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.
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
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.
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.
Photosynthesis is also possible in the pitch-black Chernobyl reactor building using melanin. It even may be possible to "photosynthesize" off of cosmic rays.
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
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!
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. 😅
@@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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
@@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 :)
@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
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?
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😎😎😎😎😎👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏👏
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You're probably thinking of sulfur-reducing bacteria like Desulfotomaculum nigrificans which convert amino acids like cysteine into hydrogen sulfide (H2S)
@@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
It nay not be creative to name purple/green sulfur bacteria the same way, but it is convenient.
Most scientific names are equally uncreative, but in Latin or Greek.
Chlorosome just means "green body" in greek.
Chloroplast is "leafy green."
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.
Same
I mean it’s just lower energy photons
@@sirsanti8408 - True but sitll facepalm! for me.
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
As an artist, these colour harmonies blow my mind!
This channel is so calm, oh my god. Also it feels like i'm watching Spore.
Please sell a microcosmos hoodie.. that zips up the front. I’ll be your best friend for ever and ever! 🎉
Crazy 😮
👍⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is exactly the proof that photosynthesis is possible around Red Dwarf stars
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.
I don’t think it was ever thought to be impossible?
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.
Photosynthesis is also possible in the pitch-black Chernobyl reactor building using melanin. It even may be possible to "photosynthesize" off of cosmic rays.
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
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!
Water is pretty opaque in the IR spectrum. They wouldn't be able to wander much.
Nice video as always ❤
Rather than attempt to grow plants in the dark...
...I decided to just learn how to eat air. 😄
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. 😅
@@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😉)
@@ArawnOfAnnwn wasnt it musk?
@@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.
Seems like a strong counterpoint to that claim that red dwarf stars couldn’t support photosynthesis.
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.
Thermosynthesis?
The color contrast between the bacteria is so pretty
Life isn't easy just because you've buried yourself away from something vaguely threatening.
This channel is so underrated
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!
Poor tardigrades.
I wonder if similar little guys live down deep in Jupiter or Saturnian moons.
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
First Law of Thermodynamics - energy isn't produced, it's transformed. Yes microwaves and radio waves carry energy. Very little.
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.
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.
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.
Life adapts to whatever regular resources available, as it does to whatever regular threats and inconveniences.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
Thank you, this is a great topic
Photosynthesis from infrared is absolutely mindblowing.
The molecules absorbing the radition must be huge!
Not really larger than visible light photosynthesisers
7:40 onward on the left side look at that spinny little guy go :D
Haha I was gonna comment the same thing. I had to rewind cause I got completely distracted by its little dance
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...
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.
I love that speck of purple sulfur bacteria going "SPeEeEeEeeeeen" around 7:40
I couldn't pay attention anymore. Little dude is having fun, viva la revolucion!!
@@kimpc3864 it really said "reject clump, become speen"
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.
I am just learning latin, but I am pretty sure thats not how you say Chlorobiaceae.
Are those Phacus living in low oxygen environments?
7:39 You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round
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.
Exactly its a steady stream of photons and at their scale its in infinite quantities
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.
They have plenty of organelles. Just not membrane-bound ones, like a nucleus or ER. They still have ribosomes.
@@vylbird8014 that is so cool! I never learned that in either hs or college bio class. Thanks.
@@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 :)
@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
7:39 Look at that little guy on the left, having fun spinning like crazy! I wonder why it is doing that.
Huh. It's deceptively simple. I now kinda feel bad it never occurred to me. Good job, tiny organisms!
Me: *Listens to him talk about being cozy and snuggling up when it was 40 degrees today*
Also me: *Becomes hydrothermal vent*
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?
No fucking way. This has implications for alien microbial life on rouge planets. I would assume.
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😎😎😎😎😎👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏👏
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.
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.
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...😅
I adore these vids but can we be certain that Color exists..idk. Rods n cones maybe make purple n green. 🎉
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.
Wow I just found out about the conversion of energy without light at thermal vents 3nor 4 days ago!
What would putting your hand in fifty billion tardigrades feel like 🤔?
When green sulphur bacteria was a child it stood on the sidelines watching the other children play...😢
Me, at the opening- "...it's 98 degrees here in Texas"
Your sound design is just astonishing!
How did you know I was eyeballing your microscope?
Wow! That’s amazing to be able to photosynthesize infrared light (heat)!
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.
i had to rewatch 7:40 multiple times because of the little spinny guy in the corner.
i saw some bug(0.1cm size) created from dirt
Thanks Hank!
Lol, all of the sudden I recognize the voice. 😂
By definition; photosynthesis requires light.
nature ALWAYS finds a way...
🤯photosynthesis with infrared 🤯
The more light we come across, the more problems we see
Colorful bacteria buddies!
I hate it when good channels close :(
Holy heck, life finds a way.
Radiotroph video, when?
Those purple bacteria are huge!
Life is coolest when it's inefficient.
whats the music at 1:50 called
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.
It's not easy being green.
ChatGPT
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.
YAY🎉 PURPLE 💜
Amazing!
Awsome❤️
Knowing very little of biology but a bit more about physics my answer was "yes" though I didn't know it would be infrared.
What bacteria converts SO4 into HS or elemental sulphur (not the other way around)?
You're probably thinking of sulfur-reducing bacteria like Desulfotomaculum nigrificans which convert amino acids like cysteine into hydrogen sulfide (H2S)
@@kailawkamo1568 no but it's good to have a name to go with the smell 🤢
@@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
Absolutely fascinating food source!
So how did they get there? Must have took millions of years huh?
Hello
It's so sad to hear how in each of your videos you butcher latin names. I can teach you how to read latin nomenclature for free.
Choice of music terrible as always
I liked it! Fits the topic. Created more questions. Eager to hear more.
🥱 No, not really. Music is perfectly good.
Fantastic Video as always! :) 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 ❤❤ 💖💖