 10 ай бұрын

🤯photosynthesis with infrared 🤯

@cheydinal5401 10 ай бұрын

The more light we come across, the more problems we see

@SyIe12 8 ай бұрын

👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

@jennifersaar1611 10 ай бұрын

It's not easy being green.

@dylanmartinese7780 10 ай бұрын

So the green sulfur bacteria needs a purple Soldier bacteria to keep it safe from the oxygen or the purple like to move purple silver bacteria needs the green rest area or till needs the screen a symbiotic relationship with the two😎😎😎😎😎👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏👏