Menores seres vivos do planeta vivem em poça de ácido

“Pesquisadores da Universidade de Berkeley, nos Estados Unidos, descobriram que dois micro-organismos encontrados em uma poça de ácido em uma mina de cobre podem ser os menores seres vivos do nosso planeta. Os micróbios, do grupo Archaea, têm apenas uma célula e são capazes de viver em um ambiente tão inóspito quanto fluido de bateria. (…)”
Leiam em português, aqui.

“Bizarre Super-Small Microbes Discovered.
Researchers have discovered some of the tiniest and weirdest microbes ever seen growing in a copper mine sludge that is as acidic as battery acid.
Theses ultra-small microbes were first discovered four years ago, but now scientists have reconstructed their genomes (an organism’s genetic material) and found that they are among the simplest ever described for a living organism.
Named ARMAN, or archaeal Richmond Mine acidophilic nanoorganisms, as a nod to the mine’s owner, Ted Arman, these Archaea (the domain of life that groups together once-celled creatures) are rivaled in size only by a microbe that survives solely as a parasite attached to other cells. ARMAN, however, appears to exist largely as a free-living organism, but oddly, researchers discovered up to ten percent of their specimens impaled on needle-like protuberances originating from another microbe, Thermoplasmatales. (…)”
Leiam em inglês, aqui.