Thursday, October 02, 2008

microbial mining

There's an intriguing piece in Nature's journal club column today, on microbes drilling (or more likely, etching?) microscopic mining shafts into basalt rocks in Hawaii. Apparently, the preference for one component mineral over the other suggests they are after the metals, rather than just creating a cave for protection.

Original paper: A. W. Walton, Geobiology, Volume 6 Issue 4, Pages 351 - 364

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