What are magnetized bacteria and the latest research advances.

What are magnetized bacteria? Magnetic bacteria are a class of microorganisms that sense the geomagnetic field and move along the magnetic line.
they are characterized by the synthesis of nanoscale ferromatic particles in cells, called magnetosomes, which are generally chained to help magnetize bacteria sense the geomagnetic field, like a compass.
natural magnetized bacteria are widely distributed in lakes, oceans and other water environments, playing an important role in the bio-geochemical cycle of key elements such as iron, sulfur, carbon and nitrogen.
magnetizing bacteria are model groups that study biomedulation and biometric magnetism, and their study not only helps to understand similar mineralization processes in organisms (including humans), but also provides important reference for reconstructing the ancient geomagnetic field and paleoencological information in geological and historical periods.
Latest research progress: Recently, the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Earth Deep Structure and Process Research Office, the Joint Laboratory of Chinese-French Biomineralization and Nanostructures, the Biogeomatics Research Team of the Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lin Wei, Greig A. Paterson, Wang Wei, Pan Yongxin and Zhu Zhixiang, National Key Laboratory Researcher for Litigation Evolution, with partners such as China Agricultural University and California Institute of Technology, the genome sequence of non-cultivated magnetizing bacteria in the environment and the gene cluster of regulating magnetosome mineralization (Figure 1) were obtained by means of macrogenomics and system development genomics, and the system development relationship of magnetizing bacteria was reconstructed at the genomic level, and the mineralized gene clusters of magnetic bacteria were found to evolve with the genome.
They used genealogical chronological analysis to reveal that magnetizing bacteria originated 3 billion years ago (-3.4-3.2 Ga) in the middle and ancient times (Figure 2), before the Earth's large oxidation event, is the earliest on Earth can sense magnetic fields and mineralized biomes.
whether the Earth had a nuclear generator in ancient times has been a cutting-edge scientific issue in the study of the earth's internal structure and dynamics.
because of the extreme scarcity of existing samples of ancient geomagnetics, and the difficulty of experiments, it is very difficult to obtain information on the early geomagnetic field.
2010, Tarduno, a geophysicist at the University of Rochester in the United States, published the results of ancient ancient intensity from monocrystals (Tarduno et al., 2010 Science 327:1238-1240), revealing that 3.4 billion years ago the geomagnetic field was about half its current strength.
The bio-geomagnetics study of Linton et al. provides independent evidence of the presence of geomagnetic fields in ancient times, and this study shows that the magnetic field strength of the Earth in ancient Times is not less than the minimum magnetic field strength (-6 microns) required by magnetizing bacteria for geomagnetic motion, and that stable oxidation-reducing transition zones may already exist in some marine areas.
results are important for understanding the earth's early geological processes and marine environment.
the above findings were published on February 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, 2017, 114 (9): 2171-2176, doi:10.1073/pnas.1614654114).
the study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Youth Innovation Promotion Association.
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