Scientists discover metal-eating creature, expert: can eat nuclear waste, great use

Microbiologists from the California Institute of Technology have published their findings in the journal Nature. They have discovered bacteria that feed on Meng. These organisms can directly metabolise and absorb substances that seem completely impossible to us, such as metals, and such organisms that use metals to power themselves happen to exist in nature.

When it comes to eating metal and using it to generate energy, the first thing that comes to mind is probably robots. Robots themselves are made of metal, and science fiction movies feature robots that eat metal for energy or to repair their broken parts. Today, these creatures are alive, but they are bacteria that are invisible to our naked eyes.

Research has shown that these bacteria can forcibly convert carbon dioxide into organic matter. This process is called chemosynthesis and is similar to photosynthesis in plants. Plants rely on the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into organic matter and store it. These bacteria use the energy of the electrons lost during the oxidation of manganese. This also shows that life is tenacious and has all sorts of strange ways of obtaining energy that would make modern, technologically advanced humans marvel at themselves.

Scientists have discovered that many kinds of bacteria can devour metals. Eating copper, silver, gold and even nuclear waste.

In the early 20th century, scientists found bacteria growing and multiplying on the surface of copper sulphide in old abandoned and flooded copper mines in the United States. These bacteria fed on copper for their metabolism, resulting in the release of large quantities of copper from the copper-bearing sulphides. It is amazing how miraculously large amounts of copper have been produced in abandoned copper mines.

There is an even greater abundance of bacteria which feed on gold. These gold-eating bacteria have a special protein on the surface of their bodies that magically uses gold atoms for metabolism. They gather gold atoms on their body surface for metabolism, causing scattered particles of the metal or even individual gold atoms to come together and gradually multiply and expand, eventually forming alluvial gold visible to the naked eye and thus forming natural gold deposits. It could be argued that these bacteria are the perfect gold miners and don't need to be paid.

Scientists believe that the metal-eating properties of these bacteria have great value for exploitation.

Later, scientists used bio-engineering methods based on the bacteria's properties to multiply the bacteria to dissolve the useful components in the ore, which were then collected for separation, concentration and purification to obtain useful metals, so that a dozen precious and rare metals such as gold, silver, copper and zinc could be collected.

Not only can these bacteria extract precious metals, but they also reduce pollution emissions and energy consumption compared to traditional high-temperature chemical reactions. It can be considered a huge advantage.

And not only do these bacteria produce precious metals, but they also degrade toxic components.

The use of nuclear energy is now becoming more and more widespread, both in our use of nuclear power and in the production process of nuclear weapons, which produces nuclear waste. The disposal of nuclear waste is a very serious problem, and a careless move can pose a great threat to animals, plants and even humans.

Having discovered bacteria that can accumulate toxic metals in nuclear waste, German scientists built an experimental site at a nuclear waste site in south-eastern Germany and stockpiled strains of Bacillus spherical. The spherical spores, covered with a crystalline layer, not only protect themselves from nuclear contamination but also accumulate large amounts of toxic heavy metals such as uranium, lead, aluminium and cadmium, which provide energy for their metabolism.

Traditional methods of cleaning up nuclear waste are cumbersome, expensive and inefficient. This is evident from the fact that Japan today discharges its nuclear waste directly into the sea. If bacteria can be used in the future to remove contaminants from nuclear waste, it will undoubtedly be a greater boon to the world.