UV-C Light Kills Nearly Everything - Except This Unusual Organism (science.org)
- Reference: 0178230492
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/30/0425217/uv-c-light-kills-nearly-everything---except-this-unusual-organism
- Source link: https://www.science.org/content/article/uv-c-light-kills-nearly-everything-except-unusual-organism
"But research published this month in Astrobiology suggests one hardy lichen, a hybrid organism made of algae and fungi, may have [2]cracked the UV-C code with a built-in sunscreen , despite never experiencing these rays in its long evolutionary history."
[3] Science magazine explains :
> When scientists brought a sample of the species, the common desert dweller Clavascidium lacinulatum , back to the lab, graduate student Tejinder Singh put the lichen through the wringer. First, Singh dehydrated the lichen, to make sure it couldn't grow back in real time and mask any UV damage. Then he placed the lichen a few centimeters under a UV lamp and blasted it with radiation. The lichen seemed just fine.
>
> So Singh purchased the most powerful UV-C lamp he could find online, capable of sending out 20 times more radiation than the amount expected on Mars. When he tested the lamp on the most radiation-resistant life form on Earth, the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans , it died in less than a minute. After 3 months—likely the highest amount of UV-C radiation ever tested on an organism—Singh pulled the sample so he could finish his master's thesis in time. About half of the lichen's algal cells had survived. Then, when the team ground up and cultured part of the surviving lichen, about half of its algal cells sprouted new, green colonies after 2 weeks, showing it maintained the ability to reproduce.
>
> The species may provide a blueprint for surviving on Mars or exoplanets, which don't have an ozone layer to protect them.
[1] https://www.slashdot.org/~sciencehabit
[2] https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2024.0137
[3] https://www.science.org/content/article/uv-c-light-kills-nearly-everything-except-unusual-organism
Makes sense. (Score:3)
It makes sense. Clavascidium laciniatum forms a biological soil crust in harsh areas like Joshua Tree. And it's incredibly slow growing. So the rate at which it accumulates UV damage versus the rate at which it can repair itself is super-high. Hence it's been under intense selective pressure to develop good resistance to the ionizing radiation damage caused by UV.
Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
He also dehydrated it first, so it is kind of like when they say 'water bears can survive conditions XYZ' when these only apply to them in a dormant state rather than a metabolically active state. I'd expect many rock lichens to be this durable with their exposed environments. UV-C is great as a disinfectant but doesn't penetrate well, hence why soil is so full of microbes even if it is bare of plants.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a shame that safe UVC lamps (222nm) are still expensive and need moderately high voltages to work. We could be disinfecting a lot of stuff with them if they were more common.
Re: (Score:2)
> It's a shame that safe UVC lamps (222nm) are still expensive and need moderately high voltages to work. We could be disinfecting a lot of stuff with them if they were more common.
They’re not cheap probably for the same reason your hairdryer comes with an LMMT (Legally Mandated Moron Tag) on it that reads “Do Not Use In Bathtub”.
We should probably be thankful. Can’t imagine how bad a Temu disinfecting bench would be at tanning, but plenty of morons would find out.
Re: (Score:2)
Also it says the algae cells were still alive, so the fungus cells probably were not. The algae alone can't grow in UV radiation.
UV kills all the life (Score:3, Funny)
So that's why nightclubs in the 90s were so shit.
Lichen likes the light (Score:2)
Probably evolved an awkward arm that automatically applies sunscreen.
UV-C not shortest (Score:3)
It is embarrassing when a reputable science website makes ridiculous claims like UV-C is the shortest wavelength radiation the sun produces. Perhaps the editors have never heard of x-rays or gamma-rays. And it goes on from there. On the other hand maybe they don't have editors over there anymore, just poorly educated interns supervising AIs making things up. Either way that is kind of sad though.
Re: (Score:1)
> It is embarrassing when a reputable science website makes ridiculous claims like UV-C is the shortest wavelength radiation the sun produces
That is from tfa. It just goes to show that Science and Nature are just academic tabloid rags these days.
Re: (Score:3)
The actual Science article says: "Earth’s ozone layer blocks the Sun’s shortest wave UV radiation, called UV-C.", which is correct. UV-C is the band with the shortest wavelength within the ultraviolet band. X-rays and gamma rays are not within the ultraviolet band.
Re: (Score:2)
The article is referring to black-body radiation. The Sun produces very little shorter than UV. Gamma-rays are produced in the core, and are absorbed and re-emitted as longer wavelengths almost instantly. X-rays are created in magnetic field and electron interactions. Compared to the amount of black-body radiation emitted, everything else is relatively minor.
Re: (Score:2)
The Sun doesn't emit much X-rays or gamma rays. Nearly all (like way above 99%) of the Sun's radiated energy is UV and lower frequency. The Sun's X-rays or gamma rays are not enough to be dangerous.
Re: (Score:1)
> It is embarrassing when a reputable science website makes ridiculous claims like UV-C is the shortest wavelength radiation the sun produces. Perhaps the editors have never heard of x-rays or gamma-rays. And it goes on from there. On the other hand maybe they don't have editors over there anymore, just poorly educated interns supervising AIs making things up. Either way that is kind of sad though.
You’re right. It is embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as coming across as a damn grammar nazi when it comes to the shortest UV wavelength.
And since the ENTIRE fucking story is centered around UV, perhaps the editors assumed a level of intelligence among the readers. They were clearly wrong.
Good to know (Score:3)
> The species may provide a blueprint for surviving on Mars or exoplanets, which don't have an ozone layer to protect them.
Good to know. I'll get started on modifying my DNA to match right away. Elon, I'm coming!
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Funny)
> Elon, I'm coming!
I thought I had lost faith in Slashdot, but here is a phrase never previously uttered by humans, truly this place has value.
Re: (Score:3)
>> Elon, I'm coming!
> I thought I had lost faith in Slashdot, but here is a phrase never previously uttered by humans, truly this place has value.
You assume that Elon, wasn’t talking to Elon.
That’s a pretty strong assumption.
Re: Elon, I'm coming! (Score:2)
Wasn't that a song by Three Dog Night?
Re:Good to know (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it was Carl Sagan that proposed that we send hardy microbes to Mars in order to start a terraforming process. They could increase the atmospheric pressure, put oxygen in the air, and make the soil more fertile so plants can grow. It may take hundreds or thousands of years to "bear fruit", so to speak, but it seems like a worthwhile thing to do. It also seems important to wait until we can determine what, if any native bacteria, or micro-organisms are there already, so it seems we have 10-30 years to build up an "arsenal" of micro-organisms ready to go to Mars, so think research like this is valuable.
Re: (Score:3)
> so think research like this is valuable.
Absolutely. I wasn't making fun of the research, I was making fun of the summary; a longstanding Slashdot tradition.
Re: (Score:2)
:-)~ I understand. I enjoyed the joke. I just didn't want to create a new thread for the comment. This seemed like the most related thread for the thought.
Re: (Score:2)
> I think it was Carl Sagan that proposed that we send hardy microbes to Mars in order to start a terraforming process.
What's the point, since Mars doesn't have a significant enough magnetic field to hold anything resembling an atmosphere? Isn't that the whole reason Mars is the planet it is today? It's dynamo stopped a long time ago.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if the math really works out, but I believe the argument is that a full on biosphere could generate atmosphere faster than it is stripped on something Mars sized, but e.g. wouldn't work on the moon.
Re: (Score:2)
>> I think it was Carl Sagan that proposed that we send hardy microbes to Mars in order to start a terraforming process.
> What's the point, since Mars doesn't have a significant enough magnetic field to hold anything resembling an atmosphere? Isn't that the whole reason Mars is the planet it is today? It's dynamo stopped a long time ago.
Perhaps you misunderstood. The key word, is hardy. As in what microbes would have to adapt to in order to help create life on a planet that has changed dramatically. That’s not trying to win back the atmosphere. It’s more creating a solution that accommodates the lack of one.
Lucky we didn't trash the ozone layer (Score:2)
I have to admit, I wasn't expecting something I've mainly heard of as reindeer food to be such a hardcore survivor.
What can I say...I'm lichen it!
Mars doesn't have an ozone layer (Score:2)
Then we can all live in underground caverns built with Elons boring machine.
7 things about unusual organisms (Score:2)
1. I made you look
2. Clickbait headlines are now used at /.
Etc
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
says the guy with the username Bang Whorey Gonorrhea.