CORVALLIS, Ore. – SAR11, the most abundant plankton in the world’s oceans, are pumping out massive amounts of two sulfur gases that play important roles in the Earth’s atmosphere, researchers announced today in the journal Nature Microbiology.
“Everyone knows these gases by their smells”, said Steve Giovannoni, a distinguished professor of microbiology in the College of Science at Oregon State University, and corresponding author of the study.
“One of these compounds – dimethylsulfide, or DMS – we recognize as the smell of the sea. The other gas – methanethiol – makes us think of leaking gas lines. In the atmosphere dimethylsulfide oxidizes to sulfuric acid, which some scientists think can seed cloud formation and alter heating of the Earth.”
What is most interesting, the scientists said, is that the newly discovered metabolic circuit is hardwired into cells. Normally, cells turn genes on and off, as they are needed, but the newly discovered circuits for sulfur gas production by SAR11 are on all the time.
“That doesn’t mean the cells are always producing the gases,” said Giovannoni. “But they are always ready if algae in the surrounding water make DMSP, a compound that the SAR11 cells harvest for energy, releasing sulfur gases as waste products.”
Many types of gaseous fumes emerge from the ocean, such as formaldehyde, acetone and methanol, Giovannoni said. However, researchers were very surprised that the cells produced both DMS and methanethiol. The DMS is made by a newly discovered gene, according to the study, and it was completely unexpected. And while the author’s knew the cells could make methanethiol internally, they did not expect it to be released in large quantities.
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This work is part of the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystem Study, funded by NASA, and other agencies. Collaborators were from OSU, the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, Louisiana State University, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the United Kingdom, the Qingdao Aquarium in China, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
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From NASA and UEA! They are covering their tracks!
When Sun’s Too Strong, Plankton Make Clouds
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/0702_planktoncloud.html
NASA-funded research confirms an old theory that plankton can indirectly create clouds that block some of the Sun’s harmful rays….DMS then filters from the ocean into the air, where it breaks down again to form tiny dust-like particles. These tiny particles are just the right size for water to condense on, which is the beginning of how clouds are formed. So, indirectly, plankton help create more clouds…
I think some may be confusing DMS with H2S. SAR11 produces DMS – that sea smell, but it is other bacteria which produce H2S, possibly even from DMS itself (though I’m not sure of that). The chemistry of the oceans is incredibly complex. Another product of SAR11 can be methane.
“South River Independent
May 16, 2016 at 7:44 pm
If life is merely an ongoing chemical process, when will scientists create life in the lab to prove that it is possible?”
Evolution [skeptic] : Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling.
JBS: But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took nine months.
But where did the living cells that combined to form the fetus come from? Life begets life. That is not in dispute.