New Bacterium Lives On Caffeine

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "A newly-described species of bacterium, Pseudomonas putida has been found to live on pure caffeine. The little jaspers metabolize caffeine into carbon dioxide and ammonia. They were found living in a flower bed on the University of Iowa campus, not in the drain of an espresso machine as one might expect. The paper presenting the research will be presented at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in New Orleans this month where caffeine metabolism will have to contend with the traditional ethanol metabolism."

Of course you know, this means war.

[rebelwarlock]

You can't just go around metabolizing people's caffeine and expect no retribution. We need that caffeine to survive boring meetings.

Nuuuuuu!

[osu-neko]

Kill it! Kill it with fire! It must be stopped! Don't let it take our caffeine!

P. putida is definitely NOT a "new species."

[mevans86]

Come on, Slashdot! Pseudomonas putida is not new! Chemists have been using it for the biochemical oxidation of aromatic compounds for decades. The CBB5 designator, as boring as it is, is the new species identifier.

Re:Great

[sjames]

Why would you need a liquid nitrogen trap? Methylene chloride boils at 39 point something C.

Supercritical CO2 is a good solvent for decaffeination and presents no hazard of residue (even if the process gets screwed up) and better workplace safety.