Researchers are hoping that "biological batteries" at the bottom of the oceans could power sensors to help scientists study the deepest blue. Microbes living in chimneys atop hydrothermal vents digest chemicals like hydrogen sulfide bubbling up from below the ocean floor. In the process, the microbes generate electrical current that runs through the chimneys. Recently, Harvard biologist Peter Girguis and his colleagues measured the current at an underwater chimney 2,200 meters down on a ridge off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Then they built an artificial system in their laboratory. From Science News:
"The amount of power produced by these microbes is rather modest," said Harvard biologist and engineer Peter Girguis, who presented his research December 5 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "But you could technically produce power in perpetuity…"
(According to Girguis, the study provides) "decisive" evidence that electrical currents help the creatures to, in human terms, breathe.
"This changes the way we think about metabolism at vents," he said.
"Deep-sea battery comes to light"
