07-Oct-2021 | Market Research Store
The Yale University researchers graduated their research to a new level as they have been able to identify a hair-like protein that serves as a sort of on-off switch that are responsible for forming the nature’s “electric grids” as a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires which are woven in an all-oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds. The team quotes that this research is deeply aimed at identifying the previously hidden bacterial hair that have the functionality of the molecular switch that control the release of these nanowires which mark the nature’s electrical grid.
The team notes that all living things breathe oxygen and gather electrons while converting nutrients into energy. Without any access to energy and oxygen, soil bacteria that reside under deep ocean beds and ground for over a billion years have developed a way to breathe by “respiring minerals” in the same mechanism that snorkels function. These microbials breathe through tiny protein filaments using these so called nanowires. The team noted that this buried bacteria lack oxygen and pump out nanowires which essentially serve as the mechanism for exhaling oxygen. The team explored this naturally formed electric grid that can be used to generate electricity, generate new biofuels, and even create self-healing electronic components.
The team used a cryo-electron microscopy method in order to reveal this pili structure that is comprises oftwo proteins. Instead of serving the nanowires themselves, the team notes that these pili remain hidden inside the bacteria inside the latter and act like pistons which make the thrusting action provided by the nanowires directly into the environment. The team quoted that this is the first time ever such a structure has been developed. Understanding how bacteria create nanowires has allowed the research team to know that the bacteria can perform a wide variety of functions.
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