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How do single-celled organisms survive the most extreme thermal / chemical conditions? In a word - "sweetness."
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190627114109.htm
Found: A sweet way to make everyday things almost indestructible
The secret to making clothing practically indestructible could be the same thing that makes us grow out of it: sugar.
A new discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine reveals how sugars could be used to make almost indestructible cloth and other materials. Nature figured it out long ago, but the answer has been hidden away in bubbling baths of acid. ...
In certain acidic hot springs, even volcanic hot springs, live ancient single-celled organisms that can exist in conditions far too extreme for most forms of life. They have tiny appendages called pili that are so tough that they resisted UVA scientists' numerous efforts to break them apart to learn their secrets. "We were unable to take these things apart in boiling detergent. They just remained absolutely intact," said researcher Edward H. Egelman, PhD, of UVA's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. "So we then tried much harsher treatments, including boiling them in lye, which is sodium hydroxide. Nope."
The researchers tried several other approaches before throwing up their hands and turning to cryo-electron microscopy, which allows them to image submicroscopic things almost down to individual atoms. What they found was shocking. "There's just a huge amount of sugar covering the entire surface of these filaments in a way that has never been seen before," Egelman said. "These bugs have devised a way to just use massive amounts of sugar to cover these filaments and make them resistant to the incredible extremes of the environment in which they live." ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190627114109.htm