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Science

Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 121C Heat 375

Posted by CowboyNeal from the stranger-than-fiction dept.
shobadobs writes "A story in the Independent reports that a microorganism appropriately referred to as 'Strain 121' has been found capable of thriving, with its colony size doubling, at a heat of 121 degrees Celsius, eight degrees more than the previously recorded maximum temperature that an organism can survive. This deep-sea volcanic vent creature was found on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, and it feeds off of iron." Luckily it's only a microorganism. At first glance I thought scientists might have discovered a real-life rust monster.
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Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 121C Heat More

Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 121C Heat

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  • Welcome (Score:5, Funny)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@ p h roggy.com> on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:05AM (#6704492) Homepage
    I, for one, welcome our new iron-eating overlords.

    • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:14AM (#6704533)
      LOL, I love that quote.

      Seriously though, the organism doesn't just chew through iron like a termite through wood. It only feeds off microscopic (smaller than itself) pieces of iron, such as wandering particles/shavings. Even if it were able to eat through an iron surface, its' small size would prevent it from doing much immediate damage.

    • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Funny)

      by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:14AM (#6704536) Homepage
      Could you make yourself useful and round up humans to toil in their underground.... errr... iron mines...? Hey! That joke finally works!

      J.

    • Re:Welcome (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
      OK, so I'm a seasoned karma whore. Now, would someone kindly clue me in as to the origins of this? Is it a quote from a bad sci-fi movie or something? What exactly is the original quote? Could non-Slashdotters be expected to get this joke too, or would they be just as confused as they are about the IN SOVIET RUSSIA joke? Thanks! ;-)

      • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)

        by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:20AM (#6704581) Homepage
        By the magic of Google, I think it's Brockman of The Simpsons:

        "Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over- 'conquered' if you will- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive Earthman or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." (Deep Space Homer)

        No idea about IN SOVIET RUSSIA though mate.

        J.

      • Re:Welcome (Score:2, Informative)

        by Foddrick ( 13702 )
        It's a Kent Brockman quote. See this Simpsons episode [snpp.com].

      • Re:Welcome (Score:2, Informative)

        by Melchior_of_wg ( 633494 )
        The unmodified quote comes from Simpsons, in an episode where Homer goes on a space shuttle, and manages to smash the ant-farm (which the astronauts would be studying in space). Kent (the reporter) then broadcasts from the ground: "Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just lost the picture, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has been taken over -- "conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether the

      • Re:Welcome (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:27AM (#6704616)
        In Soviet Russia jokes originated from a coldwar era soviet comidian, Yakov Smirnov. This page [c2.com]has a more detailed description, as well as some of the original quotes.
        • Mr. Smirnoff also got a lot of mileage out of exaggerating the culture shock experienced as a result of moving from the USSR to the USA. {something we take for granted}! What a country!

          He appeared on several episodes of _Night Court_ and got to work in some of his standup gags. It was fun.

      • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)

        by skurk ( 78980 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:39AM (#6704681) Homepage Journal
        Regarding the "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" jokes, check out this article [everything2.com] at everything2.com [everything2.com].

        Apparently, a russian comedian named Yakov Smirnoff made a lot of jokes where he took, for example, a sentence and switched the subject and object around, removed a few words, and prepended "In Soviet Russia".

        Like the example from the everything2.com article above:
        • The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
        becomes
        • In Soviet Russia, lazy dog jumps over quick brown fox!

        Just FYI. :-)

        • It was really only one joke (Score:5, Interesting)

          by donscarletti ( 569232 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:15AM (#6705134)
          I believe there was only one joke actually by Yakov Smirnoff, that was:

          In America you can always find a party, in Soviet Russia party can always find you

          an extremely witty joke by almost everyone's standards, making a great pun with the word "party" to create truly a beautiful and lasting joke.

          The classic joke was later reused in the cartoon Family Guy as the Yakoff Smirnoff setting of the autodrive system. The voice made comments like "you are coming to a fork in road, in soviet russia, road fork you!" and "in soviet russia, car drive you" to succesfully create riotous amusement by the shear lameness of the repitition.

          Unfortunantly lameness and repititon are also the chosen methods of expression on another media: the internet. This continuation of the running joke has made the memory of that great joke lost in a sea of "in soviet russia, opteron makes beowolf cluster out of you!" travesties.

          But it seems in this corrupt world, anything innocent and beautiful will eventally be raped by those who have nothing to do but distroy purity.

    • Iron Eating Bacteria (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BigBadBus ( 653823 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:22AM (#6704585) Homepage
      Hi, Iron eating bugs/bacteria aren't exactly new. They can be found eating away the wreck of the Titanic for instance (where 20% of the ship's steel has been consumed)

    • Re:Welcome (Score:4, Informative)

      by anukit ( 690580 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:21AM (#6704871)
      I was shocked when I opened /. this morning to find that a news story I posted on the UMass News Office web site had made it here. I work for web development here on the UMass Amherst campus, and it's great that there's finally some research that's getting press. If anyone's interested, the original news release out of umass can be found here: http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/archive/2003/08140 3microbe.html

    • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Funny)

      by JimPooley ( 150814 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:39AM (#6704953) Homepage
      I, for one, am getting fucking sick and tired of that mindless misuse of a Kent Brockman quote...

      Mods: Let's have a new rating of "-10: Tired old joke" if you please!!!

  • Luckily (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sploxx ( 622853 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:11AM (#6704515)
    > Luckily it's only a microorganism.
    Hmm, aren't microorganisms eating iron and surviving in ovens are harder to extinct than some cm long creatures with hands and feet?

    • Re:Luckily (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Captain Large Face ( 559804 )
      Firstly, why the hell would be want to make this micro-organisms extinct? Secondly, if you take the micro-organism out of its environment, it will most likely perish anyway, so you needn't be worried about becoming enslaved to something you can't even see. :)

    • Re:Luckily (Score:3, Informative)

      by mblase ( 200735 )
      Hmm, aren't microorganisms eating iron and surviving in ovens are harder to extinct than some cm long creatures with hands and feet?

      Well, they're certainly easier to 'extinct' than first-posters with bad grammar....

  • Depth vs. Temperature? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fesh ( 112953 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:11AM (#6704517) Homepage Journal
    I would guess that the only place these bugs could exist would be where the pressure is high enough to keep water liquid at a temperature that is 20 degrees C above boiling (at sea level)... Is the temperature a prerequisite for their metabolic processes?

  • What about hot bugs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiled_rainbows ( 686195 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:13AM (#6704524) Homepage Journal
    I read about this in the paper on the way to work. And the article ended, yet again, saying "this is encouraging for people who still hope to find life on Mars". I understand that extremophile microbes demonstrate that our conception of a life-supporting environment has heretofore been a little narrow, but recent discoveries keep turning up organisms that live in hot, high-pressure envirtonments, kind of the exact opposite of the conditions on Mars. So how does this help the Martian life lobby? Given these recent findings, wouldn't we be better off looking for monocellular life somewhere like Venus, say?
    • I understand that extremophile microbes demonstrate that our conception of a life-supporting environment has heretofore been a little narrow, but recent discoveries keep turning up organisms that live in hot, high-pressure envirtonments, kind of the exact opposite of the conditions on Mars.

      Not to mention (or rather TO mention) the fact that the majority of the surface of Mars suffers from terrible temperature swings, and we haven't seen many organisms that can handle temperature swings very well, except

    • Re:What about hot bugs? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by juhaz ( 110830 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:07AM (#6704796) Homepage
      There are plenty of things that survice on temperatures below zero degrees celsius, even some bigger ones (like few fish). Nothing that is this far from the average, but then again conditions where you could find that kind of organisms on Earth are very rare, probably even more so than these deep-sea thermal vent critters.

      And if they can survive in one extreme, it gives a reason to believe other is also possible. Though in reality temperature of Mars is closer to 121C than conditions on Venus - average Martian temperature is -63C, difference of ~200, average on Venus is 457C, difference of over three hundred degree celsius. Surface temperature of Venus is hotter than Mercury!

      And even if there would be life on Venus, how the heck do you plan on finding it there? Ever present almost total cloud cover will make finding a landing place nigh impossible, and even if that could somehow be achieved no hardware of ours would survive the winds, somewhat corrosive atmosphere and infernal temperatures. In short, you can describe the place rather accurately with one word: Hell.
    • It doesn't increase the hope of finding life on the frozen surface of Mars, but it does increase it for Europa whose icy outer shell seems to have volcanic activity underneath. Also there may be hot places deep in Mars that could support life. Overall it just underscores the fact that we don't know everything when it comes to mysteries of life.

  • Fear my Aluminium Suit. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:13AM (#6704526) Journal
    Hah! How those fools laughed when I made my aluminium hat and bacofoil suit to block out the CIA's space-rays. Yet I alone will be safe from the iron eating scourge while those naysayers struggle to hold their trousers up as their belts are eaten away by the iron-devouring scourge.

  • Only possible in the deep sea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asciimonster ( 305672 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:13AM (#6704527) Journal
    Since this is, I presume, a water-based organism, it can only survive such high temperatures deep down in the ocean. At sealevel, the water inside the organism will boil and make the thing explode. Also I wonder how it can keep it's aminoacids and DNA intact. At 120 degrees C there is enough energy to break the Hydrogen bonds which give the proteines and DNA it's stability...

    Could somebody give me some indications on the pressures sown there?
    • Well, it seems that vents have been found in the Pacific Ocean at the depth of 2500m [usgs.gov], which at 1 atmosphere per 10 m, gives 250 atmospheres. However, I do not know if this is the level where the organism was found.

    • Re:Only possible in the deep sea (Score:5, Informative)

      by cruachan ( 113813 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:26AM (#6704897)
      Proteins can be stabilised by increasing the number of S-S cross links from pairs of cysteines. Also the immediate intracellular environment matters and the precise nature of the proteins themselves - some of which can be amazingly stable.

      Still, I agree with the sentiment. I grew some hot spring bacteria myself for protein studies back in the early 80's and even though these *only* grew at 80 degrees C I remember looking at the incubator (i.e. adapter oven) and wondering how the little buggers ever managed to do that.
      • I for one can't imagine trying to get busy with my wife in a 80 deg C hot tub. Mr. Johnson's operating range would be out of limits by then..
    • Pressure only speeds up chemical reactions.
    • I remember seeing some underwater footage on the Blue Planet series [bbc.co.uk] (very informative, if you ever get a chance to watch any of them). From what I recall, there are various thermal vents on the floor of the deep sea, which is about a mile down. Where these vents occur in the sea bed, you find huge plumes of extraordinarily hot water shooting up from the floor. It is only under the immense pressure at that depth that the water doesn't become steam. Anyway, while this Strain 121 critter wasn't mentioned i
  • ...an iron eating microorganism poop?

    Once it's finished it's meal what's it's favourite after dinner beverage ... gotta be a coke surely?

  • High-temperature life forms (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <sd_resp2@earthsh ... .co.uk minus bsd> on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:14AM (#6704531)
    Now this is interesting! A life-form that can survive temperatures over 100 degrees can't be killed by boiling water. {Actually, water boils at less than 100C in most places on Earth since the atmosphere is less dense at altitude higher than sea level; therefore, with less pressure outside the liquid, the molecules don't have to have so much energy to break free from the surface tension prison}. Suddenly, heat is not the ultimate disinfectant you thought it was anymore.

    Just wait till someone finds a living creature that can withstand several hundred degrees ..... it'd have a real chance of surviving a fire ..... now that would be scary.
    • As someone said above, the pressure at that water depth probably contributes to it's survival.
    • "Just wait till someone finds a living creature that can withstand several hundred degrees ..... it'd have a real chance of surviving a fire ..... now that would be scary."

      No it wouldn't be....we'd just be one step closer to being able to create a REAL dungeon with REAL fire resistant monsters. It will give me a chance to practice my lightning bol........err..........nevermind! Don't mind the little D&D geek. Nothing to see.

    • Heat-Resistant Prions (Score:5, Informative)

      by handy_vandal ( 606174 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:08AM (#6705107) Homepage Journal
      Just wait till someone finds a living creature that can withstand several hundred degrees ..... it'd have a real chance of surviving a fire ..... now that would be scary.

      Prions -- the deformed proteins responsible for Mad Cow, CJD, and related spongiform encephalopathies -- can survive autoclaving (steam at high pressure).

      Autoclaved surgical instruments (e.g. eye-surgery scalpels) have been found to transmit CJD between patients. This means that the tiniest trace of protein on a knife blade isn't denatured.

  • Too bad Futurama has been canceled. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rolo Tomasi ( 538414 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:15AM (#6704537) Homepage Journal
    This would be really great material for a new episode. Of course it would have to include the line "Bite my shiny iron-eating-bug-infested metal ass!". :o)

  • How sex (Score:5, Funny)

    by vevva ( 693964 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:15AM (#6704540)
    Colonies doubling in size at 121C.

    Now that's what I call hot sex.
  • At last, we have something to stop those Air Force protecting robots [slashdot.org]
  • With the way things seem to be going (Intel's Prescott anyone?) we can be very fortunate that iron isn't used in CPUs!
  • Well, we can try this out to find out of Iron Man [advancediron.com] wears boxers or briefs or....

  • Bug my ass... (Score:4, Funny)

    by sverrehu ( 22545 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:29AM (#6704628) Homepage
    This is no bug, but a cover-up of a nanotech experiment gone wrong. Call Bill Joy, and pray that those iron-eating nano robots won't reach the surface.
  • then they will all be the size of dinosaurs eating our metal bodies. Then again I could just be suffering from to much caffine

    Rus

  • How High? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:31AM (#6704638)
    If this little blighter is thriving at 121C, how high can it actually survive. The article mentions that temperatures in this guy's home top out at about 400C. How much heat can these guys actually take before cooking?

    • Re:How High? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:37AM (#6704667) Journal
      If this little blighter is thriving at 121C, how high can it actually survive. The article mentions that temperatures in this guy's home top out at about 400C. How much heat can these guys actually take before cooking?

      And once you have cooked these little iron eating bugs, what kind of wine do you serve with them? Red or white?

      • Re:How High? (Score:3, Funny)

        by loucura! ( 247834 )
        According to here [slashdot.org] funny moderations no longer help your Karma, I just thought you might want to know that. That said, I'd have to say red, since it goes with most iron-rich meats... mmmmmmm microbe-steak.

  • Of course.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CowsAnonymous ( 697884 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:33AM (#6704642)
    There is an animal that can probably live past all these creatures in extreme conditions, and that's the Waterbear [microscopy-uk.org.uk]

    From this article... The waterbear can revert to an "instant coffee"-dry state which resists storage in liquid nitrogen, contact with mineral acids, organic solvents, radioactive radiation and boiling water. After this kind of brute "scientific" scrutiny the miraculous creature is still able to return to normal life--it needs only a small droplet of water!

    • Re:Of course.... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cruachan ( 113813 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:16AM (#6704845)
      Not really. These black smoker type bacteria are way outside the normal confines of how 'life' handles extreme conditions using very unusual combinations of proteins and other biochemicals to survive. For example normal proteins are completely unstable in these types of conditions denaturing within seconds.

      Waterbears and their like are impressive, but they're still operating with a more 'mainstream' set of building blocks and their natural limits, whilst impressive, are not quite in the same league.

      Have a look at the ribosomal rna family trees to get some idea of how far these extremophiles are away from the rest of the life on the planet.

  • Don't Worry About Them... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tds67 ( 670584 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:36AM (#6704657)
    ...worry about the predators that feed on them.

  • What comes out (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quill_28 ( 553921 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:36AM (#6704661) Journal
    Excuse my ignorance, but what comes out?

    Basically what does it turn the iron into? FeO2

    Just curious.

    • Re:What comes out (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:02AM (#6704781)
      Ferrous Calciferous Lithium or (FeCaL(i)) Matter is what is produced.

    • Re:What comes out (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I would think some sort of ferrous sulfur compound. IANAChemist, but I thought I remember reading about volcanic vent extremophiles using sulfur for oxidation instead of oxygen.

      Us: eat carbon, breathe oxygen
      Them: eat iron, breathe sulfur

      It's like the Odd Couple of evolution! So, are we the neat freaks or the slobs? I put my money on the latter...
    • A tiny, shiny brick of pure iron. Of course, it's hard as a rock, and hot enough to boil water, and so it's gotta hurt like hell.


      Sucks to be a microorganism. Especially one with hemorrhoids.

  • Original newsrelease and mpegs at NSF (Score:5, Informative)

    by loonix_gangsta ( 517305 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:36AM (#6704665)
    The original news release, with mpeg videos, is available from the National Science Foundation [nsf.gov] website. Enjoy.

  • Immediate Scientific / Technological Impact: PCR (Score:5, Informative)

    by tm2b ( 42473 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:43AM (#6704692) Journal
    The discovery of new extremophiles is very important to biotech.

    A discussion of the various discoveries from extremophiles is here [mediscover.net]. I'm going to focus on one process, made possible by genes from hyperthermophiles from deep ocean vents. One process, PCR (Polymer Chain Reaction), the technology that allows us to create large batches of identical DNA, depends upon polymerase taken from these organisms.

    The reason is this: in order to for PCR to work, a solution of polymerase and the desired DNA sequence is heated so that the DNA will quickly uncoil, allowing the polymerase to go to work - copying each strand of DNA present, doubling the amount of DNA. The solution is cooled, and then the process repeats, doubling the amount of DNA each time. Unfortunately, "normal" polymerase quickly breaks down at the best temperatures for this process.

    Extremophile polymerase changes all of this, since it's perfectly happy to operate at these high temperatures.

  • Not A Bug (Score:5, Funny)

    by Biomechanoid ( 515993 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @08:45AM (#6704699)
    Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 121C Heat

    That's not a bug, that's a feature

  • wow... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Prof_Falken ( 692037 )
    "they have bugs in iron nowadays!?"

  • Microorgasms (Score:3, Funny)

    by Goody ( 23843 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:02AM (#6704780) Journal
    Luckily it's only a microorganism.

    Microorgasms are usually a bad thing. It's usually caused by have a small thing or doing it really badly. See a therapist.

    • That is utter and complete bullshit.

      Vast majority of micro-organisms are harmless, and quite a few of them are extremely beneficial, or actually vital. You couldn't live without microbes, and neither would any higher animal or probably even plant.

      Only a VERY small fraction of all microbes are pathogenic. Go see a therapist, maybe they can rid you of that microbiophobia.
      • Please go back and read the parent. His attempt was to mispronounce "MICROORGANISM" to "MICROORGASM". It doesn't always work on ./, just like visual gags don't always work on radio. Wasn't that funny when you DO get it.

  • the eric conspiracy (Score:3, Funny)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:14AM (#6704829)
    Combine this with Yesterday's global warming story and all I can say is WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!

  • What was the oven made out of? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ambush ( 120586 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:14AM (#6704833)
    I'm guessing that the oven they tested these critters in was not made of iron.

    At least, not any more.

  • Lucky? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RealSalmon ( 177174 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:19AM (#6704862)
    Luckily it's only a microorganism.

    Whew! It's only a microorganism . . . they're only responsible for more deaths than everything else on the planet combined.

    Remember . . . it's usually the little stuff that gets you.

    • Re:Lucky? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by GeoGreg ( 631708 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:26AM (#6705190)
      They are also probably responsible for more life on this planet than anything else combined. I've heard estimates that about 50% of Earth's biomass is made up of bacteria. And this article [sciencenews.org] includes a couple of interesting statistics. It is estimated that there are 10^30 bacteria on Earth. However, it's also estimated that there are 10^31 (note that extra zero) bacteriophages (viruses that prey on bacteria). So, remember, your role in life is as a bacteria culturing medium. And the bacteria serve as munchies for the phages. I, for one, welcome our new viral overlords (sorry, couldn't resist).

  • here is the newscientist link. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Wycliffe ( 116160 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @09:41AM (#6704969) Homepage
    Here is the newscientist link:

    http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9 99 94058

  • Mining bugs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ChibiLZ ( 697816 )
    Could these be put into a pressurized, heated slurry and pumped into the earth, then sucked back out after they stewed for a while? Could we use this as a method of mining iron from previously thought 'dead' mines? If these 'bugs' excrete FeO2 as a waste product, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to take that iron oxide and turn it back into iron.

  • Extreme Pressure (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:11AM (#6705116)
    The pressure at any depth in the ocean can be approximated by assuming 1 atmosphere of pressure for every 33ft of depth. So, to calculate the pressure, divide the depth by 33 and add 1 to account for atmospheric pressure. Then, multiply by 14.696 psi/atm to get the pressure in psi. I don't know at what depth these things live, but the pressure has to be extreme.

  • that's 250F, correct? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mraymer ( 516227 ) <mraymer@nOsPaM.centurytel.net> on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:17AM (#6705144) Homepage Journal
    My math might be a little rusty... and NO I haven't read the article! I mean c'mon, this is Slashdot. Don't be silly. Reading the article is like backing up data. I'll do that "later" of course. ;)

    This is good news, though. The discovery of life in extreme conditions always raises the possibility of discovering life somewhere besides planet Earth.

    I read that there were some sort of organisms on the outside of the command module that actually survived the trip to and back on Apollo 11. That means surviving re-entry... that's pretty incredible.

    Also, didn't some of the creatures on board Columbia survive the disaster?

    All things considered, extra-terrestrial life doesn't look that far-fetched...

  • Celsius? Centigrade? Pussies! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Call Me Black Cloud ( 616282 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:27AM (#6705203)
    Real men use Fahrenheit!

    Science: Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 250F Heat

    Corallary: real scientists use Kelvin!

    Science: Iron-eating Bug Found to Thrive in 394K Heat

    Remember, if we start using celsius for temperature the terrorists have already won.

  • Rust Monster? (Score:3, Funny)

    by X_Bones ( 93097 ) <danorz13NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:45AM (#6705292) Homepage Journal
    man, those are the worst... every time I hit up David's Treasure Zoo there's always a rust monster, and I've forgotten to grease my longsword and helm of brilliance... I've lost so much good stuff that way

  • Now that's planning! Forethought! (Score:5, Funny)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:59AM (#6705388) Journal
    It will be the only organism left in the universe, trillions of years from now, when all the atoms are either fused or decayed to iron.

    Or maybe this happened once before, and the current universe is the product of Strain 121 excrement.

    Man, that's a really weird thought. Must be Friday.

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