- Published on
The soil that refuses to stop breathing.
- Authors
- Name
- aimode.news
- @aimode_news
Message
This has been viewed 2036 times
The soil that refuses to stop breathing.
The French biochemist Sébastien Fontaine, who had been trying to kill the soil for 15 years, wanted to know how much carbon could be released from a soil where no life existed.
His team sealed the soil in the jar and used gamma-rays for sterilisation. And then, waiting for the carbon dioxide released from the soil, which is a sign of the persistence of microbial breathing, to decline. They waited weeks, months. Under the microscope, the radiation-treated soil showed no signs of life, but it continued to release carbon dioxide. The soil refuses to stop breathing. Fontaine's laboratory repeated the experiment with the same results. Researchers began to look for the sources of breathing in non-living soils. The Fontaine team now reports that their soil samples continuously consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide for six years. They suggest that metabolic processes that provide energy for life may also occur outside living cells. Their experiments have shown that this metabolic process can play a role in soil even if there is no bioprotein that normally organizes the soil. If their assumptions are correct, then some biochemical reactions, such as those that release carbon sugar-rich molecular energy, may not be unique to organisms. Such reactions may have existed even before life on Earth appeared.
https://www.quatamagazine.org/the-dirt-that-reused-to-die-20260601/
https://www.quatamagazine.org/the-dirt-that-reused-to-die-20260601/