These bacteria use radiated water as food

[razors edge]

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/4229.html

Deep exploration of Earth's biosphere raises excitement about the potential for life on Mars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Researchers from Indiana University Bloomington and eight collaborating institutions report in this week's Science a self-sustaining community of bacteria that live in rocks 2.8 kilometers below Earth's surface. Think that's weird? The bacteria rely on radioactive uranium to convert water molecules to useable energy.

The discovery is a confirmed expansion of Earth's biosphere, the three-dimensional shell that encompasses all planetary life.

The research has less Earthly implications, however. It will likely fuel optimism that life exists in other deep subsurface environments, such as in groundwater beneath the permafrost on Mars.
"We know surprisingly little about the origin, evolution and limits for life on Earth," said IUB biogeochemist Lisa Pratt, who led IU Bloomington's contribution to the project. "Scientists are just beginning to study the diverse organisms living in the deepest parts of the ocean. The rocky crust on Earth is virtually unexplored at depths more than half a kilometer below the surface. The organisms we describe in this paper live in a completely different world than the one we know at the surface."

[aquart]

1. Would they be useful in a nuclear cleanup?

Here, dear. Just nibble the nice fallout.

[Warpy]

3. They've already found bacteria at Hanford

thriving in extremely radioactive ground water pollution.

So even if the corporations manage to poison us all to death, life will go on.

[aquart]

5. Good to know something is happy.

[Occulus]

6. I read somewhere once an idea that life is EXTREMEMLY hard to eradicate

once it has developed on a planet. As in, to eliminate all life on a planet, one would have to essentially destroy the planet. Completely.

This discovery lends credence to that idea.

[TheMadMonk]

8. Short answer. No.

Whilst the article doesn't say, I'd suspect that ionising radiation from the Uranium (or other radioactive element?) splits the water into hydroxyl and oxygen radicals which either on recombination or through other interactions supply the energy the bacteria needs.

[notadmblnd]

2. Journey to the Center of the Earth

comes to mind. I vaguely remember a B movie titled this, probably back in the 60's. A group of scientists
traveled to the center of the earth and all sorts of scary things happened (hey, I was only 8 or 9). Lost in Space used to scare the heck out of me too.

[buddysmellgood]

4. We may be able to learn how to make energy from these little critters.

[Occulus]

7. Read Clarke's "Rama" series

Particularly "Rama Revealed". The Octospiders, in these novels, have technology based upon biological engineering, rather than electrical engineering. They farm entire species- some created BY them, and sound only 'tweaked'- that specialioze, by design, in exactly the way they need to specialize to do the needed job. Their reward for a job 'well done' is reproduction.

Fascinating tech. The octos even have a 'morph' of their own species that can communicate chemically with very small life forms. They use this tech to produce an image of a fetus, in motion, among many many many other explicit uses.

Biotech is a future wave; there are several. Another is nanotech, which could accomplish the same things as biotech, eventually.