SLAG   here,

How about a bacterium that "eats" iron?

Check out this reference,

Metal-Eating Bacteria That Can Eat a Nail in Three Days Found in the Andes (msn.com)

Which goes to show that wherever there is a potential energy source,  there is usually some "creature" that has adapted to use it.

The discovery has potential for all manner of possibilities for us.

Sincerely,

SLAG.

 

My next door neighbor just replaced a 9" well pump and pipes due to iron eating bacteria in the local area.  Not a happy camper!

Isn't there, or was there talk of creating a petroleum or plastic eating bacteria? 

Crazy to think there is an iron eating bacteria. 

Around geologic oil seeps there have been bacteria that could eat petroleum; not very fast or large amounts.  I shudder to think what a fast eating plastic bacterium would do to us!   How are the wires in *your* house insulated?

I wouldn't ever doubt there is some bio genetic engineer in a lab somewhere trying to create a faster petroleum eating bacteria.  Seems like they are working on about anything and everything. Bet we have the petroleum eating bacteria outbreak before the zombie virus outbreak.  

(shhhhhh don't tell Daswulf; he'll be happier not knowing....In Cardiff, Wales, folks staggering along saying "Brains" is fairly common.)

Actually Larry Niven's Ringworld series has the creation and application of a targeted bacterium that destroyed a linchpin of the society's technology as a plot point.    If you would start hunting in landfills you might find precursors you could rev up.  Though it's still been very little time to evolve much.  (Why the natural oil seeps that have been around for ages are a better place for petroleum eating versions.)

We will all have to boil our anvils every so often to kill the iron eating bacteria! 
 

 

That's what the preheating the anvil takes care of.

Oh I see now it all makes perfect since lol

We're not forgetting how bog iron forms are we? That bacteria is pretty common where ever there are bogs. I'm waiting for one of my smart blacksmith brethren to gen. eng. one that turns out bog anvils. 

Same for plastic, just feed copper wire through a tank of infected oil and it comes out insulated and color coded. Different tanks of course, lets NOT be silly!  

Frosty The Lucky.

My "hometown" (nearby city) of Pittsburgh PA. Is pretty passionate about zombies, and there are events held on occasion.  Heard about them more pre-covid funny enough... if you could find that funny. 

Hmm. Lithium battery eating bacteria. That could be the power to spark an energizing novel. 

Not sure if it is just weathering, solar deterioration or some bacteria, but I've found that plastic tends to deteriorate around my area. It sure isn't safe to lift a bucket of steel that has been outside for a year or so. They fall right apart. Other plastics deteriorate fast too it seems. Even out of sunlight. 

Working on vehicles in PA. I've already noticed there is a steel eating (something or other) problem lol.

 

 

"As a result, after two years of experimentation, the speed at which the bacteria could consume a nail had greatly increased. It was eventually able to consume the object completely in just three days."

  Maybe they could be sped up even further, adapted to other metals and used in the machining industry.  Training them to read and follow blueprints might be difficult though....  

A lot of plastics these days are engineered to degrade faster---makes them more eco-friendly and requires items not be reused.  Out here the UV is extremely high and anything that is UV sensitive degrades fast---including human skin.

What does the digested iron turn into? Iron pellets?

BBs or bird shot for shotgun shells.

Messrs.

Mcostello, and Administrator Glenn,

The Archaeobacterium gets energy by oxidizing iron. That is rust or black iron oxide or both.

Many bugs can do this. But this bug does it at a ferocious pace.

Sincerely

SLAG.

I coulnt find topic for it but i wonder how amish forge look.

Do they use bellows wich is more historical or use hand crank blower, but hand crank blower have gears. Probably bellows.

 

I guess you have never visited an Amish furniture factory with all the power tools running off of compressed air? The compressor being run by an engine, not a motor. The older ones used a line shaft.  Lots of ways to get around the no-electricity rule.  I remember the first time I passed a group of Amish in a horse draw buggy drinking bottled water---I had a bit of cognitive dissonance too.

The Amish also use hydraulic lines and motors running off a gas or diesel motor.

Remember that the ban on electricity is not simply a rejection of modern technology as such, but a rejection of a permanent connection with the rest of the world. This is the same reason that many Amish will have a telephone in a separate building, usually where their driveway meets the public road, so that they can conduct business by phone (and now sometimes by internet, depending on the strictness of the congregation) without having to have that permanent link within their own homes.

I have known folks with Amish neighbors who visited to use the phone a lot!   You are right about it being based on your congregation's beliefs.  (And then there are the "black bumper Mennonites"...)

Well i didnt visited amish couminity considering iam from Southeastern Europe

 

Wow, I'm from the middle of the USA and I've visited Jakarta Indonesia for a month, most of western Europe, Summer in Spain,  89 days in Germany, and a couple of non-sequential weeks in the UK. I guess present  location doesn't control where you have been.

It just hit me that the Amish are the real world Steampunks. Steampunk being a "modern" Victorian era that has no electricity, but other forms of energy instead.

 

Any calories in iron? Quarter pounder would be mighty small.

Yes, like anything that oxidizes it produces heat as it does. Your stomach acids will do a decent job of digesting it but I think the calories need to leave your stomach in your blood stream to keep you going.

Frosty The Lucky.