Interesting Tidbits! Oil Spill Clean-Up!

 Interesting Tidbits! Oil Spill Clean-Up!

 

A team of French and Japanese environmental scientists has found that one kind of oil-eating microbe reshapes droplets to optimize biodegradation. In their study, reported in the journal Science, the group isolated Alcanivorax borkumensis bacteria specimens in a lab setting, fed them crude oil, and then watched how they worked together to eat the oil as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Prior research has shown that there are many microbes living in the ocean that feed on oil, eventually cleaning away oil not cleaned up by human efforts. Prior research has also shown that such microbes are not able to consume crude oil until it disperses into droplets, which can take a long time. In this new effort, the researchers sought to learn more about the process of crude oil consumption by sea microbes. To that end, they collected A. borkumensis specimens and tested them in their lab.

Under a microscope, the research team observed that A. borkumensis formed biofilms around oil droplets—but they did so in two major ways. In one experiment, A. borkumensis samples that had not been exposed to crude oil before were introduced to simple crude oil droplets. Groups of the bacteria converged on a droplet, forming a sphere. The sphere shape persisted until the entire oil droplet had been consumed.

But when the team exposed samples with experience consuming crude oil, their behavior was much more advanced. Initially, upon converging on a droplet, a sphere formed—but then finger-like protrusions formed, radiating out from the sphere, each completely covered with bacteria. The result was much faster, more efficient consumption of the droplet.

Now most of you might not know that one of the things that fascinated me as a child was weeds and what they could do besides just irritating the farmers. If life had do-overs, this old girl would be a micro-biologist. SO much comes from plants that can feed folks, prevent diseases, ward off insects that bite, and act as weed retardants or even fire retardants. We have forgotten so much that was just common sense to some of our ancestors. Remedies for bites, cuts, colds and flu, and ulcers of the digestive tract were things they knew how to handle with what God gave them out there on the prairie and in the woods. Today foragers find things to eat—remember Euell Gibbons?—and even supply some upscale restaurants with what most of us would consider weeds. Too many young folks today think that all foods come from the supermarket!! Sigh.

Remember Maggie Sewell in your prayers tonight. Surgery on her shoulder in the morning. Meanwhile, pray that those who need to have patience will be blessed with kind and loving thoughts. Then too, our communities are going to have to come together like families to rebuild and help those who want to live in the various places that have been burnt off the maps or swept away in floods. May God give us the common sense to do things the most economical and swiftest ways so that lives may not be so totally disrupted. Pray for the children who have no schools now or books or any other thing to bring a feeling of normalcy to their lives. Each neighborhood will have to provide themselves with teachers, carpenters, plumbers, and all the supplies that are needed to rebuild. Pray that someone comes up with the funds for bringing together good designs and ample supplies for rebuilding. May God inspire some of the 1% to help the 98% with whatever is needed. Our government is incapable of doing anything as it is needed without causing problems or shuffling funds off to their own pockets. Sorry. That is just my opinion, but too often it is true.

 

Rest well, my friends. You are loved.