Microbe discovered that converts light to energy

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070726.wmicrobe0726/BNStory/Science/home
Microbe discovered that converts light to energy
RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

Associated Press

July 26, 2007 at 2:10 PM EDT

WASHINGTON - The wonderland known as Yellowstone National Park has yielded a
new marvel - an unusual bacterium that converts light to energy.

The discovery was made in a hot spring at the park where colorful mats of
microbes drift in the warmth.

"This thing was just bizarre," David Ward, a professor of microbial studies
at Montana State University, said of the bacterium.

Plants use photosynthesis to turn light into energy, of course, and so do
some other bacteria.

But, Mr. Ward said, the new discovery has "a new kind of photosynthesis. It
uses the same kind of machinery, but has the parts in a different
arrangement."

The find is going to be important for unravelling the history of
photosynthesis, in determining how microbes efficiently harvest energy, he
said in a telephone interview.

"We're running out of fossil fuel, so the more efficiently we can harvest
light energy the better," he said.

Discovery of the microbe, named Candidatus chloracidobacterium thermophilum,
is reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"Finding a previously unknown, chlorophyll-producing microbe is the
discovery of a lifetime," co-author Don Bryant, a professor of biotechnology
at Penn State University, said in a statement. "I wouldn't have been as
excited if I had reached into that mat and pulled out a gold nugget the size
of my fist!"

Yellowstone is home to many types of heat-loving bacteria, and scientists
have studied it for years in search of new organisms that may be useful in
biotechnology or medicine.

Indeed, these ponds have been studied for 40 to 50 years, Mr. Ward said, but
they can still off a completely new organism.

The researchers discovered the bacterium living in the same hot springs
where the microbe Thermus aquaticus had been found previously.

T. aquaticus was crucial in making the polymerase chain reaction a routine
procedure. PCR is used to amplify genetic material for testing and research.






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