Gulf oil too complex for bacteria to digest

[n2doc]

Gulf oil spill: Bacteria in the gulf mostly digested gas, not oil, study finds - latimes.com

Bacteria that attacked the plumes of oil and gas resulting from the Deepwater Horizon gusher in the Gulf of Mexico mainly digested natural gas spewing from the wellhead — propane, ethane and butane — rather than oil, according to a study published in the journal Science.

The paper doesn't rule out the possibility that bacteria also are consuming oil from the spill, the authors said. Instead, it suggests that natural gas primed the growth of bacteria that may have gone on to digest "more complex hydrocarbons" — oil — as the spill aged and propane and ethane were depleted.

Still, lead author David L. Valentine, a professor of microbial geochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, said the findings temper hopes that microorganisms detected by scientists in the gulf have eaten up most of the oil there, as other scientists had recently suggested.


"It's hard to imagine these bacteria are capable of taking down all components of oil," he said. "These stories about superbugs taking down all the oil — it's more complex than that."

more

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-oil-20100917,0,940272.story

[Forkboy]

1. That's how I feel about string theory.

[ThomWV]

2. Eventually the bugs eat everything, its just a matter of time.

[n2doc]

3. Eventually. In Geologic terms

There's still oil in Prince William Sound, under the beach gravel. Even now.

Some fractions of the oil, especially the toxic ones, may last a little longer.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Not a lot of oil eating bacteria under beach gravel in Alaska.

They prefer warmer waters.

[ThomWV]

6. There are bacteria eating the waste inside the tanks at Hanford

and if they can live there they can live anywhere on earth. And no, we're not talking about them developing in geologic time, these bugs came into being since the second world war. They constitute the most glaring evidence of evolution the mind can conjure.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Bacteria like places that are warm and wet.

Some are particularly sensitive to the conditions in which they grow.

There are no bacteria growing in my freezer, for example.

And only a few in my refrigerator.

"And no, we're not talking about them developing in geologic time, these bugs came into being since the second world war."

You mean the bugs that eat radioactive waste?

Sauce?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. The actual Nature article actually says the short chain hydrocarbons are being digested faster.

Not that the Gulf oil cannot or is not being digested.